The Hallelujah chorus: Three versions of same song vie to be Christmas number oneIt was a cult anthem until Alexandra Burke turned it into an X Factor blockbuster - horrifying purists and sparking a revival for the man who wrote the original track
By Alison Boshoff
Last updated at 1:16 AM on 19th December 2008
Something peculiar is happening in popular music this week, and it is all thanks to the power of one quite extraordinary song.
Hallelujah is a deceptively simple track, with lyrics which are a mesmerising riddle and an atmosphere somehow both religiously and erotically charged at the same time.
While hardly known by the wider public, it is a cult song among music aficionados and has been covered many times - to date by more than 100 artists - without ever losing its power to provoke and move.
The song was completed 24 years ago by mournful Canadian singer Leonard Cohen - a process which took him two years - and it looks certain, astonishingly, to be both No. 1 and No. 2 in the singles charts this week.
Midweek chart figures show that the version by Alexandra Burke, The X Factor winner, is set for the top spot, having sold 290,000 copies.
But a movement has sprung up which aims to deny Burke in favour of a version by an obscure U.S. singer called Jeff Buckley, who drowned in an accident 11 years ago when he was on the brink of mainstream success.
Buckley's cover version - thought by purists to be a far finer rendition - has sold 45,000 copies this week already, with more than 100,000 joining a Facebook campaign to promote it.
It is no exaggeration to suggest that two tribes have sprung up, with each championing their favourite with great passion.
Radio 1 DJ Colin Murray is among the Buckley-philes, and said on air: 'If you own a record shop or work in one, go and cover up all X Factor versions with Jeff Buckley's.'
X Factor judge Louis Walsh is, naturally, among those cheering for Alexandra Burke, and says: 'Alexandra has brought it to a whole new audience who don't know that song. The X Factor audience think it is a new song. I think we should revisit all these great songs and bring them to a new generation. I really do.'
Feelings are running so high that a pro-Buckley demonstration - yes, you read that correctly, a demonstration over a cover version - is planned this afternoon in Trafalgar Square.
One Buckley activist writes on Facebook: 'You know they have buildings that you cannot touch? Historical ones? They should do the same with songs.'
At the moment, sales of the Buckley version are around 1,000 copies below Leona Lewis's release of Run, which is at No. 2, but industry experts say that it looks certain to surpass her sales, leaving the former X Factor winner at No. 3.
To complicate matters still further, suddenly appearing from nowhere on the charts is the original track by Leonard Cohen himself, in at No. 33, but racing upwards. By Christmas Day there is a very real chance that the three Hallelujahs could claim the top three chart places.
So might one of them beat Alexandra Burke? That would be a dream come true for certain people, especially those who regard Simon Cowell as a musical anti-Christ
