Hallelujah

Columbia, under Sony. The holy word survives the wreck he puts it in.

Columbia released it, and almost no one heard it then. Sony holds Columbia. Cohen's version is not a love song that happens to say hallelujah. It is a man moving the word through sex, failure, and a cold room, and refusing to drop it.

There are softer versions. This is the one that knows the word is costly.

The eight

Industry
9/10
Verse after verse, and the secret chord is actually built.
Household
5/10
David, Bathsheba, a love that failed. The house is in the wreckage.
Piety
8/10
He keeps the hallelujah after he has no right to it. That is the faith in the song.
Courage
7/10
He tells the cold and the broken version, not the pretty one.
Republic
4/10
A private theology, overheard.
Temperance
6/10
Desire is in it, and it does not get the last word.
Truth
8/10
He will not pretend the praise is clean.
Stewardship
8/10
A song a house can grow into. Do not hand a child only the romantic cut.

Live historicallyPlay Cohen's, not a montage. After, ask what in this house is a cold and broken hallelujah rather than a win.

Song · Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Pandora, and YouTube Music · 1982

Columbia · Sony Music Entertainment

Always on My Mind

Columbia, under Sony. Regret, specific. He was busy. She needed the words.

Columbia released Nelson's version. Sony owns Columbia. The record is not about a scandal. It is about the days he was preoccupied, and the sentence he saved for later, and the later that came too late.

This is one of the useful sad songs. It tells you what to do while the person is still in the house.

The eight

Industry
8/10
Nelson sings it like a man who cannot fix the year.
Household
8/10
A marriage, neglected in small ordinary ways.
Piety
5/10
Little things. He knows they were the devotion.
Courage
6/10
He admits the failure without a speech about his intentions.
Republic
4/10
A private debt.
Temperance
7/10
No excuse he is willing to rest in.
Truth
9/10
He did not tell her. That is the fact.
Stewardship
8/10
A song to play before the little things are all that is left to say.

Live historicallyBefore the day ends, say the small thing you have been saving. Do not wait for a version of this song.