Songs From a Room – Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen’s classic album, Songs From a Room, was written throughout 1968, and was originally meant to be produced by David Crosby until a dispute between the two folk heroes canceled those plans. The toned-down and austere album became one of Cohen’s most celebrated works after its release in 1969.
$100.00
How I Found This Album
This album was a recent discovery for me. Naturally, everyone knows Hallelujah, but aren’t aware that Leonard Cohen wrote it. People also forget that he was Jewish, and Hallelujah is not a religious song at all. Songs From a Room is hauntingly beautiful, with eerie instruments, such as jaw harps and organs. Songs like Seems So Long Ago, Nancy and Cohen’s cover of The Partisan are heavy with bleak poetic prose, but even songs that are more upbeat have a forlorn melody. The best way I can describe Songs From a Room is that it was made to listen to while smoking a cigarette outside on a frigidly cold day.
Songs From a Room is one of those albums that you listen to and instantly become a cooler person in doing so. Leonard Cohen truly had an inexplicable ability to create songs that are simultaneously emotive and raw, yet powerful and harsh. The world is surely worse off without him.