10/22/14 Hallelujah Project-My First Musical Venture

I have always loved music in various forms and genres, but except for Thai classical music, and some Chorus in high schools, I had not had a chance for formal training until recently.  As an author, I also like to hear stories behind the songs.  Often, I’m moved by some songs that I like so much that I want to express the thoughts and feelings through writing.  One song in particular that had been in my mind was Leonard Cohen’s  “Hallelujah”.

Genesis of the Project

I started to have an idea about learning music and writing about Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah in early June, of 2014.  That was when I saw a guitar demo from singer, songwriter friend, Lennox Fleary.  I asked from him the lyric of the song and watched the video of the guitar demo.  However, the key of the chords seemed to be too high for me.  Come July, nothing happened.  So as a person who liked to set goals, and follow through with them needed to do something.  Fortunately, I was able to get started musically by taking weekly music lessons from a friend, David C. Cowan also known as the “Young Professor”.   A former Berklee College of Music professor and a drummer, he has an unconventional way of teaching music.  He made it easier for me to understand music, and helped me start the song project by writing the chords that were suitable for my voice and guitar skills level.  I am grateful that I can complete this project that I had wanted to do for quite some time.  It's a good feeling to be able to complete the recording before, and to write during my vacation time up on the mountainous province of Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand.  The scenery is just too inspiring as you can see here.

My First Impression of Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen

As a Christian and a bible scholar, when I heard for the first time the song Hallelujah sung by KD Lang on YouTube, I told myself, this song got the bible story all wrong.  But after listening to other versions of the same song from Bon Jovi and the movie “Shrek” as well as Leonard Cohen himself, I started to look at the song in a different light.  I should look at it artistically rather than strictly as a bible scholar.  Since Leonard Cohen and many other songwriters wrote their songs that way.  Just like surrealists painting of their art pieces, song writers may not arrange their words in chronological or logical manner.

Heroes and Downfalls

The song starts out with a description that tells you right away that it’s a ballad about David, the great King, poet and musician.  The hero of the Israelites, with strong faith in the living God, defeated Goliath, the seemingly unbeatable Philistine giant.  He was not only a warrior that brought victory to the nation of Israel, but also a talented musician who could play beautiful songs on string instrument that helped heal the mentally ill King Saul.

“I heard there was a secret chord, that David played and pleased the Lord

But you don’t really care for music, do you?

It goes like this, the fourth the fifth, the minor fall; the major lift.

The baffled King composing Hallelujah”

With the hero status, David was elevated to King Saul’ son in law.  He was given the King’s daughter, Michal.  There might be excitement during the victory march, but the marriage was not based on love, but on politics.  The princess was interested neither in his music nor his dance to the drumbeat, but she had no choice.  The custom at the time was: women were properties of their parents, and if the marriage was not because of the love of a man, the woman was to be the property of the husband as well.

When the popularity of the son-in-law exceeded that of the father-in-law, King Saul was jealous and tried to kill David.  He took his daughter, Michal back and gave her to be wife of another man.  This did not make David a happy family man that he should have been.

David’s life while King Saul, his father-in-law was alive, was one of great struggle facing danger both from the enemy without and enemy within, namely his own father-in-law.  He had basic faith in God, and never seek to harm King Saul, who he considered God’s anointed one.  Needless to say, being rejected by his first love was the heartache the hero King had to bear.   Michael despised her husband’s acts of praise for the Mighty God through music and dance.  That was a sad story of the man after God’s own heart.  This was the man that God loved, seeing much promises as the leader of a great nation destined to provide lineage to the Savior of the world.  When he had too much time in his hand and relaxed his focus on the Lord of host, weakness and temptation visited David as read from the second verse of the song.

“Your faith was strong but you needed proof; you saw her bathing on the roof.  Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you…”

This was the scene that showed that a seemingly perfect person could be led downhill to commit things that he would himself oppose to.  It started innocently in the name of love and infatuation, but the cover up process afterward made it ugly and led to betrayal and murder of his follower and the woman's husband.

The next part of the second verse threw me off in the beginning, as it did not fit the story of King David the Great in the Bible.  This described what happened to another icon in the Old Testament: Samson, the Marvel-like man of the Bible in the period of Pre-monarch judges.

“.She tied you to her kitchen chair; she moved your throne, she cut your hair, and from your lips she drew the Hallelujah!”

