Devotion 2.0

Chasing on YouTube after Rufus Wainwright's performance of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," so inexplicably left off the soundtrack of I'm Your Man, I stumbled onto a veritable cache a heartfelt, alone in the bedroom, gaze intermittently at the camera cover versions of this tune by sensitive boys and girls from all across the big blue marble. They vary substantially in quality, but scarcely a whit in earnestness. This song, not really all that convincing in Cohen's original, with quasi-orchestral and choral backing, was seemingly plucked out (by Wainwright and some Jeff Buckley character) and made into the ultimate hymn.

The most powerful instance of user-created content I've yet seen.

There are a lot of covers of the Cohen "Hallelujah." More than there are of Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You." There are none of Elvis Costello's "Long Honeymoon." But you wanna talk about "Free Bird" or "Stairway to Heaven," there's no contest. You could spend a week listening to the covers. I may just.