Songs from the Road (Leonard Cohen album)

Overview

Songs From the Road appeared roughly 14 months after releasing Live in London, which preserved Cohen's July 2008 performance at London's 02 Arena. This collection features 12 tunes from his 2008 and 2009 concert dates, and while this album isn't exactly a collection of rarities, it does feature a number of lesser-known tunes (such as "Heart with No Companion" and "That Don't Make It Junk") and variant versions of some of his more famous numbers (Cohen juggles the order of the verses on "Suzanne" and adds a new verse to "Bird on a Wire"). The selections were culled from a wide variety of locations, including Tel Aviv, Scotland, Finland, and Cohen's native Canada.

Reception

Songs from the Road elicited mixed reactions from critics. In his review for AllMusic, Mark Deming writes: "While Live in London was a richly satisfying souvenir of Cohen's inspired comeback shows, Songs from the Road is less impressive in its more modest scale and less cohesive atmosphere. But the album still demonstrates that Cohen is a compelling and absorbing performer who brings his soul into every verse he sings, and his band is nothing less that [sic] superb …"

Robert Christgau, who considered Live in London "pretty close" to a career testament, called Songs from the Road "prunelike" and wrote that on the release "many titles are a touch less than prime", but he later noted that, like the other releases from the last stretch of Cohen's career, it was produced "without slackening his lifelong perfectionism".

Track listing

All tracks written by Leonard Cohen, except where noted.

Musicians