Hallefuckinlooya

June Challenge entry. With sincere apologies to Mr Cohen and fans of the song.

Recorded in under 2 hours this afteroon. Yes, I know the vocal is all over the place but I realised after the backing track was done that it is in the wrong key for my limited range! What the hell - it's a bit of fun.

(Get Flash to see the track player.)
posted by MajorDundee (25 comments total)

Your delivery is actually something of which Cohen might be proud. I know I am. Loved this!
posted by askmeaboutLOOM at 2:09 PM on June 6

I have to admit, this cracks me the hell right up...ha and you're laughing in the song!

(Don't tell anyone I said this, but this is my favorite version of this ever. It's just fucking irreverent!)

I'm sure Cohen would have a good giggle with this.
posted by snsranch at 3:36 PM on June 6

Me too-- feels like The Vibrators or Captain Sensible took a stab at the tune, which can only be a good thing.
posted by InfidelZombie at 3:38 PM on June 6

Ha! nice.
But you missed one opportunity. I think that, instead of the usual "you don't really care for music do ya," you sang "do you," then you should have rhymed it with Hallelu-yoo.
Great job.
posted by chococat at 4:06 PM on June 6

I love this version. Boogalooya!
posted by metagnathous at 5:11 PM on June 6

Halla Focka lou ya
posted by american caesar at 5:55 PM on June 6

Your delivery features a perfect combination of the original melody and spoken-y bits. Really well done.

But, I gotta say, this is quite disgraceful.

Also catchy as hell! Now I'm thinking somebody's gotta do a Hawaiian take on the song. You know... Hula-looya.

/rim shot.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:38 PM on June 6

I can't believe you recorded this in less than 2 hours. It's great fun and sounds amazing. Love it when you crack up, and the little spoken jokey bits are hilarious. Leonard who?
posted by edlundart at 11:05 PM on June 6

This is classy as fuck.

Dear MajorDundee

My Name is Leonard Cohen. Cease and desist this rock before I halle-fuckin-sue-ya! If you do not comply with this demand I will tie you to a chair.

Sincerely,
Leonard Who
posted by dagosto at 3:23 AM on June 7 [1 favorite]

Iliked it much BTW
posted by dagosto at 3:23 AM on June 7

Thanks for the comments guys - it was blast to do!

I can't believe you recorded this in less than 2 hours.

Well....I spent some dead time driving back and forth to work thinking about what I might do with this song (after I reminded myself how it went). It's a very simple song with an equally simple ABC x 4 structure. So when I came to record it I had it all worked out in my head. The basic percussion track is just a loop with some toms and cymbals overdubbed later. A couple of rhythm guitar tracks (Les Paul on one side, 335 on the other) went on top of that - both first takes. Then the extra rhythm guitar (Strat on the bridge pick-up - to cut through the Gibbo soup - with a fast vibrato effect). All the guitar sounds from the amp are ones I use frequently - so they were just dialled in. Same with the EQ etc on the recording ("saved" EQ, reverb and comp settings that I know work well). Only EQ is on bass and vocals and the stereo master - everything else is straight out of the amp/keyboard. Vocal on top was one take - obviously (!). Only used 10 tracks. Mixing was a piece of cake - once I got a balance all that was required was to pan the "funnies" as required. If it had sounded crap I would just have shrugged my shoulders and scrapped it. But it sounded ok-ish, so I stuck it on the site, warts and all.

That was the whole point - I didn't want to spend hours agonising over this - it's just a laugh. There are things on it I wouldn't dream of "releasing" normally - flat vocals, guitar fluffs etc etc. Generally I'm pretty ambivalent about Leonard Cohen's work - likewise I neither particularly like or dislike this song. Perhaps that's why I felt able to fuck about with it - I didn't really give a toss....!
posted by MajorDundee at 10:10 AM on June 7

Ace! You managed to keep an over-heard tune interesting to me.
posted by self at 10:35 AM on June 7

This is good. It reminds me in an odd way of Nick Cave's multi-genre romp through Tower of Song - equal parts taking the piss and playing homage.
posted by hamfisted at 3:42 PM on June 7

I'm pretty ambivalent about Leonard Cohen's work

/gasp
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:04 PM on June 7

I'm pretty ambivalent about Leonard Cohen's work

The man has some of the cheesiest-sounding productions around, but for me this is so outweighed by the lyric content as to be a non-issue. Sometimes it's even endearing, almost.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:08 PM on June 7

Aw, man. Now all I'm gonna be able to hear is this version when I think of Halleylooyah.
posted by drhydro at 6:00 PM on June 7

That's just fantastic. And kudos on the turn-around time; we should really do some sort of Breakneck Song-off type thing eventually, have everybody commit to a quickie window and churn out one (or more) songs in 24 hours or something.
posted by cortex at 10:47 PM on June 7 [1 favorite]

Ha, that's a lot of fun. The combination of the blinding-shiny guitars, drum loops, and general what-the-fuckness make it sound a bit like something from the closing credits of an 80s comedy.
posted by uncleozzy at 8:03 AM on June 8

I'm not dissing Cohen's work, I hasten to add. He's obviously very special to many people. Naturally I respect that. It's simply that for me it's melody/texture first, lyrics last. If I don't like the tune it doesn't matter whether it's the best lyric EVER, it just doesn't work for me. And - to my ears - a lot of Cohen's tunes are pretty mundane. Maybe I'll "get it" one day - always open to persuasion. Perversely, I am into poetry in a major way (Heaney, Larkin, Hughes, Eliot, Spender, Yeats, and on and on and on). Go figure.....
posted by MajorDundee at 11:31 AM on June 8

I warmly recommend the new Live in London DVD. The music really comes alive with those stellar musicians, and Cohen himself is so charming on stage that he seems to come from another, better world.
posted by edlundart at 10:07 PM on June 8

Fan-f*ckin'-tastic.
posted by freya_lamb at 2:23 PM on June 10

Fuckin' good.
posted by Effigy2000 at 11:27 PM on June 10

Hallefuckinlooya indeed. Gods, I needed this today.
posted by desuetude at 8:56 PM on June 11

Yes.
posted by Jofus at 9:28 AM on June 17

Leonard who?
posted by ichthuz at 1:30 PM on June 23