Can someone tell what this line means :

[UndertheOcean]

"Maybe there's a God above , and all I ever learned from love , is how to shoot at someone who outdrew you "

This line baffles me , somehow it doesn't make sense with the rest of the songs , atleast not to me .

[Indi Guy]

1. I think I get it...

The author is taught to believe that God is love; but those who claim to love the author are the first to inflict pain -- and all that can be thought of is retaliation...

[UndertheOcean]

2. thanks , I get it now !

[Danger Mouse]

3. my favorite line from the buckley version.

[alphafemale]

4. kd lang did the best version of this song I ever heard

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=P_NpxTWbovE

[stuntcat]

7. right on..

Hallelujah is my most perfect favorite song and k.d. does it best. I went to see her in concert, hoping she'd play it, and she did and I cried through the whole song.

[Guava Jelly]

5. It means Mr. Cohen has learned the wrong lesson.

Or dated the wrong person.

[jobycom]

6. Love is defensive for the writer.

"Maybe there's a God above" means maybe there's more to life and love than what he's experienced, something eternal and good, and his problem is that he's only experienced love where he and the other person try to hurt each other before the other can hurt them. He feels like he's always being outdrawn, implying maybe that he's the less cynical one, that the other person always draws first, but he still expects to have to draw in self defense. He's too defensive and jaded to experience love in a pure, higher, form.

[Chan790]

8. Well...

being rather smart in these things and as pevvy as I am, I assume you noticed the song is one long religious allegory for love sprinkled with references to bondage, S/m and ultimately, surrender.

It means he's learned (from experience) how to hurt those that love him before they can hurt him.

Also, if we go by the argument that Cohen's version is canonical because he wrote the song, the line isn't in there. It doesn't fit with the larger allegory as he intended it. (True love as a failed monastic pursuit complete with suffering which brings us closer to an understanding of the divine.) Cohen's lyrics: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/leonardcohen/hallelujah.html

The line "Maybe there's a god above, but all I ever learned from love, is how to shoot someone who outdrew you." first appears in Jeff Buckley's version, among other changes. http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/jeffbuckley/hallelujah.html

There is a lot less leeway/give to interpret the line as written. There is violence instead of the implication of violence. Also, in just one word ("but"), it frames an anti-apotheosis between God and carnal love. To the writer/singer of these words, the concepts of love and God are not unified but set in opposition. Consider in light of the larger allegory. Does this clarify or muddle what Cohen was trying to say? Has Buckley perhaps restated a new and different allegory?

[Guava Jelly]

9. I stand corrected

I didn't realize Cohen didn't write the line.

[Chan790]

10. It's alright, nobody does.

Also there's a story (probably apocryphal) that a songwriter once asked him for the lyrics and was handed a notebook: full of lyrics, scratched out, rewritten, lines that were used, lines that have never seen the light of day. Cohen might have written it even, but it's not the version he decided was best and recorded.

An entire spiral-bound notebook though. Typical poet. :rofl: