Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer's suicide

Versions of “Hallelujah” and Taste

• Multiple versions are debated: original studio and live performances, John Cale’s, Rufus Wainwright’s, Jeff Buckley’s, k.d. lang’s, and others.
• Some find Buckley’s version “sublime”; others call it overcooked or even “trash” and strongly prefer the original songwriter’s own performances.
• A recurring theme: people often favor the first version they encountered (e.g., via Shrek), and taste is explicitly framed as subjective, not something that can be “won” in argument.

Covers, Editing, and “Owning” a Song

• Many note that most later covers follow Cale’s edited verse selection rather than the original lyrics.
• Cale’s role is likened to a crucial editor who “shaped” the song into its canonical form, contrasted with editors/publishers who block rather than enable.
• Parallel examples: “Hurt” (Nine Inch Nails vs. Johnny Cash), “The Mercy Seat,” and “My Body Is a Cage” where some listeners feel later covers have effectively taken ownership.

Genius, Luck, and Gatekeepers

• Several comments push back on blaming individual record execs/editors, arguing this ignores survivorship bias and the huge unseen corpus of great but unpublished work.
• Others emphasize that talent isn’t enough; timing, luck, and champions matter, and many great works are probably lost.
• One commenter shares a moving example: a late spouse’s powerful war writings are widely praised by readers yet still can’t find a publisher.

Meaning, Theory, and Religious Use

• Detailed musical-analysis posts unpack the “secret chord” line and the “fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift” as literal descriptions of the chord progression.
• Another video-based theory links the “third chord” to biblical imagery of a “third cord” in marriage; some find this fascinating, others think it overfitted.
• Disagreement on whether the song is uplifting, hedonistic, religious, or even blasphemous. Some are baffled that it’s used as straightforward worship music; others argue its mix of biblical narrative and broken love is precisely what makes it deeply religious.

Reactions to A Confederacy of Dunces

• The book is cited as another case of initially rejected work later canonized.
• Some find it brilliant; others describe it as “trainwreck reality TV” with an intolerable protagonist and say they disliked or hated it, even on reread.