Canadian pop and country singer
K.D. Lang is one of the true trailblazers in the music industry. She’s an accomplished singer, songwriter, and actress with a mezzo-soprano vocal range and four Grammy Awards out of nine nominations to her name. And over the years, she’s worked with some of the biggest names in country music such as Dwight Yoakam, Roy Orbison, and Bonnie Raitt. Lang was also the first country music artist to come out as openly gay in 1992, although she later chose to leave the genre after the fallout of her announcement. Back in those days, some radio stations even stopped playing her music, and she was ostracized by the country music community.
Recently, Lang shared how exhausting her journey has been since she decided to make her sexuality public, however, she feels that it was a necessary sacrifice to bring the issues facing the LGBT community to the forefront of the discussion. One of Lang’s personal heroes in the business is the legendary poet and musician Leonard Cohen who, like Lang, was a devout Buddist. Back in 2006, while Cohen was being inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, Lang had an opportunity to perform Cohen’s iconic “Hallelujah.” The singer admits that she was very nervous but thought she would go out and offer her unique interpretation of his beautiful song.
When describing the song, Lang talked about how it resonated with her spiritually:
“There’s something about the lyrics that transport you into a more meditative state,” she says. “To me it’s (about) the struggle between having human desire and searching for spiritual wisdom. It’s being caught between those two places.”
After her performance, Cohen gave her a big “Buddist hug” that told her he was very proud and pleased with her rendition. After that, she only saw him a few more times before his death in 2016. After his passing, Lang spoke about the impact his music had on the world, stating that “He imparted so much wisdom. He was a translator between the gods and humans.” You can watch K.D. Langs’s breathtaking performance of Hallelujah in the video below.