Centuries before David, God purposed a man named Samson before he was born to lead the Israelite against the pagan nation of Philistines.  The Angel of the Lord himself came to tell his mother to refrain from alcoholic drink in preparation for the birth of him who had extra-ordinary strength.  Samson could annihilate thousands using his own bare hands with the strength from the Lord.  His hair was let grown as a symbol of his extra physical strength that helped him serve God’s people, fight enemies, and rule on behalf of God.

Unfortunately, Samson was a rebel; he channeled his energy doing things that were against his calling by God to be Israelite leader.  First, he went against the teaching of the prophets and patriarch and had a Philistine wife.  It’s not that God was against foreign women for God’s people just because they were foreign, but it was the value of the women, materialistic, unfaithfulness, and other evil customs.  There were other foreign and marginalized women that commanded high regards in the Bible.  Examples of these female icons were Ruth, King David’s Grandmother or Rahab, the Amorite prostitute who sheltered spies sent by Joshua but became the great grandmother of King David.  It was grace of God and not because of the merit of the Israelite that God chose them to be His people.  The Philistine women that Samson associated with fell into the general category that God was not pleased with for his children.  We know the story of Delilah (the flirty one) that led to the downfall of the hero with God’s given strength.  She used her charm to deceive Samson, and though she might have admired Samson before and became his lover, she developed ulterior motive and cooperated with her own people.  All these was for her own material gain without regards for her earlier tie with Samson.  She cut Samson's hair and eliminated the source of his strength that was the promise of his God for him and his people.

“Baby I’ve been here before, I’ve seen this room I walked this floor.  I used to live alone before I knew you.  I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch, but love was not a victory march, it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah.”

“There was time that you let me know, what’s really going on below; but now you never show that to me, do you?  Remember when I moved in you, the holy dove was moving too, and every breath we drew was hallelujah”

For both King David and Samson, their Hallelujahs, expressions of praise to the Lord God, were those of joy and ecstasy in those moments with the beautiful women that they fell in love with. 

There was an old saying that described love as something as potent as death (Song of Solomon 8:6), and that may very well describe what happened to these two great men in their weakest moments.  And as Richard Puz put it, “Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal-From an Irish headstone”

This was a forbidden love and impure compared with the physical love that is celebrated in the Song of Songs written by King Solomon the wise.  An irony is that Solomon was the son that was born to Bathsheba and King David.   The results of this forbidden love were guilt and shame when they lost control of their feelings and physical attraction for each other without regard for the dire consequences.  The guilt and shame further eroded into doubt in the existence of God, and bad feeling about love as read from the following verses:

“May be there’s a God above, but all I ever learned from love was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you.  It’s not a cry that you hear at night, it’s not somebody who’ve seen the light, it’s a cold and broken hallelujah”

Second Chances

It’s a bittersweet kind of experience, and until the relationship with God was made right through repentance, both men would not be able to find peace.  Through the grace and understanding of God, both men were forgiven and given a chance to make amend-David and Bathsheba, after losing their first child, had Solomon, whom God loved and gave tremendous wisdom and wealth; Samson was given a chance to fight back and destroy more enemies than he could during his lifetime.  They suffered not only from the sins of others but also as the direct consequences of their own conducts.  Their falls in their relationship and family lives cost them so much, and their lives were full of tragedy.  If we read songs and psalms written by King David, we can see that he was “real” in his relationship with God even when he was sorrowful as the result of his own sins and from the enemies including his very own sons.  He remained “the Man after God’s own heart”.

Although most people including myself sing only five verses, it is worth mentioning Verse 6 of the song because it sums up the overall life of David.  All in all, David basically loved God and wanted to serve and praise Him for his grace and mercy that he knew was unconditional and everlasting:

“I did my best, it wasn't much 
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch 
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you. 
And even though 
It all went wrong 
I'll stand before the Lord of Song 
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah!  Hallelujah!  Hallelujah!!”

My First Recording of the Song Hallelujah

After two months learning the song, although my right brain said I was not ready to record and publish the song, my left side of the brain told me, you set a goal and you should follow through with it.  So here it is!  I will appreciate it if you listen to the song.  I would be much encouraged especially if you happen to enjoy it as well despite all the shortcomings of a novice musician!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZzpwLjIPcQ