Live Songs

Live Songs was recorded in 1970 and 1972 and released in April 1973. Cohen had agreed to tour reluctantly after Songs from a Room, and the album is mostly reworked songs from that record taken from the 1972 European tour. The Isle of Wight performance of Tonight Will Be Fine, in 1970, was sung to a crowd of 600,000. Bob Johnston recalled that Cohen was woken at 4 am, took the stage in pajamas under a raincoat, and calmed an unruly audience. The set was recorded in London, Brussels, Paris and Berlin, and Queen Victoria is a track Cohen recorded alone in a Tennessee hotel room in 1972.

The band was The Army: Ron Cornelius, Charlie Daniels, Elkin Fowler, David O'Connor, Peter Marshall and Johnston, who played guitar, harmonica and organ because Cohen insisted. Jennifer Warnes sang backing vocals, credited as Jennifer Warren. It was a commercial disappointment and the last Cohen LP on the US charts for more than a decade. Cohen told Melody Maker in 1975 that it represented a very confused and directionless time. The biographer Ira Nadel called it uneven but spontaneous. The liner notes were written by Daphne Richardson, and the cover photo was taken by Suzanne Elrod.