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The 1969 song Roger Waters and Kris Kristofferson agreed was a masterpiece
Roger Waters and Kris Kristofferson both admired Leonard Cohen’s 1969 song ‘Bird on the Wire’, despite their very different musical backgrounds. The article presents their shared appreciation as a meeting point between two songwriters whose work explored the human condition.
Waters called the song “simple, so moving, so brilliant” when he selected it for Desert Island Discs in 2011, praising Cohen and Bob Dylan for connecting poetry with song lyrics. Cohen said Kristofferson had told him he planned to put the song’s opening lines on his tombstone; Kristofferson died in 2024 without a traditional tombstone.
In short
- Waters praised Cohen’s ‘Bird on the Wire’ on Desert Island Discs.
- Kristofferson said he wanted its opening lines on his tombstone.
- The 1969 song resonated across very different musical worlds.
Explained simply
Leonard Cohen was a Canadian singer-songwriter and poet whose songs often paired spare melodies with carefully written lyrics. ‘Bird on the Wire’, released in 1969, is one of his best-known songs and reflects on the struggle to live freely while making mistakes.
Roger Waters, a songwriter and former member of the British rock band Pink Floyd, and Kris Kristofferson, an American country singer-songwriter and actor, came from different musical traditions. Their appreciation of Cohen’s song shows how a piece of writing can resonate across musical styles and generations.