P.E.I. singer's Hallelujah closes in on 8 million views
A P.E.I. singer's version of Hallelujah has gone viral all over again, racking up millions of views on the the Christian version of YouTube.
As of Tuesday morning Kelly Mooney's version of the song had 6.5 million views on GodTube.
Mooney recorded this version of the song more than four years ago with a children's choir. The video was on YouTube where it received 1.4 million views before being posted on GodTube on Holy Thursday, just in time for the Easter weekend.
"The lyrics right from the Easter passage, the fact that it is Easter, the kids, the choir, all those circumstances together evoke something in people," said Mooney.
That includes millions of likes on Facebook, and hundreds of emails from around the world looking for their own copy of the song.
"It's been downloaded quite a few times over the last few days. Both just the Hallelujah track and the CD itself. I've been getting a lot of emails asking, 'Where can I find the CD? I can't find it anywhere.'"
It also brought a call from the website hosting company that built and maintains Mooney's website.
"She … said, 'Guess what it is. Because of you my entire server got shut down. There's so much traffic on your website that it just blew everything.'"
Mooney received special permission from Canadian music legend Leonard Cohen allowing her to alter the lyrics to a more religious message. It is not just her performance that has been a hit. Many people have written to her for copies of the lyrics so they can perform in their own churches.
Mooney is trying to remain calm about the sudden success of the video.
"I have chosen not to give it a lot of thought," said Mooney as the video approaches eight million views.
"I've just chosen to let it take its own path and if I get carried along that's great. And if I don't, at least the song is doing I think what it probably was meant to do."
