February 2014 Book Choice

Our February Book choice is The Holly or the Broken by Alan Light

Here is a bit of what the NY Times wrote about this book in 2012

“The Holy or the Broken” comes with codes that, when scanned, are supposed to yield different versions of “Hallelujah.” Or you can go straight to YouTube and find the renditions that matter most to this book. Mr. Light discusses these performances of “Hallelujah” in chronological order, but there’s much more to “The Holy or the Broken” than a litany of cover versions. The real questions are these: How did this obscure song get into our elevators, subway stations, movies and TV shows? Why is it used at benefits to help victims of disaster? Why won’t contestants on musical talent shows quit butchering it? Why do the lyrics of different versions vary so much? And how did this song get its reputation for universality when nobody, not even Mr. Cohen, really knows what it means?

The album containing “Hallelujah” came out on an independent label in 1984, and then it languished. See Ms. Simmons’s account for an understanding of why, by 1991, the world was nonetheless ready for a Leonard Cohen tribute album: “I’m Your Fan,” put together by the French music magazine Les Inrockuptibles. This album prompted a major overhaul of “Hallelujah” by John Cale, once of the Velvet Underground, who re-edited the lyrics, coming up with a version that has proved more enduring than Mr. Cohen’s. Mr. Cale’s stark, exquisitely pure rendition, with an emphasis on the song’s eroticism, is by some lights (like this one) the best “Hallelujah” ever recorded.