Hallelujah

“Everything that needs to be said, has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.”

– André Gide

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One of my favourite songs of all time is Jeff Buckley's song, Hallelujah. I first listened to it when I was in high school, and I was instantly hooked by the poetic lyrics and the masterful control Jeff had on guitar. The song and the entire album still holds a special place in my heart.

For the longest time, I thought it was an original song that Jeff wrote himself, but I later found out that it wasn’t even his own song! The original was written by Leonard Cohen almost a decade before Jeff’s.

But knowing this doesn’t take away the fact that Jeff’s rendition of the song is still amazing – he’s managed to put his haunting, yet beautiful voice and dynamic guitar playing to make the song into his own. Although Leonard Cohen wrote the song, Jeff Buckley made it into a masterpiece.

But imagine if Jeff hadn't released the song. Imagine if he had let his fears and his need to be 'original' stop him from releasing an unoriginal song – the world would never have known what they were missing out on (and I wouldn't be writing this blog post!).

And think of all the other songs, books, paintings, products, and movies that are being kept in the dark, fearful of not being ‘original’ enough. There’s so much art just waiting to be given permission to be released to the world.

If you have an idea or something you want to say, then say it. We stand on the shoulders of giants; there's no reason to feel insecure about remixing someone else's work to make it our own. Just make sure you’re not just blatantly copying other people’s idea and releasing them as your own – that’s called plagiarism.

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