Bird on the Wire
Song by Leonard CohenWikipedia
15
MENTIONS
6
EPISODES
6
PODCASTS
Search complete. 15 mentions across 6 episodes found for "Bird on the Wire".
Oct 4, 2026
Elvis CostelloGUEST
You know, mainstream artists who had big, bigger audiences, if not pop audiences, sang Leonard Cohen songs.
Elvis CostelloGUEST
And Joe Cocker did a great version of Bird on a Wire.
Elvis CostelloGUEST
And maybe I thought if it didn't matter of a song, if maybe that would be the freaky way I would get heard as a writer.
Elvis CostelloGUEST
I mean, I can't, there's a song there, No Star, which I could really hear being done.
Cian SullivanGUEST
Norianna Kennedy has been touring with the Kevin Burke of Boppy Band.
Cian SullivanGUEST
All three of them came together to perform with Pauline Scanlon as part of Bird on the Wire, which was a celebration of the songs of Leonard Cohen.
Cian SullivanGUEST
So they've been working hard, doing their own sort of exploration of their art and their music.
Cian SullivanGUEST
But kind of what brought or what helped them kind of come back together and focus on creating new music was when the producer Brian Brinkenhoff reached out to them, which kind of took them all by surprise.
Kam FranklinGUEST
So I was daydreaming for a little bit.
Kam FranklinGUEST
And I learned the first song I learned on guitar, which was on this list, was Bird on a Wire by Leonard Cohen.
Kam FranklinGUEST
In my audition, I practiced singing.
Kam FranklinGUEST
at least for 12 hours, both days, my fingers are bleeding in my audition.
Dave ShawHOST
In 1970, Cohen toured for the first time in the United States and Canada and Europe and appeared at the Isle of Wight Festival.
Dave ShawHOST
In 1972, he toured again in Europe and Israel and wrote and eventually released a song in 2010 under the title Bird on a Wire.
Bill HansonHOST
In 1973, when Egypt and Syria attacked Israel, on the Yom Kippur Day, Cohen arrived in Israel.
Bill HansonHOST
He was spotted in a Tel Aviv pinata cafe by Israeli musicians Ashgut Levi, Matty Caspi, and Ilana Rovina, who offered him to go together to Sinai to sing for Israeli soldiers.
Roger FarrellyHOST
yeah.
Roger FarrellyHOST
Now, Producer Mitch, more on this after seven, but you're really invested in the Bird of the Year competition.
MitchPANELIST
Oh, mate, the countdown's pretty big, but Bird of the Year, man.
MitchPANELIST
And when does it wrap up? This Sunday.
MitchPANELIST
Can you believe it? Have we not brought it up yet? Because it's loose.
MitchPANELIST
fact, there's a big movement behind this bird.
MitchPANELIST
There's an Instagram page that's been set up for it.
MitchPANELIST
If you've got time, jump on Instagram, check out at Taka Hay for Bird of the Year 2026.
RosannaHOST
There's a story, often repeated, that she once pointed out a bird sitting on a telephone wire outside their window.
RosannaHOST
and said it looked like a musical staff and that this became the seed of bird on the wire one of cohen's most loved songs years later it's a charming detail and it's widely repeated but i'll flag that i couldn't find it traced back to a single primary interview with either of them so treat it as one of those stories that's probably true in spirit even if the exact moment has been smoothed out in the retelling chapter three from poet to singer By the mid-1960s, Cohen's poetry and fiction weren't making him a living, and in 1966 he made the decision that changed both their lives.
RosannaHOST
He moved to New York to try becoming a folk singer instead, at the relatively unusual age of 31.
RosannaHOST
Marianne and her son moved with him, back and forth between Hydra and Montreal and New York, as Cohen worked his way into the Greenwich Village folk scene.
RosannaHOST
The album made him famous in the specific, cult, critically adored way Leonard Cohen has always been famous, and it's built almost entirely out of the previous seven years of his life.
RosannaHOST
Two more albums followed quickly.
RosannaHOST
Songs from A Room in 1969, which includes Bird on the Wire and Songs of Love and Hate in 1971.
RosannaHOST
Here's a detail I think is genuinely worth pausing on because it's a rarer thing in this podcast back catalogue than you'd think.