Hallelujah

You guys know me pretty well by now. You're probably starting to get a feel for what I've got going on in my head and I feel genuinely sorry for those of you that do.  But, in all actuality, that's one of the side effects of this blog and it was listed on the side of the bottle. Go ahead, check. Yeah, there it is.

Well, moving on to more timely things, that is to say that this really isn't breaking news by any means, in fact, I'm moving way away from current on this one, but it's important regardless. It's about the song Hallelujah. Leonard Cohen takes the original rights, and although I'm not a big fan of his version, he wrote it, so he can pretty much do whatever he wants with it. It's also been covered by John Cale, Rufus Wainwright, Jeff Buckley, Alistair Griffin, Allison Crowe, K.D. Lang, and Bon Jovi, to name a few. None of these versions do to the song what the following version does.



Yeah, you read that correctly. None of the previously mentioned versions do to the song what this one did. None of those other versions completely ruined a perfectly good song.

I added a paragraph break to give you time to gasp at my statement. I hope you used it wisely. If not, we can all wait for you to catch up to the rest of us. Now that you're ready, let me explain myself.

Lincoln Brewster took a song that was simultaneously stunningly beautiful and painfully heartbreaking and turned it into a worship song that sounds like it should have been written by the same genius behind popular hits like Mary Had a Little Lamb or The Itsy-Bitsy Spider. I don't claim to be a brilliant songwriter myself, but hey, that's why I don't write songs.

I don't exactly know what my real complaint here is. It could be that he chops some of Cohen's verses in order to add in lines like "I love you Lord with all my heart/You've given me a brand new start," but decides to leave in the part about the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, and the major lift. It could be that the song already had some pretty blatantly biblical based themes that contain a lot more heart than "I know that you're the God above/You're filling me with grace and love." Or it could be just the resonating complaint that we seemed to have run the Christianity well dry and now we're taking water from the secular well and adding artificial God flavoring.

Regardless, I think there's only one response I'm capable of. Respond in suit. Here they are, my newly Christianized songs.

All I Want for Christmas is You
This one's easy. Mariah Carey must have wanted us to retool it for a Christmastime worship service. "Make my wish come true, Jesus, all I want for Christmas is You." Not only does that put Christ right back in the center of Christmas, it also gives us the warm, fuzzy feeling that Jesus is a genie who makes wishes come true.

Bret, You've Got It Going On
In case you haven't heard it, this is a Flight of the Conchords song. Once again, nothing to it really. Replace Bret with God and you've got yourself a perfect song to transpose to the key of G. It may start getting awkward once you get to the "I need a woman, so I imagine you with some bosoms" section though.

Gin and Juice
La-de-da-de-da, it's the one and only G-O-double-D. This one was a little tougher, especially when it comes to the verses, so you'd probably just have to replace the chorus with "Sippin' on Jesus Juice (laidback, with my mind on my tithing and my tithing on my mind)." Obviously this one would happen on communion day some time before the offering plate is passed around.

Welcome to the Jungle
Since I hadn't actually come up with a ridiculous Christian version of a truly classic song, I thought I'd try out a little Guns 'N Roses, see what I could get from them. Here's what I've got.
Welcome to the chapel
We've got Christians here
When you hear the pastor speaking
Raise your godly cheer
We are the people who will sing
With whatever song they play
Hope you've got your money, honey
Here's the offering plate
In the chapel
Welcome to the chapel
Gonna bring you to your shuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh knees, knees

Bonus: Tears in Heaven
I call this one a bonus because Eric Clapton did a pretty brilliant job of setting up this one for us already. He wrote it about his son who died, but let's take all the feeling he put into it completely out and insert our own meaning. That's what art's all about, right?

I'm hoping that the next time I go to a worship service, I'll recognize all the songs that are played. But not in the "Oh, no, not Blessed be your Name!" sort of way, but in the "Hey, wasn't this originally a Beatles' song? About drugs? Alright, cool."