“A broken hallelujah” — Did I Ever Tell You (Vol. 1)
*“Did I Ever Tell You” is a column in my monthly newsletter where I talk about the story behind the songs I’ve written. This was first published in the January edition. Subscribe here to get it delivered straight to your inbox every month.
The first time I heard that was in Rufus Wainright’s cover of “Hallelujah”. The one in Shrek. The line goes “Love is not a victory march, it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah.”
I never checked what Leonard Cohen meant when he wrote this song; still haven’t. All I remember is thinking of a broken hallelujah and seeing a person halfway through saying the word but unable to complete it — maybe they lost their vim, or maybe they died in the middle of it.
In 2017, when I wrote Ignis Brothers’ Saint or Sinner, I wanted to talk about death but not name it and the line ‘broken hallelujah’ jumped in my head again.
Listening to a beat Muyiwa had sent to me, I used those words in the chorus:
And if the morning finds me
With a broken hallelujah on my tongue
Will I be called a saint or sinner
Please remember me
When I tried performing it, I found that I would always lose breath before the end of hallelujah and I’d either break it or mess up the next bit. So in what can only be serendipity, I decided to leave the pause for breath in the song — to break the hallelujah. It’s very slight but you hear it just before ‘jah’.
I enjoy its placement on this song because it’s supposed to be the story of a man who is at the end of his road. He is not asking about life anymore, he just wants to know that he will be remembered. That his broken hallelujah means something.
