11.25.2006

Some Lighter Holiday Weekend Fare - But Not Always

If anyone likes alternative music with a flare for some comedic mixes, I fell in love last winter (platonically) with Gogol Bordello. It's genre? Uh... Gypsy Punk from the Lower East Side of NY. Gets played a lot by some of my favorite programmers on WGDR (Tonio and Nancy for their music choices, to name but a few), Community Radio for Central Vermont, broadcast out of Goddard College. Was pleased to have one of the programmers, Autumn, join us with musician Cody Michaels for Thanksgiving.

But I fell in love with a song I never recall hearing before, but my partner insists I have. "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen; I fell for the Jeff Buckley version played as part of a movie yesterday on TV. [And no, it was not "Titanic" - I only watched that once and then, just the end, to watch Leonardo DiCaprio turn into an ice cube (yeah, I'm not a "chic flick type, as you may have guessed).]

I've got to find some Leonard Cohen CDs around. I understand he wrote perhaps two dozen different verses for "Hallelujah" along with new ones he improvised all the time for live performances depending on what goes on in his life. The song is so moving even before you read any version of the lyrics that I'm fascinated with what other lyrics for "Hallelujah" have floated around.