Hallelujah: An Encore

Part IV in my series of reflections on Wild Goose

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Is it possible to copy a piece of culture while still creatively engaging it? Absolutely. If not, what need would we have for covers?

What would we do without Hendrix's versions of the "Star-Spangled Banner" or "All Along the Watchtower"?

Imagine a life without Johnny Cash's rendition of "Hurt".

After all, there are times when covers better convey a song's emotion than the original.

Gungor, a band recently criticised for their willingness to question conservative biblical interpretation, was called back on to stage at the end of their set for an encore. They picked a song which beautifully captures the pathos of many Goose attendees: Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", though their version followed more closely with the Jeff Buckley cover:

This ballad of troubled love told through religious symbolism captures the impassioned anguish and loss felt by so many progressive Christians who have left the conservative side of the Church. Strained and broken friendships and family relationship, the crisis of faith which so frequent precedes the move, the questions of what might have been, the tension, and the freedom.

Maybe there's a God above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya
And it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

 And at the end, all you can do is whisper, "Hallelujah."