Hallelujah - the epiphany, plus Christmas bigotry and other festive tales

So, this is Christmas. What have you done? Another year over.......oops, wrong song. Last week I wrote of my outrage at how the X Factor was turning a work of genius into just another karaoke song. Then I changed my tune somewhat.

There were a number of reasons for this, some of which were touched upon in the previous blog. The prevalent one was that more people would now be aware of both the song and in particular Jeff Buckley's version of it. With Buckley at number two my initial complaints now seem somewhat churlish.

At the time of writing last wk's blog I also hadn't heard the Alexandra Burke version. I have now and despite her apparent reticence about singing it (fuel to my fire) she actually doesn't do too bad a job. Amusingly I would not say the same about Leona Lewis's version of 'Run' which sits below the Hallelujahs. Leona is clearly the better artist but that run-through is just a cover-version by numbers, starting it in a dreary, plodding monotone so she can build to a very obvious crescendo. To be honest if that's the best she can do after having a year to make and release that version then she may be wildly over-rated.

The entire Hallelujah furore has also helped me to understand and appreciate the song more. Hearing it so frequently has transformed the lyrical complexity and Buckley's emotive reading of the nuances just confirms what a great artist he was. I went back to the deluxe version of 'Live at Sin-é' recorded in a small café where Buckley played a one-man show on a regular basis; it is such a magnificent recording that you can play it through headphones and almost feel that you're there back in the moment. Great music can do this, and this is truly great music.

I could touch upon the conspiracy theory I was alerted to by a reader of last wk's blog who pointed out that all the versions are on labels owned by SonyBMG, the same company that fund Cowell's Syco project but it might ruin the warm feeling of love I'm trying to project for the song - and it is Christmas after all.