Jennifer Warnes’ Famous Blue Raincoat: Audiophile Addendum

Filed under: Leonard Cohen, Music | By DrHGuy | August 6, 2007 at 3:40 pm

Writing about Jennifer Warnes’ Famous Blue Raincoat this morning brought to mind the guy who installs and, on occasion, revives my TV and Sound equipment that requires something more than being plugged into an electrical outlet to function properly. He was also the first hard core fan of this album I ever met. Consequently, I emailed him about the impending release of the 20th Anniversary re-issue.

In his response, he wrote,

When listening to Bird on a Wire with a very high resolution sound system you can hear what sounds like a deep guttural humming along with Warnes’ vocals. On anything less than that is does not turn up at all, or sounds like a partially blown woofer. Is that Leonard Cohen humming along?

Knowing my correspondent was not one given to hallucinations or the mid-day ingestion of intoxicating doses of legal or illegal substances, I investigated, only to discover that Jennifer Warnes’ Famous Blue Raincoat, or as the vinyl-philes affectionately call it, Cypress 661 111-1, has a second career as a test LP for audio equipment. In tech circles, in fact, the Bird On A Wire hum is quite well known.

The review of the Origin Live “Advanced” power supply and DC-100 Motor at Vinyl Asylum, for example, describes it thusly,

On Jennifer Warnes “Famous Blue Raincoat” the song “Bird On a Wire” has a low background humming by a bass. [With the equipment being reviewed,] This humming is more distinct, with greater weight and greater extension. Musically, the humming is more integrated with the melody. The integration between octaves is tighter, vocal transitions between chest and throat are clearer and more natural sounding.

And The Answer Is …

Thus enlightened, I pursued the query and a few emails later, I was in possession of information from that usually reliable source¹ that the referenced hum in Jennifer Warnes’ Bird on a Wire is the sound of Leonard Cohen’s voice doubling behind and an or octave below Warnes.

Feel free to impress your friends and win bar bets.

Footnotes

This source has been 100% correct about such matters in the past, but I have no way to double-check this tidbit so if anyone has information that confirms or conflicts with the answer I’ve reported, I’d appreciate an email. ~back~

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