Leonard Cohen almost gave up on his musical career during the conflicted production of this stark and intimate artistic statement. The triumph of his debut album 'Songs of Leonard Cohen' had left him empty and exhausted and uncertain of his future: "I had no idea there was going to be a second record and I myself felt no urgency to produce one but somehow a kind of pressure did develop to produce another record. Columbia wanted another record. My management wanted another record and I suppose I wanted one too just to prove to myself that I wasn't entirely impotent; so I tried to put together some songs but I didn't really have any songs and I just let it go, man. I just left. I went back to Greece for a little while and I just travelled around the states. I had given up the idea of a second record. I had thought to myself that it was a good thing to have produced a record and now I could just get back to my life and do whatever comes next. Then I tried very hard to write and for several months I'd sit down everyday in front of a piece of paper in motels in California and try to write, which is something I had never done. I'd only written when there was an urgency to write. I tried to put songs together and nothing happened. I suppose I couldn't reconcile myself to the idea that I had no more songs and no more anything. After a while I was ready to accept that and then one day I just happened to meet Bob Johnston and I liked the way he talked and the way he understood my first record and what was right with it and what was wrong and just on the basis of a very short conversation I said I'd come to Nashville and try it out with him. So I went down there, I put down a few songs and I came back another time and I played with a group of musicians - very good musicians, good men - and I said let's listen to it. We listened to it and my voice was completely dishonest. There wasn't anything straight at all in my voice. It was a painful disaster just to listen to it; so I asked the musicians to go home and I went out and talked to Bob Johnston. We talked for some time and I said it's all over. I said I just can't squeeze out another record merely because people liked my first one; so let's just forget about it. So he said OK, we'll forget about it. And I went back to my motel and thought about all the things I'd do in my new life and got more and more depressed. And then one morning I woke up and I changed a couple of lines in the very first song I had written in that second phase of writing and I went into the studio and it seemed to spring into shape. I had a lot of help from my friend too, the jew's harp player whose name is Zem. He's a close friend of mine and he was a great support. So between Zem and Bob Johnston and the Nashville muscians, people like Charlie McCoy and Charlie Daniels, we put it together."
'Songs from a Room' was recorded at Columbia Studio A in Nashville and features Cohen on vocals; Ron Cornelius on acoustic and electric guitar; Bubba Fowler on banjo, bass guitar, violin, and acoustic guitar; Charlie Daniels on bass guitar, violin, and acoustic guitar; Bob Johnston on production and keyboards; and Neil Wilburn as engineer. The album went to number sixty-three in the US, ten in Canada, and number two in the UK.
http://www.leonardcohen.com/
"Bird on the Wire" - 3:28
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEJGWSRxW7U
'Songs from a Room' full album:
http://www.leonardcohen.com/us/music/songs-room
https://myspace.com/leonardcohenlegacy/music/album/songs-from-a-room-8121729
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0DA2921180888A9F
All songs written by Leonard Cohen except as noted.
Side one
"Bird on the Wire" - 3:28
"Story of Isaac" - 3:38
"A Bunch of Lonesome Heroes" - 3:18
"The Partisan" (Hy Zaret/Anna Marly) - 3:29
"Seems So Long Ago, Nancy" - 3:41
Side two
"The Old Revolution" - 4:50
"The Butcher" - 3:22
"You Know Who I Am" - 3:32
"Lady Midnight" - 3:01
"Tonight Will Be Fine" - 3:53
bonus
"Like a Bird (Bird on the Wire)" - 3:21
"Nothing to One (You Know Who I Am)" - 2:17
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