This is me singing the Leonard Cohen classic, famously covered by Jeff Buckley, John Cale, Rufus Wainwright and many others, not least recently by The X-Factor UK 2008 winner Alexandra Burke - Christmas number 1 and best selling single of the year 2008.
As much as I enjoy X-Factor and championed Alexandra to win, my singing this is in no way jumping on a bandwagon. I have loved this classic song for years, and in fact this is my second go at posting it, the first about a year ago.
It has been used in so many poignant moment in TV and film, inc Shrek (I first noticed it there),The OC, and was used extensively during the 911 coverage.
The version I'm doing is based on John Cale's. It has been said that he in some ways rescued the song, given that he brought it to the general public's attention. In preparing to cover the song he got in contact with Leonard Cohen and asked him to supply the missing verses. In turn his fax machine spilled out page after page of 15 verses! The 5 verses Cale ultimately chose are the ones that (with minor word choice alterations) ever other artist has since covered, including Jeff Buckley's famous version.
If you're interested in know more I strongly suggest you try to track down an excellent recent BBC R2 documentary honouring the song's 25th anniversary called "The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall" presented by Guy Garvey of Elbow. I love this song very much so I hope you like my version.
Not very good but SUPER VERY GOOD!!!!
Luvs
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4UandUTV 3 years ago
Very good! :)
AMYSINGS14 3 years ago