Howyalujah

I'm not really one for The X Factor or Max Factor or anything else glossy and fake, but I have to say... Oh, who am I leading 'round the Department of Foreign Affairs?! I am one for X Factor and related shite! I love a bit of karaoke and delusion and Simon Cowell! I don't know why! Perhaps I'm losing my mind! Perhaps the next thing for me is a wardrobe filled with garments from Monsoon and a soft spot (the large area around my bellybutton) for lattes and a space between Wuthering Heights and The Turn Of The Screw for Cecilia Ahern's latest heart-warming, brain-cooling spittle-bound twaddle. I don't know. Somehow, between listening to Queens Of The Stone Age and Imogen Heap, I find time for glossy people bawling through cover versions. And like the changing of the seasons and Daniel Day Lewis' nationality, no amount of wishing will change the fact. Woe and waily.

So I was watching when Alexandra of the Overly Relaxed Tearducts won on Saturday night. As winner, she gets to release the winner's song, which this year is Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. It makes a welcome change from You Raise Me Up (While My Stomach Turns So Much It Falls Out Me Arse) or When You Believe (You're a Gullible Knob). But, as we are human, we have an inclination towards preciousness and elitism and imspecialamntimammyitis, so no one is happy. How dare some little vocalist in a designer gown ruin our Hallelujah? How dare a Beyonce fan interpret something so delicate and vulnerable and raw, which according to Rolling Stone is like, the 700th greatest song ever or something. Who is this little upstart Alexandra? WHO IS SHE? WHO IS SHE?

And while the Facebook group I was invited to join (by my favourite rabid bloggerist) is very entertaining and gave me a right giggle, I can't bring myself to sanction the Alexandra hate. Because let's face it, the original Hallelujah, as in Leonard's song, is fucking awful. It stinks like a decapitation in a sewer. Please don't misunderstand me - I love Jeff Buckley's seminal interpretation of Hallelujah like I love free Bulmers; I am amazed every time I hear it, because Jeff took something that, when I first heard it, made my ears sit down in candlelight with a map and plan their escape, and turned it into something powerful and heartfelt and entirely his own, and for that he deserves canonisation. And later versions of the song are reinterpretations of his version, which is pretty worthy of consideration and debate - how gobsmacking that Jeff Buckley seemed to understand the song better than the man who wrote it! The moral of the story here, kids, is that Leonard Cohen is a right fucking weirdo.

Alexandra's version wasn't actually all that bad, either. The girl actually sounded like she knew what she was singing; she has an amazing voice, even though if she was a bit less sweet I'd be tempted to say it's a pity she can't write any lyrics to match it. Alright, so we needed the strange gospel choir accompaniment like we need coffee-scented nosehair trimmers - just because it's called Hallelujah doesn't mean it's all about priests - but at the same time I can't say Alexandra's version is the worst thing I've ever heard. It certainly was aeons better than the version JLS sang... and can you imagine Diana Vickers howling her way through Hallelujah like a cat stricken with mumps? Nah, I'm alright with Alexandra and her Hallelujah. I won't be downloading it, mind. I'll stick to Jeff and Rufus for my "sex is religion" sincerities. But nor will I be crying into my Christmas stockings (fishnets. I don't like surprises) if it gets to number one. The Christmas number one matters to me like the mating habits of angler fish.

It's hard to ruin a song which sounded beautiful in Scrubs and The O.C. and even in Shrek, in all fairness. Even if Leonard tried to strangle it at birth. Hallelujah has been at pleb level for a very long time, lads, and no young wan on The X Factor can be blamed for that.