Hillary and Leonard

I saw Hillary Clinton in Scranton today. She was much more personable than I expected, and was able to stir the crowd even when she wasn't in the same room with them. A full report will be delivered forthwith. Well, not exactly forthwith. Maybe tomorrow.

Leonard Cohen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame today. You may recall that I posted a YouTube video - lifted from Gort - of John Cale (of the Velvet Underground) performing Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." This is, I think, the most stirring and beautiful version of this song. This essay (sent to me last week by Gort) states that the late Jeff Buckley's version is considered to be "definitive", though I find his version too melodramatically emo and lacking in the beauty and grace of Cale's. (My first experience of this song was probably a slightly edited version of the John Cale version in, of all places, the movie Shrek. Buckley's version has found considerable play in the current crop of teen TV melodramas, as noted in the linked essay.)

But this is Leonard Cohen's day, so it would be good to give a listen to a version by the man who started it all.

And on the other end of history, here is a much more recent version sung, in turn, by four Norwegian singers.

To learn more about Leonard Cohen, give a listen to this Fresh Air interview from May 2006.