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Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah set for top two spots in Christmas Day charts

Buckley fans try to bump Burke

A bunfight has kicked off on the interwebs between fans of the teary-eyed winner of X Factor and fey, navel-gazing muso types who want their Hallelujah back.

The result? Leonard Cohen’s oft-covered love song could occupy the number one and number two slots on Christmas Day.

Fans have been doing their best to counteract Alexandra Burke’s inevitable onslaught on the Xmas charts by downloading Jeff Buckley’s version of Hallelujah.

American singer-songwriter Buckley, who died in 1997, looks increasingly likely to posthumously take the runner-up prize in the charts behind Burke’s populist take on the much-loved song.

Burke won ITV’s X Factor last week, since when world+dog has downloaded her Hallelujah. But Buckley fans, who believe his superior interpretation should take the No 1 slot, have also been voting with their fingers.

They’ve been busily downloading the song, which was originally released on the singer’s Grace album way back in 1994 when the X Factor was merely a twinkle in Simon Cowell’s eye.

Unofficial-provisional-mid-week-anything-can-happen-and-probably-will charts reveal that Buckley’s version is currently at No 3, behind Leona Lewis’s cover of Run by indie bores Snow Patrol.

The official charts will be announced on Sunday when the nation will find out whose song will take the sweet No 1 honours on Christmas Day.

Cohen, who was forced to tour for the first time in 15 years after his former business manager allegedly misappropriated the millions he had put aside as his retirement fund, will doubtless benefit from the double bubble sales of his song.

But the real winner will of course be Sony BMG, seeing as it counts both Buckley and Burke, as well as Cohen, on its roster of artists. ®

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