Music

Outside Yeovil Junction railway station, on my way to Glastonbury festival, I met a Hungarian hippie. She was friendly and interesting and had cool hippie hair, but she also talked about crystals and earth dances and other such hippie things. Later, on the bus, I couldn't help noticing that despite talking a lot of bollocks, she seemed a lot happier than most people ever seem to be. I wondered if this was because she didn't seem to have anything negative to say about anything. I wondered what would happen if somebody attempted to literally never be negative about anything. Would it be possible never to use the words 'not', 'no', or 'never', or even comparative words such as 'better', 'nicer' or 'happier', since these would imply something being more negative than something else? To some extent, this seemed to be what this hippie had done, and she seemed to be very happy. Being a scientifically-minded cynic, I could never stop being negative completely, but I have, since meeting her, made a conscious to emphasise the positive when speaking or thinking. As an exercise in this, I now present you with some unusually positive thoughts on a favourite song of mine.

At Glastonbury, on Sunday night, I saw Leonard Cohen play on the Pyramid Stage. Having turned up for the start of Neil Diamond, then having edged forward both before and after Goldfrapp's set, I was within touching distance of the barrier and had a clear line of sight to one of the greatest ever singer-songwriters. I won't bore you with how wonderful the set was, but...wow. And of course, 'Hallelujah' was a sensational highlight.
Now, coming back to this positive thinking, I am not going to moan about my dislike of Jeff Buckley's much-lauded cover version, which was the original purpose of this post. What would that achieve? Instead, I am going to put forward something positive; here, in no particular order, are five wonderful versions of 'Hallelujah'.