Leonard Cohen: "I wanted to write something in the tradition of the hallelujah choruses but from a different point of view...It's the notion that there is no perfection- that there is a broken world and we live with broken hearts and broken lives but still that is no alibi for anything. On the contrary, you have to stand up and say hallelujah under those circumstances."

Quote above from Crowe, cd "Tidings:"

Everyone, including Cohen, sang it with the verses in different order, and leaving out or adding a verse. One might say the song is broken in the way our lives are broken. "....there is no perfection-."