Leonard Cohen’s ballad “Hallelujah” has become so inescapable that the songwriter once asked for a break from his own track. “I think it’s a good song, but too many people sing it,” he told the Guardian in 2009, agreeing with a critic who asked for “a moratorium on ‘Hallelujah’ in movies and television shows.”

It appears that the producers of Sunday night’s Emmy Awards were unaware of the unofficial ban. When the In Memoriam segment began, it was accompanied by Tori Kelly’s gentle acoustic guitar strumming as she started its first verse: “Well, I heard there was a secret chord.”

The reaction on Twitter was less cryptic: Another “Hallelujah” moment?

Few people noticed “Hallelujah” when Cohen released the track — part hymn, part love song — on Side 2 of his 1984 album “Various Positions,” but over the next few years, it caught the attention of artists like Bob Dylan (who played it live) and the former Velvet Underground member John Cale, who attempted his own version on the tribute album “I’m Your Fan.” In 1994, Jeff Buckley included an impassioned version on his LP “Grace,” which has become the version that is most often imitated.

The song has since become a contemporary standard, performed everywhere from subway stops to synagogues, where its melody is often transposed onto the lyrics of the Sabbath liturgical song “Lecha Dodi.” Bono, Bon Jovi, Willie Nelson, Paramore and Celine Dion have all recorded it.

But “Hallelujah” is most familiar from film and TV, where it has soundtracked dozens of deaths and breakups, and been belted in too many singing competitions to count. Because it telegraphs emotion — both mournful and hopeful — and involves some vocal acrobatics, it has become shorthand for Big Emotional Moment and employed by performers looking to stamp themselves with authenticity.

Here’s a brief history of how pop culture has tortured Cohen’s creation over the years:

“Basquiat”

The soundtrack to “Basquiat” (1996) is heavy on post-punk (Bush Tetras), rock (the Rolling Stones) and jazz (Charlie Parker). But it closes it with Cale’s version of “Hallelujah,” a key moment in both the song’s ascent and the artist’s post-mortem sanctification.

“Shrek”

According to “The Holy or the Broken,” the music critic Alan Light’s book on “Hallelujah,” the musical directors for “Shrek” (2001) discovered Cale’s cover through its placement in “Basquiat.” His version appears in the film, but the soundtrack instead features a new cover by Rufus Wainwright.

“The West Wing”

The political drama “The West Wing” is occasionally described as prescient. This could certainly be said regarding its use of “Hallelujah,” which popularized the trend of using the song in the final moments of a season finale, particularly one in which a character dies unexpectedly.

“The O.C.”

The early-2000s teen drama “The O.C.” used Buckley’s “Hallelujah” twice in the first season: once in the second episode, during an intimate moment between the star-crossed high school lovers Marissa and Ryan, and again in the finale, before the main characters all part ways. Two seasons later, they reprised the song, this time sung by Imogen Heap, as Ryan pulls Marissa’s body from a flaming car.

“Watchmen”

The first lines of “Hallelujah” refer to the story of David in the Book of Samuel, but the fourth verse’s combination of sexual and divine love makes the tune something of a modern-day Song of Songs. Zack Snyder’s “Watchmen” (2009) brings this eroticism to the surface, using “Hallelujah” to soundtrack a sex scene featuring the characters Nite Owl and Silk Spectre II.

“Lord of War”

This stylish Nicolas Cage movie about a semi-repentant arms dealer includes a few creative soundtrack selections, most notably Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth.” The decision to use “Hallelujah” in the final minutes of the 2005 film was already almost cliché.

“ER,” “Scrubs,” “General Hospital” (twice), “Trauma,” “House”

“Hallelujah” found a natural home in the hospital shows of the late-2000s, and it was frequently called upon to lend extra gravitas to a patient’s dramatic death. On a particularly lachrymose episode of “General Hospital,” the staff sings “Hallelujah” as they bus into the mountains for a ski trip. The song then returns after their bus crashes in the snow.

Hope for Haiti Now

Justin Timberlake skipped the erotic lines when he sang “Hallelujah” at the Hope for Haiti Now concert, which raised money for relief after the earthquake in 2010.

12-12-12 Concert for Sandy Relief

Cohen drafted around 80 verses while writing his original “Hallelujah.” Adam Sandler came up with a few more for the Hurricane Sandy benefit at Madison Square Garden, adding lyrics about Mark Sanchez’s “butt fumble” and the loss of pornographic theaters in Times Square.

“American Idol,” “The X Factor,” “America’s Got Talent,” “The Sing-Off”

“Hallelujah” survived the doctor dramas and the evening-soap finales, but it almost succumbed to reality TV, where unseasoned vocalists repeatedly tried to impress their judges by remaking it with big runs and rococo flourishes. Jason Castro delivered the most celebrated “Idol” performance, and Alexandra Burke won Britain’s “X Factor” by attempting to “Whitney-fy” it in her series finale. Anna Clendening would later perform “Hallelujah” on “America’s Got Talent” and Street Corner Symphony attempted their own version on an a cappella championship “The Sing-Off.”

“Dancing With the Stars”

Leonard Cohen’s quiet, humble song received its grandest treatment in 2010, when Michael Bolton bellowed its lyrics while surrounded by smoke machines and a children’s choir on an episode of “Dancing With the Stars.” He seemed to ascend to heaven as he sang: Tom Bergeron, the host, described the performance as triumphant — and intended that as a compliment.

© 2016 The New York Times Company