Leonard Cohen - BBC Sessions, Volume 1 (1967-2008)

I recently decided to reorganize some of my Leonard Cohen music so I could post more of his albums here. As part of that, I've found enough for four BBC albums. I posted one BBC album already, and I'll explain more about that one below. Plus, I found two more BBC concerts. So that leaves this, which is kind of the scraps of everything else he did for the BBC over his entire career. It deals with a whopping 41 years of music, but it's all consistently good stuff.

Before I go any further, let me explain some reorganizing I did. I previously had two songs Cohen performed for the BBC in 1967 on a stray tracks album called "Out of the Land of Heaven." I've made a bunch of changes to that album, including moving those two songs here, where they're a better fit. I recommend you redownload that album if you had it already. Here's the link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2020/05/leonard-cohen-out-of-land-of-heaven.html

Those two 1967 songs are the first two tracks here. They're from a BBC TV show hosted by singer Julie Felix, and one of them is a duet with Felix. As mentioned above, I had previously posted a Cohen BBC album. That one is a short concert done in a studio in 1968. Since the two 1967 songs come first, I'm calling this album "BBC Sessions, Volume 1," and I've renamed the 1968 concert "BBC Sessions, Volume 2," and given it a new album cover and so forth. I recommend you redownload that one if you're a stickler for these kinds of things. Here's the link to that one:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2020/01/leonard-cohen-leonard-cohen-sings.html

1968 was a big year for Cohen and the BBC. Not only did he do that concert that makes up Volume 2 in this series, he also did a studio session for BBC DJ John Peel. He played five songs. Only four were broadcast, but all five have somehow been bootlegged. Those make up tracks 3 through 7 of this album.

After that, we have the first big time jump. In 1976, Cohen played a couple of songs with singer Judy Collins on a TV show. In 1966, Collins recorded a version of Cohen's song "Suzanne," and put it on her album "In My Life." This was the first public revelation of Cohen's songwriting brilliance, and it led to him getting a record contract. So it was only fitting that Cohen and Collins performed a duet of "Suzanne" in this 1976 performance, as well as a duet of his "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye." 

By the way, note that this album has no less than three versions of "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye." Normally, I wouldn't want that, but I figure it's okay in this case, because one is a duet with Julie Felix, another is Cohen by himself, and the third is a duet with Judy Collins.

Then there's another big time jump, to 1993. He was promoting his 1992 album "The Future," which in my opinion at least ties for his best album of his career. As part of his promotion, he performed three songs on the BBC TV show "Later... with Jools Holland." Those are tracks 11 through 13.

Finally, in 2008, Cohen played at the annual Glastonbury Festival. Virtually everything from this festival is broadcast on the BBC. But oddly, either his set wasn't broadcast or I can't find it anywhere. There are a few videos of songs from it up on YouTube, but they sound pretty poor. So there's only one song here from that, "Hallelujah." It's from the 2022 official album "Hallelujah and Songs from His Albums." It's the only rarity from that album. It also happens to be the only officially released song on this album.

I'll be posting BBC concerts from 1979 and 1988 after this. If you know of anything else he did for the BBC that I missed, please let me know so I can add it in. Hopefully too the full Glastonbury performance will be made available.

Oh, there's a bonus track, "The Stranger Song." This dates all the way back to May 1966. It was done for a CBC TV show in Canada called "Take 30." That's only a bonus track since it was done for the CBC, not the BBC. But I figure it at least merits bonus track status here, since it almost certainly was the first time he sang on of his songs on a TV show.

This album is an hour and four minutes long.

01 Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye (Leonard Cohen with Julie Felix)
02 The Stranger Song (Leonard Cohen)
03 You Know Who I Am (Leonard Cohen)
04 Bird on the Wire (Leonard Cohen)
05 Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye (Leonard Cohen)
06 Dress Rehearsal Rag (Leonard Cohen)
07 So Long, Marianne (Leonard Cohen)
08 Suzanne (Judy Collins & Leonard Cohen)
09 talk (Judy Collins & Leonard Cohen)
10 Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye (Judy Collins & Leonard Cohen)
11 Democracy (Leonard Cohen)
12 The Future (Leonard Cohen)
13 Dance Me to the End of Love (Leonard Cohen)
14 Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen)

The Stranger Song (Leonard Cohen)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15970804/LeonardC_1967-2008_BBSessonsVolum1_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is a screenshot I took of Cohen and Judy Collins singing on TV in 1976.