Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah has had a strange journey to becoming a modern standard and his most covered song.

First recorded in 1984 when Cohen’s career was at a low, the song remained in obscurity until Jeff Buckley reinterpreted it for modern audiences in 1994. It has scarcely been out of the spotlight since.

On Tuesday, The Holy and the Broken, music journalist Alan Light’s examination of the success of Hallelujah is to be published.

Light told CBC News no singer approaches performing this song lightly.

'Everybody that I talk to about that song, all the younger singers who grew up with that song, talk about feeling like [Cohen] was whispering in your ear, feeling like you were listening to something you shouldn't. It was that personal'— Alan Light

“Everyone who has sung this song has something to say about it, has ideas and thoughts about it, what it means and what they were trying to do,” he said.

“No one blithely goes into singing this song. Over time, it's acquired such mystique and gravity, you can’t. If you take it on you have to feel you are bringing something to it."

Cohen himself spent years writing the hymn-like song, which uses strong Biblical imagery.

Cohen recalled that the album he was working on, Various Positions, almost didn’t get released.

"There's certain ironic and amusing sidebars because the record that it came from, which was called Various Positions, that record Sony wouldn't put out, they didn't think it was good enough,” Cohen told CBC’s Q cultural affairs show.

The Montreal-born singer-songwriter said he had a “a mild certain sense of revenge” after the song was revived.

Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah

In the '90s, musician Buckley brought Hallelujah to wider attention, moving away from Cohen's spiritual approach and making it into a song about the pain of heartbreak, Light said. Buckley drowned in 1997 at age 30 and his death helped focus attention on the song.

“Everybody that I talk to about that song, all the younger singers who grew up with that song, talk about feeling like [Cohen] was whispering in your ear, feeling like you were listening to something you shouldn't. It was that personal,” Light said.

Eventually Hallelujah reached the ears of Hollywood producers. In 2001, a version by Canadian singer Rufus Wainwright was used in an animated feature called Shrek.

Wainwright says he first understood the song's power when he performed it at a party for the Philadelphia Flyers.

"I sang a couple of things… then did Hallelujah after a request and immediately pulverized these athletes and was a huge success and at that point I just realized the lethal nature of the work," he said.

Used in 9/11 commemmorations

Hallelujah became an anthem for spiritual healing after it was used in 9/11 commemorations. Well-known musicians from Bono to Justin Timberlake to Willie Nelson recorded versions over the next decade. It also turns up on TV shows like ER, House and The West Wing.

In 2009, it was featured on the U.K. competition show The X Factor. That sent three versions to the top of the British charts that year including those of Buckley and Cohen.

Canadian singer k.d. lang’s version of Hallelujah, which she sang at the Vancouver Olympic Games, is one of Cohen’s personal favourites.

Cohen himself has joked there should be a moratorium on the song as it is covered so often.

But Light believes the song has staying power, in part because of the many versions of the lyrics Cohen has created, including those he included in his 1993 book of lyrics and poetry.

“Maybe I'm supposed to be tired of it, but if someone delivers the song it always sounds good and works,” Light said.

With files from the Canadian Press