every breath he drew was hallelujah

I had every intention of writing a blow-by-blow recap of the American Idol finale, squeezing in together the performance night and the official season finale itself. However, after watching the show, I do not know how I was supposed to pull-off a commentary for each of the performances, when there was but one performance that captured me in all ways possible.

Yes, congratulations to David Cook for winning the title of American Idol. The moment Simon apologized to Cook for his comments the night before, I think we all knew who the next American Idol was. I mean, hey, that was such a dead give away. I love how Cook said that he didn’t think the apology was necessary because he did not feel like he was disrespected at all. All things considered, I’m not sure what Simon did to disrespect Cook that night. Maybe there were disrespectful snags here and there, but nothing as overt as Paulagate *ahem* where he said an apology was unnecessary.

Congratulations, too, to David Archuleta for making it this far. (But seriously, did we ever doubt he’d make it this far? *crowd shakes heads furiously*) I believe he did well come Top 2, and I’ll deal more with that soon.

So, Jonas Brothers aside, about 25-30 minutes into the show, Ryan Seacrest introduced us to a performer – an artist – we all know and love. I’m not even going to pay attention to the dismissive intro he gave him (which really hit a nerve), because in a night filled with special guests and special numbers, SPECIAL does not even begin to describe how this next number is.

I admit, I was a little worried when I found out Jason Castro was singing Hallelujah. Archuleta reprised Imagine just the night before, and to me, it was not as successful as it was the first time around. Nonetheless, to everyone’s surprise, I suppose, it was unbelievably more unbelievable than how he performed it three weeks into the semifinals.

In my mind, the two performances will not overlap. I would not bother comparing Hallelujah 1.0 with Hallelujah 2.0 for many reasons, i.e. he was singing the same song (albeit a slightly altered version of it) under different circumstances. Amazingly enough, by injecting a slew of emotions in phrases different from the first, he has made it easier for me not to compare the two.

Hallelujah 1.0 is different from Hallelujah 2.0, that is why Hallelujah 2.0 is not called Hallelujah 1.1 – get it?

“Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out. Perfect understanding will something almost extinguish pleasure,” so a line from A.E. Housman goes. With his performance for the finale, just like all of his performances in American Idol, I’d like to treat them as poetry – as artistic expressions – rather than a law proclamation that is interpreted and explained over and over and over.

For Hallelujah, I will just leave it be that it was artfully stimulating and emotively heart-wrenching. It mattered not that AI did not give him a duet partner, because Hallelujah has been and will always be Jason Castro’s AI moment alone. His performance had me aching for him – in a good way. And yes, every breath he drew was Hallelujah.