Hallelujah v Hallelujah

It seems certain Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen’s classic song, will be number one this Christmas. But which version?

Alexandra Burke of X Factor Fame is narrowly ahead of Jeff Buckley in the charts. If Simon Cowell’s protege is pipped at the post it will be because of a spontaneous online campaign driven by ordinary people like me who just think you need to have lived some before you can tackle a song of the depth and quality of Hallelujah.

Buckley did this and his untimely death at just thirty adds to the mystique around his version which Cohen himself maintains in his favourite.

The story of how the song ended up on the XFactor is typically Simon Cowell. Apparently a contestant on American Idol, a programme he has a stake in, sung it during the open competition and the following week sales of Mr Buckley’s version went through the roof. Simon does not like missing out on any music sales associated with his programmes and so the decision was made, next time this song was on one of his shows he would have a slice of the action.

This story has further fueled the advocacy wave in support of Buckley’s version. The Facebook groupnow has 96,000 members, up 66,000 since the weekend. Other groups have popped up on myspace and the blogosphereis humming with outrage at Mr Cowell and his money empire. This in turn has sparked TV and radio coverage across Britain and Ireland with many quality stations playing the Buckley version over and over.

At the end of the day Mr Cohen stands to make his fair share from the royalties and Jeff gets to be heard again. And all because of the power of social networks and online communities who despite all the consumer hype and big money TV programmes still care for great songs and great artists.