Hallelujah | |
Type: | single |
Artist: | Deep Purple |
B-Side: | April Part I |
Released: | 25 July 1969 [1] |
Recorded: | 7 & 12 June 1969 |
Length: | 3:38 |
Label: |
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Producer: | Deep Purple |
Prev Title: | Emmaretta |
Prev Year: | 1969 |
Next Title: | Black Night |
Next Year: | 1970 |
"Hallelujah" is a song by English hard rock group Deep Purple, released in 1969. It is the first single to feature singer Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover and released in-between their 1969 eponymous album and the live Concerto for Group and Orchestra. The B-side was an edit of the instrumental album track "April".
The track was recorded on 7 and 12 June 1969. At the time, Glover had not yet joined the band and played on the track as a session musician.[2]
The song was written by Roger Greenaway and Roger Cook, and originally released as "I am the Preacher" by The Derek Lawrence Statement earlier the same year.[3] Deep Purple's cover version flopped, despite TV appearances to promote the record in the UK. Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore told the Record Mirror that the new band "need to have a commercial record in Britain", and described the song as "an in-between sort of thing"—a median between what the band would normally make but with an added commercial motive.[4] Gillan was unhappy about the single because he did not write the lyrics.