I can't believe I missed this in 2005. I don't watch awards shows so that would be why, but I was reading Saturday's Globe and Mail, and they were profiling one of Canada's greatest voices, k.d. lang and her upcoming album Watershed. In the article they mentioned her Juno performance of 2005 where she sang Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.

"She single handedly changed the tone of the event from flashy awards show to an encounter with a kind of truth that's rare in the age of reality TV."

I had to check it out.

Amazing.

A lot of people try and sing Leonard Cohen songs, but most simply fail to express the poetry in the songs. (Even Bono's version of Hallelujah on Tower of Song or Jeff Buckley's feels hollow.)

K.d.'s performance is truly transcendent.