Street Artist Plays Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” With Crystal Glasses

When Leonard Cohen wrote “Hal­lelu­jah” back in 1984, the world did­n’t take imme­di­ate notice. And the song only began its jour­ney toward becom­ing a clas­sic when it was lat­er record­ed by John Cale and Jeff Buck­ley. Now, it’s one of the more wide­ly cov­ered songs out there. Rufus Wain­wright, k.d. lang, Bono, Willie Nel­son, Alexan­dra Burke — they’ve all paid homage to the song. So have less­er-known musi­cians too, like this street musi­cian, Petr Spati­na, who record­ed a ver­sion with crys­tal glass. Be sure to watch it all the way through.

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via @Pogue

Relat­ed Leonard Cohen Mate­r­i­al:

Leonard Cohen Recounts “How I Got My Song,” or When His Love Affair with Music Began

Ladies and Gen­tle­men… Mr. Leonard Cohen, a 1965 Doc­u­men­tary

Leonard Cohen Reads “The Future” (Not Safe for Work)

Watch Lian Lunson’s 2005 doc­u­men­tary, Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man


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Comments (11)
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  • Joan says:

    Actu­al­ly, he has a name: Petr Spati­na

  • duarte says:

    why “name­less”?

  • Sammy says:

    The song first appeared on Var­i­ous Posi­tions, released in 1984; it was not released in 1964.

  • love your site. i think hal­lelu­jeah was writ­ten around 1984 not 1964

  • tricia says:

    that is beau­ti­ful. a stun­ning ver­sion.
    i had the song sung at my wed­ding and am always say­ing it a Leonard Cohen song not a Jeff Buck­ley one.
    a few years ago it was used as win­ner’s sin­gle in britain’s x‑factor and so became pop­u­lar again over here. two weeks lat­er our choir sang it at christ­mas mass, in gael­ic (irish nation­al language)it was stun­ning also.

  • mickey says:

    if this were true then this guy would be a genius

  • Mary Owens Wells says:

    Tru­ly awe-inspir­ing! I love Leonard Cohen, I love the song, and I have nev­er heard such beau­ti­ful sounds until now. Are you going to remain a street artist, or do you have oth­er plans? Thank you SO much for shar­ing!

  • Leslie Parker says:

    I devour the infor­ma­tion you present. Thank you!

  • luvley gupta says:

    sole­ful.

  • Lena says:

    How could any­one for­get K.D. Lang’s ver­sion of this clas­sic! The best!!!!!

  • Reb says:

    Amused. This is a dark erot­ic song late­ly adopt­ed by a lot of staid peo­ple who nev­er read the lyrics or think past the title or its steady churchy pac­ing. Is it real­ly reli­gious as peo­ple sup­pose? Per­haps, but it’s cer­tain­ly not churchy any more than the Kama Sutra is a cat­a­log.

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