Songs From a Room
"I choose the rooms that I live in with care / The windows are small and the walls almost bare," Leonard Cohen sings in a particularly telling couplet in "Tonight Will Be Fine," one of the highlights in this aptly titled album from 1969. The Canadian poet-performer's sophomore release has the sub rosa feel of an attic hideaway, thanks in part to Bob Johnston's restrained production. Cohen's near-monotone vocals are suitable for conveying his finely honed, meditative musings but--at this stage in his development--not much else. Johnston's soundscapes aren't as beguiling as the ones John Simon created for Cohen's superior debut,Songs of Leonard Cohen, though lovely orchestral shadings flatter such Cohen classics as the oft-covered "Bird on the Wire" and "Story of Isaac."Songs from a Roomis only a secondary effort when it's stacked up against its consummate predecessor, But by any other measurement, it's an exceptionally literate and enigmatic recording by a true original.--Steven Stolder