The legendary Canadian singer and performer who died last week, aged 82, was a great writer of love songs, but also a wonderful composer of prayers

“Alleluia!” “Hallelujah!” How often Christians have sung that word; so often that its familiarity obscures its meaning. Perhaps we might find more contained within those syllables if we listen to the “Hallelujah Chorus”. But in a concert hall, people focus more on shuffling in their seats and standing up, as befits the tradition when Handel’s work is performed.

It took a Canadian Jew turned Zen Buddhist to restore meaning to “Hallelujah”. Leonard Cohen wrote his song in 1984, featuring it on his album Various Positions. There have been more than 300 cover versions since, the first by John Cale, then Jeff Buckley and eventually including Alexandra Burke, winner of the television talent show The X Factor in 2008.

Women and wine, love and loss, have always featured in Cohen’s work but so has religion. “Hallelujah” mixes them up, but so does the Bible, and in “Hallelujah” Cohen evokes the stories of Samson and Delilah and King David and Bathsheba. Then there is the “holy dove”: when Allison Crowe sang it, she was quite clear what Cohen was singing about; she substituted the words “Holy Ghost”. Cohen has said that his song can be melancholic if the singer chooses but he also thought it could be melodious and joyous. He restored “Hallelujah”s true purpose as a simple shout of joy.