I like Cohen's. It's different from all the Wainwright-style covers, and I once heard he'd written over a hundred verses for it that he alternates on concerts. I wish they were available somewhere, but I suspect I would have had to have been there.

I'm not enough of a fan to know how many of those verses he did sing in concert, but I do know that I have two recordings of him singing the song and they only have one verse in common. Weirdly, this verse ISN'T in the Jeff Buckley version. And it's easily my favorite:

    And even though
    It all went wrong
    I'll stand before the Lord of Song
    With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

The reason I like Cohen's the best is because of the backing singers. I think this song works best when there's the graceful and harmonious support of the backup singers... it adds to and "load balances" the hugely majestic tones of this song! I think when KD Lang or anyone does it solo, they're taking on too much, and while they might do a fine job, it's a lot for one person to sing. Just my thoughts!

Perhaps John Cale might still have them because Cohen faxed him 15 pages of lyrics - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallelujah_(Leonard_Cohen_song...

NB. It's the version by Cale which became the basis of the later covers by Buckley, Wainwright, etc - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nzu4LE667VM

You're right of course. I don't know why I thought it was Wainwright.

That's OK, clearly it also confused the producers of the Shrek soundtrack album too :)

Here's a post from couple of days ago which documents the history of Hallelujah - http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2016/11/11/leonard-...