How many versions of the Leonard Cohen song, “Hallelujah,” does a person need to have in their piano bench? It’s a fair question. I couldn’t tell you how many is too many, though, because I’ve just now purchased the sheet music for yet another arrangement.
This time it’s kd lang’s take on the song, a pensive and heartfelt rendition that unfolds from spare, quiet opening chords to a rich and resonant expansiveness. At the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in January, skater Mariah Bell performed a lyrical and stirring routine to lang’s rendition of “Hallelujah.”
This will be a recurring theme on So Many Songbooks: music that I’ve found a deeper connection with after watching a figure skating routine. In the case of “Hallelujah,” I already had an abiding love for multiple versions of this music, beginning of course with Leonard Cohen’s original song. For the record, in addition to the ones in my Leonard Cohen songbooks, the other arrangements I have of “Hallelujah” — so far — are Rufus Wainwright’s (featured in the “Shrek” songbook) and Jeff Buckley’s stark, haunting, and iconic version (there’s a good arrangement in the songbook Rolling Stone’s Sheet Music Classics, Vol. 2: 1970s-1990s).
The kd lang recording of “Hallelujah” (from her 2004 album “Hymns of the 49th Parallel”) has a meditative quality, as if it draws from a deep well. And Mariah Bell’s long program (which was choreographed by Shae-Lynn Bourne) expressed this energy, unfolding with a sense of spaciousness. The skater took her time and stretched into the music and also held space for the quiet moments.
As she finished not only a clean program but a genuinely moving and beautifully skated program, Bell’s expressions burst from quick sobs of relief into triumphant joy. Her performance had landed her on the podium, a silver medalist. And the moment left me not only in the mood to listen to the song but also to play it on my piano, to tap into that same pensive, heartfelt, expansive energy.
The sheet music I purchased has the melody on a separate line, but it’s within reach to play the song as a piano solo. And the arrangement, while accessible, stays true to lang’s recording.
Where to find it: piano/vocal/guitar sheet music for the kd lang version of Leonard Cohen’s song, “Hallelujah,” available for purchase as a digital download at musicnotes.com.
So Many Songbooks 
I know just what you mean, since an ice skating performance by Kurt Browning and the incomparable Gary Beacom left me with an expanded sense of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”
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It seems to me there’s a distinct difference between the Hallelujah on the 49th Parallel album and the one noted as “2010” version on her Recollection album. I’d like to find the music for the latter.
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