Songs From A Room  by Leonard Cohen

The second recording effort of Leonard Cohen will be released in 1969 with the title Songs From A Room. David Crosby initially was the producer of the album, but this did not go well at all, so Bob Johnston ultimately took over the production. Leonard Cohen intended - and succeeded - to make the production of the album as simple and bare as possible, in order for people to pay attention to his lyrics.

Out of the ten songs on the album, nine are his own, while there is also The Partisan, which is his rendition of La Complainte du Partisan written by the Frenchwoman Anna Marly, with which the composer sends an anti-fascist message. The great success of the album was its opening song, Bird On The Wire, which Cohen began writing on the island of Hydra in Greece and completed in Hollywood (!). For years, he opened his performances with it.

The second album will attract the interest of his compatriots, and thus in Canada it will reach No. 10 with sales of about 50,000 copies. In the United Kingdom, it reached No. 2, where its sales exceeded 60,000 copies.