Altman didn't expect to be able to procure rights for Cohen's music since "McCabe" was a Warner Brothers film and Cohen's album was released through Columbia Records. He called Cohen, expecting to trade off his recent success with "M*A*S*H", but found that Cohen had no knowledge of it. Instead, Cohen had loved Altman's less popular follow-up film "Brewster McCloud". Cohen arranged for his record company to license the music cheaply, even writing into the contract that sales of that album after the release of "McCabe" would turn some of the royalties to Altman (an arrangement which at the time was quite unusual). The three Cohen songs used in the film were "The Stranger Song", "Sisters of Mercy" and "Winter Lady". They were released together on a 7-inch single in France in 1971, and other European countries during 1972.