Which Hallelujah is the highest?

Creator of a classic ... Leonard Cohen. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe

Hallelujah's journey from obscurity to the top of the charts - where it raced after contestant Jason Castro performed it on American Idol - is a strange and complicated one. Written by Leonard Cohen and included on his 1984 album Various Positions, its debut outing went largely unnoticed. For the simple reason that Cohen's original is nothing much to write home about. For once, Laughing Len is unable to make the song submit to his will. Cohen's Hallelujah is ponderous, lacking in conviction and purpose. With hindsight, it's easy to say that here was a classic song just waiting to be brought to life. But nobody thought to mention it at the time.

Since Hallelujah entered mass consciousness via inclusion in countless movies and TV shows, it's widely taken for granted that Jeff Buckley is the man responsible for the song's rebirth. Not so. It was John Cale who first took hold of it and shook it completely awake. His version was included on the 1991 Cohen tribute album I'm Your Fan. By far the best song on that collection, it also stakes a claim for Cale's most powerfully emotive vocal performance.

Truthfully, all subsequent takes on Hallelujah owe a debt to Cale's. But few heard the Cale version at the time of its release and, criminally, it remains one of the least recognised of all the covers despite its appearance in Shrek. Buckley's Hallelujah, magnificent though it is, amounts to little more than a subtle rewrite of Cale's arrangement. But, credit where it's due, Buckley gave the song prominence and inspired the long queue of artists lining up to cover it.

Considering that it took a full seven years for the first cover version to happen along, it's remarkable how many have appeared since its inclusion on Buckley's Grace album. Like a modern-day Summertime or Yesterday, it's one of those songs that just about everyone feels obliged to have a crack at. But, unlike the Gershwin and Lennon/McCartney numbers, Hallelujah refuses to become a standard in the time-honoured sense. Possibly because, in the classic folk tradition, the song continues to evolve. Few versions stray too far from the Cale arrangement but lyrics are variously drawn from any number of the 15 verses that Cohen faxed to Cale all those years ago.

The trouble with standards is that they have a tendency to wear out their welcome after so many years, any meaning they might have once had eroded through overfamiliarity. Not so with Hallelujah. Versions of the song now number in the hundreds but it still retains its mystery. It's rapidly on its way to becoming the most discussed and debated song of all time.

So what are the worst and the best versions? Jason Castro's cover is routine at best, but it's by no means the biggest insult paid to the song. Bob Dylan and U2 have performed some bloodcurdlingly awful live versions of it. But you'd have to trudge a long way to find anything as shocking as the punishment meted out to it by Bon Jovi .

As for the definitive version...I yield to no man in my love of versions by Jeff Buckley, Rufus Wainwright, Imogen Heap, kd lang, Kathryn Williams, Damien Rice and Keren Ann. For me though, John Cale's remains the mother of all Hallelujahs and is unlikely to ever be matched. What do you think?