But that’s just the official meaning. For Grant Gershon, director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale, hallelujah is a perfect word because it can take on different meanings.

A new documentary, “Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song,” details how the tune went on a journey from John Cale and Jeff Buckley covers to “Shrek” and “American Idol” ubiquity.

The words were exuberant, “Hallelujah (meaning “praise be to God” in Hebrew) was repeated many times with references to Jesus, and how, through his passion, he shall reign over humanity forever.

In Alan Light's newly expanded book about Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah,' he explores how the sexy song became an unlikely holiday hymn.

Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song was inspired by Alan Light’s 2013 book The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and the Unlikely Ascent of “Hallelujah,” and the ...

HalleLUjah! Hah-lay-ay-loo-YAH! But what does hallelujah mean, exactly? And why does it continue to resonate with us, untranslated, thousands of years after it first appeared in the Hebrew bible?

What does hallelujah mean, exactly? And why does it continue to resonate with us, untranslated, thousands of years after it first appeared in the Hebrew bible?

HalleLUjah! Hah-lay-ay-loo-YAH! But what does hallelujah mean, exactly? And why does it continue to resonate with us, untranslated, thousands of years after it first appeared in the Hebrew bible?

But that’s just the official meaning. For Grant Gershon, director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale, hallelujah is a perfect word because it can take on different meanings.