

EARLY RENDITIONS OF “HALLELUJAH” BY LEONARD COHEN These narratives coupled with thoughtful lines about love, despair, dejection and redemption make “Hallelujah” an interesting and thought-provoking song. These include King David and Bathsheba, and the tragic love affair of Samson and Delilah. RELIGIOUS CONNOTATIONSĬohen wrote brilliant lyrical narratives about Biblical characters. But the alternate verses and lyrics sometimes come up not only in Cohen’s shows but in the hundreds of later cover versions. He cut this to a final four-verse recording which was released in 1984. Hallelujah is an ingeniously written composition widely thought of as an archetypal secular hymn.Ĭohen started with an astonishing eighty verses of lyrics for Hallelujah. He worked as a poet and a novelist until the late 1960s when he also started his music career.

While Leonard Cohen (Septem– November 7, 2016) was mostly known as a singer and songwriter, he actually started as a writer in the 1950s. In addition, Jenny also does a very cool solo ukulele that you don’t want to miss. See how Jenny illustrates this style in the video. That is, playing each note of a chord – one at a time. But in the third verse, you play the chords in an arpeggiated style.

And it also has a fairly simple strumming pattern: down-up, down-up, down-up, down-up flow. The song has only five chords – C, A minor, F, G and E minor. So let’s begin with the Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen ukulele tutorial starting with the chords.
