One of my favorite songs is "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen.

You've probably heard the song before. You've maybe even seen this room and walked this floor. (Sorry. I had to throw in at least one lyric-based joke.) In case you need a refresher, take a listen here.

The original song is from 1984, but the song's immense popularity has given rise to hundreds of covers. This is no surprise to me. I like this song. It's catchy. It's repetitive and calming and not terribly difficult to sing. And there are a bunch of lyrics to choose from.

You're probably confused by that last point. Let me explain.

The opening lines that I'm guessing you thought of when I first mentioned the song talk about musical chords ("secret chord / that David played," "fourth, the fifth / the minor fall, the major lift").

I have some clue what that means, meaning I spent a little bit of time on Wikipedia finding out what that means. I would imagine that to someone who does not have experience playing an instrument or singing, that reference to chord progressions doesn't mean much. But the song and its opening verse are so popular that many cover versions of "Hallelujah" include a verse that probably doesn't make sense to many listeners.

So here's what the reference means. Remember the song "Do Re Mi" from "Sound of Music"? Of course, you do. Each of those syllables corresponds to musical notes. So the "first" note in the scale is Do, then Re and so on. (For my musical theory friends, there are other names for this. I'm trying to keep this uncomplicated.)

"It goes like this" starts at the third (which is "mi"). "The fourth, the fifth" refers to singing "fa" and "so." "The minor fall" means he sings the next note up, "la", but it's a little between "so" and "la" because minor scales lower the pitch of some notes just a little bit. "The major lift" means he sings the next higher note, "ti," like normal without worrying about minor anymore.

So when he's saying "minor fall" and "major lift" in the lyrics, the melody is actually doing a minor fall and a major lift. Which is brilliant.

But see how much of a digression I had to make to explain a technical songwriting joke? If this was a normal song, I would be happy to have a little bit of fun humor like that.

This is not a normal song.

When John Cale did his cover, one of the first of many covers to be popular, even showing up in the "Shrek" movie (and another cover by Rufus Wainwright in the soundtrack), Cohen faxed Cale 15 pages worth of lyrics. That's just an incredible amount of pages.

I should be winding up to a point right about now.

Here it is: with 15 pages worth of original lyrics and enough cultural clout that any performer can give their own personal flair to the song, why do performers so consistently choose the set of lyrics that is least relevant to an audience that won't recognize the technical language?

And Leonard Cohen humbles me yet again.

"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"

My complaining about a verse people happen to choose often doesn't matter. Because the song is still great, no matter which verses appear or which words are sung.

Enjoy the music. I know I will, nitpicking aside.