I can’t sing.
I once could, but the vagaries of being raised in a working-class family during the 1960s resulted in the roughening of my throat after a nasty, untreated round of strep at age 15. Combined with the slow, certain decline of my hearing, that illness spelled the ruination of a once-lovely choir voice. I still know the words of the funeral Mass and every hymn we sang through sophomore year. After that it gets murky.
So I have no explanation for my fascination with the song Hallelujah. I’ve long been a Leonard Cohen fan but that does not explain why I scroll through YouTube versions of it. Perhaps I seek whatever joy the interjection symbolizes.
Here, then, on this — the nineteenth day of the thirty-fifth month of My Year Without Complaining — on this lovely Saturday filled with the promise that winter might be kind to us — I offer a few of my favorite versions of Leonard Cohen’s timeless ode to the human condition.
Life continues.
RUFUS WAINWRIGHT AND CHOIR! CHOIR! CHOIR!
