Birds On A Wire

"Bird on a wire."
Where did that phrase come from.

I knew about the movie,
but I didn't know about the song.

And the wire was telephone wire, not barbed wire.

LeonardCohenFiles.com:

"On September 27, 1960, six days after his twenty-sixth birthday, Cohen bought a house in Hydra for $1500...was run down and had no electricity, plumbing or running water. Yet it was a private space where he could work,...

Here he could live in virtually complete seclusion, at a fraction of the cost it would take in Northern Europe or Canada, where the people were unconcerned as to who you were or what you [did]; And where breathtaking vistas opened up for the seeing - both external and internal...

Bird on the Wire began in Greece, when Cohen first arrived in Hydra, there were no wires on the island, no telephones and no regular electricity. But soon telephone poles appeared, and then the wires. I would stare out the window at these telephone wires and think, how civilization had caught up with me and I wasn't going to be able to escape after all."

How to get there?

House photos



Hydra, the island.
Hydra, the village (capital and main port).
No vehicles.