I've Heard There Was a Secret Song: How Hallelujah Helped Me Survive Encephalitis
Author: Francesco Papagni.
.There are songs that come and go. And then there are songs that stay forever. Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah is one of those. I cannot fully explain why. Nobody can. But I know what it did to me.
I survived listening to it.
On a hospital bed, while my brain was burning with encephalitis and I was lost in thousands of realities, I could not even recognize myself.
For hours I experienced what many mystics describe but few survive: ego dissolution.
The complete absence of “I.” A terrifying nothingness, and at the same time a strange kind of expansion. And yet, every time I played Hallelujah, especially Jeff Buckley’s version, something brought me back. A thread that reconnected me to what was human.
The first lines already strike deep.
Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord, that David played, and it pleased the Lord.
Coming from a Catholic upbringing, this image is powerful. The thought that a single chord, a fragile vibration of strings, could reach God directly and move Him — it is incredibly evocative. As a child I heard about prayer, sacraments, rules. But never about music being enough to please the Lord. Cohen gives me that possibility. That a simple sound can be a bridge, stronger than doctrine.
And then he adds the irony:
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
As if to remind us that the sacred can be invisible to those who do not listen. It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift. This is not only music theory, it is life itself. We rise, we fall. The baffled king composes hallelujah not out of strength, but out of fragility.
The story shifts to David on the rooftop. A man of faith who still needs proof. He sees Bathsheba bathing, her beauty in the moonlight. Desire overthrows him. This is in the Bible — 2 Samuel 11 — where David’s longing leads to betrayal and death. Cohen reminds us that even the chosen king collapses under beauty.
Sacredness does not erase humanity. For me, in my own sickness, moments of beauty also overthrew me. Even when I could not trust my senses, even when I could not recognize myself in the mirror, beauty was still powerful enough to break through.
Then comes Samson and Delilah.
She tied you to a kitchen chair, she broke your throne, and she cut your hair.
Samson, the man of impossible strength, betrayed by the woman he loved. His secret revealed, his hair cut, his eyes taken out. Cohen drags this myth of power into an ordinary kitchen, where love and destruction live together.
For me it was not Delilah but illness that tied me down, cut my hair, broke my throne. My body became the prison. And yet, even there, from my lips, still came a hallelujah.
The song keeps circling between the sacred and the profane. Between the Lord’s name and the blaze of light in every word. Cohen admits he does not even know the name. That he may have taken it in vain. But still the hallelujah carries light. For a Catholic boy, this is heresy and liberation at once. In church I was taught not to take the Lord’s name lightly.
And yet here is Cohen saying it doesn’t matter — broken or holy, every hallelujah has meaning. When I whispered it in my bed, I did not know if I was praying or just clinging to a word. But it didn’t matter. The light was still there.
Then comes confession.
I did my best, it wasn’t much. I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch.
There is something raw in those lines. Not triumph, not victory, only survival. A truth said without shame. This is not the language of saints. This is the language of people like me. In my worst hours, I did my best. It wasn’t much. I could not feel. I tried to touch.
I had no answers, only a broken voice repeating a single word.
And then the image that always stays with me.
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song, with nothing on my tongue but hallelujah.
Not the Lord of armies, not the Lord of judgment, but the Lord of Song. To stand with nothing left, stripped of ego, stripped of certainty, and still be able to sing one word. This is what music gave me when my mind was gone. A hallelujah not of victory, but of being alive.
When I listen to Buckley’s version, it feels fragile, like someone singing alone in the dark. It is not the hallelujah of a cathedral full of light. It is the hallelujah of a single candle under a marble arch. The arch is vast, monumental, cold. But the flame is there, trembling, refusing to die. That is what this song gave me. The sense that even inside silence, even inside stone, something still flickers.
Cohen wrote many verses, dozens we will never sing. Maybe that is because Hallelujah was never meant to be finished. It is not a single prayer but an open scripture. Every singer adds their own verse. Every listener finds their own hallelujah.
For me, it was survival. It was the rope that tied me back to humanity when I was drifting away. Not faith in God, not even faith in myself, but recognition that I was alive. That I could still hear beauty. That I could still sing, even broken.
This is my hallelujah.
While the words belong to Leonard Cohen, and the poetry is his gift to us and must be celebrated, it was not his voice that saved me. It was Jeff Buckley’s version.
The way he sang it, fragile and infinite at the same time, reached me when nothing else could. Cohen gave the scripture, but Buckley gave the prayer.
I remember clearly that in one of the recordings, there is a small breath before the first note. That breath became my signal, like the bell for Pavlov’s dogs. Every time I heard it, I knew I could come back. Back to my body, back to being human, back to a fragile place where life was still possible.
Watch the incredible cover by Jeff Buckley:
Read the lyrics (poem?) by Leonard Cohen
Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord That David played, and it pleased the Lord But you don’t really care for music, do you? It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth The minor falls, the major lifts The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Your faith was strong but you needed proof You saw her bathing on the roof Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you She tied you to a kitchen chair She broke your throne, and she cut your hair And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah
You say I took the name in vain I don’t even know the name But if I did, well, really, what’s it to you? There’s a blaze of light in every word It doesn’t matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah
I did my best, it wasn’t much I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you And even though it all went wrong I’ll stand before the Lord of Song With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah