New Album

[danslenoir]

This may be a bit premature, but maybe now is the time to create a thread dedicated to LC's next studio album as according to this PR, material is being recorded for release allegedly next year:

http://www.americansongwriter.com/2009/ ... ext-album/

Details, speculation, discussion etc etc

If the youtube clips of new songs are anything to go by, we'll be in for a real treat!

[tomsakic]

That's not sneak peak - Mr. Footman is just listing the songs from our Forum - Lullaby and The Darkness - even using the title The Darkness which was provisionally used by few of us who were at the Venice gig in August and heard the song at the soundcheck.

The unofficial date for Leonard's new album is still AFTER THE TOUR. As the tour just today was announced to be continued in 2009, that means further delay of the CD (recording sessions had not begun yet at all).


I will quote my post from the topics dedicated to Leonard's new songs from this tour (originally posted in "The Darkness - new song from Venice" thread).

Now, the next album: according to recent rumours that Leonard and the band will not go to the studio after the tour, but to a vacation and to their families (well, it will be 18 months of touring), and the fact that SonyBMG sites removed "Leonard Cohen: TBA album" from all their forthcoming-titles lists (where it was listed since Remasters series in 2007), I guess the album will be another slow work. In April Leonard admitted he has only couple of songs, Amen and Lullaby. Did he forget about Book of Longing and Puppets? Maybe yes: because those two tracks were computer-produced, while in all recent interviews he announced that he will record the album with the current tour band. On the other hand, Sharon said clearly that the album is coming up (slowly) and that she knows that as she was involved in some songs. I firmly believe those are the songs she mentioned in her 2004 interview for our sites, one of the titles being "A Thousand Kisses Deep No. 2" (but then, Leonard used those words for "Recitation w/ N.L."). According to the early draft of Book of Longing, which was given around as PDF/print out, that song - printed in the final version of Book of Longing as "1" under "Thousand Kisses Deep" - was titled "Still Into That".


My list of works-in-progress, 2004-2009:

1. Still Into That (A Thousand Kisses Deep No. 2), with Sharon Robinson, in production after Dear Heather
[plus another song or two produced and co-written by Sharon]

[add.: that lyrics has been recited as Recitation with Neil Larsen on the current tour.]

2. "Taken Out Of Egypt": the original version of "I Can't Forget", discarded in 1987-88. Also titled at one point as "Born in Chains".

"[...] that song started off as a song about the exodus of the Hebrew people from Egypt. As a metaphor for the journey of the soul from bondage into freedom. It started out, I was born in chains but I was taken out of Egypt / I was bound to a burden but the burden it was raised / Lord I can no longer keep this secret / Blessed is the name, the name be praised. It went on like that for a long, long time, and I went into the studio and tried to sing this song about how "I was born in chains and I was taken..." But I wasn't born in chains and I wasn't taken out of Egypt, and not only that, but I was on the edge of what was going to become a very serious nervous breakdown. So I hadn't had the burden lifted and the whole thing was a lie! It was wishful thinking. And this song, "Taken Out of Egypt," took months and months to write. Nobody believes me when I say these things but I have the notebooks and I don't fill them in an evening. And there were many of them. So it wasn't as if I had an endless supply of songs: I had to start over. And I was saying to myself, "What is my life?" and that's when I started writing that lyric: I stumble out of bed / I got ready for the struggle / I smoked a cigarette / And I tightened up my gut / I said this can't be me / Must be my double / And I can't forget / I can't forget / But I don't remember what. That was really true."
(Leonard Cohen, interviewed by Mark Rowland, "Leonard Cohen's Nervous Breakthrough", Musician, July 1988.

Source: http://www.leonardcohenlive.com/storero ... ttakes.htm

I clearly heard Leonard mumbling these lines "I was born in chains" etc. to the unknown melody in Lian Lunson's 2005 documentary Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man. At that point [in 2005] I firmly believed he's gone back to that song.

3. Book of Longing, demo aired at KCRW in 2006

4. Puppets, demo aired at KCRW in 2006

5. The Street, recited live in 2006, according to Leonard in an interview: music co-written by Anjani Thomas

6. Blue Alert, Leonard's own version, demo discarded after he heard Anjani's version and then given to her for her album. This song is probably discarded forever, although I'd like to hear Leonard performing the version from Anjani's album (her music) as it's an excellent song for his voice.

Appendix about Leonard going back to decades old songs: Undertow, from 2004' Dear Heather, was written down on Closing Time manuscripts dated around 1990-91, on the margins of the notebooks (check viewtopic.php?p=44013#p44013); Never Got To Love You, written in 2004-05 for Anjani's Blue Alert, is in fact new version of the original, slow-ballad version of Leonard's own 1992 song Closing Time.

[Closing Time] Recorded "in 3/4 time with a really strong, nostalgic, melancholy country feel. Entirely different words." (Paul Zollo, "Leonard Cohen: Inside the Tower of Song", Song talk, April 1993). Takes have been destroyed by Cohen and he starts a new version (lyrics & music) in March 1992 (Ira B. Nadel, Leonard Cohen: le canadien errant (Various Positions), 1997: 327).
Source: http://www.leonardcohenlive.com/storero ... ttakes.htm

"On the song "Closing Time", from The Future, we had a gorgeous track that we worked on for quite a while. We brought in new musicians and did overdubs; a great arrangement that I was absolutely in love with. And Leonard said: "Darling it's not working." So he disappeared for a week, played into his synthesizer at a much brighter tempo with new lyrics - it was almost another song. The "new" version on the song was great hit for him in Canada". (Leanne Ungar, interviewed by Mel Lambert, INSIGHTS: Leanne Ungar, April 2001).
Source: http://www.leonardcohenlive.com/storero ... ttakes.htm

For instance, a song like "Closing Time" began as a song in 3/4 time with a really strong, nostalgic, melancholy country feel. Entirely different words. It began:

The parking lot is empty;
They switch off the Budweiser sign.
It’s dark from here to San Jobete,
It’s dark all down the line.
They ought to hand the night a ticket
For speeding, it’s a crime.
I had so much to tell you,
Yeah, but now it’s closing time.

And I recorded the song and I sang it. And I choked over it. Even though another singer could have done it perfectly well. It’s a perfectly reasonable song. And a good one, I might say. A respectable song. But I choked over it.
There wasn’t anything that really addressed my attention. The finishing of it was agreeable because it’s always an agreeable feeling. But when I tried to sing it I realized it came from my boredom and not from my attention. It came from my desire to finish the song and not from the urgency to locate a construction that would engross me.
So I went to work again. Then I filled another notebook from beginning to end with the lyric, or the attempts at the lyric, which eventually made it onto the album.

Source: http://www.leonardcohenfiles.com/zollo.html

7. Lullaby, performed live in 2009

8. Amen, mentioned in 2009 interviews as "finished"

9. untitled blues, provisionally titled by fans The Darkness, performed in Venice, August 2009, at the soundcheck. Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr7jptm02N4

10. According to Laura's post of Oct 1, 2009, Leonard rehearsed brand new song at the sound check in Barcelona?

Addition: 11. addition of Nov 4: "another blues song perfomed in the US, November 2009. Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oamvw_WFiZc

[orjan]

In the june 2008 interview he did say: "I’ve written most of a new album. I’ve recorded three tracks. But this band is so good that I’ll probably re-record the tracks that I did."

Örjan

[tomsakic]

Last night I asked Roscoe Beck about the band for the 2010 tour and he confirmed that there are no changes in the band between the 2008-2009 tour and the 2010 tour. Dino Soldo said the same, and added that they are all having a great time touring and that "Luckily, Leonard loves to tour". I asked if the break between the tours might be used to record a new Leonard Cohen CD and Dino said that while there are no solid plans for a new CD they are constantly working on new materials while touring and there is a good chance that a new CD will come out at some point.

[LEONKA]

Maybe after the tour will be a new CD + DVD. Surprise?

[brightnow]

Thanks Tom for quoting me here

Some more interesting information about a potential new album: Dino said that they are already working on the new CD, that they treat each sound check as a studio recording session, they record everything (every sound check and every performance) and they have great equipment so the recordings are of great quality. He said that it is possible that the new CD will be mixed out of these sound check recordings.

So, we might not have to wait for the band to get studio time for the new album... hope springs eternal.

[astranger]

Thanks Tom for quoting me here

Some more interesting information about a potential new album: Dino said that they are already working on the new CD, that they treat each sound check as a studio recording session, they record everything (every sound check and every performance) and they have great equipment so the recordings are of great quality. He said that it is possible that the new CD will be mixed out of these sound check recordings.

So, we might not have to wait for the band to get studio time for the new album... hope springs eternal.

now that's exciting! sounds kind of innovative too

[Mabeanie1]

"Le nouvel album studio est certainement déjà enregistré."

This from the Patrice on the French forum earlier today. Is this true - is the new album already in the can (or whatever the modern electronic equivalent is)?

Wendy

[cohenadmirer]

Thanks Tom for quoting me here

Some more interesting information about a potential new album: Dino said that they are already working on the new CD, that they treat each sound check as a studio recording session, they record everything (every sound check and every performance) and they have great equipment so the recordings are of great quality. He said that it is possible that the new CD will be mixed out of these sound check recordings.

So, we might not have to wait for the band to get studio time for the new album... hope springs eternal.

What a great way to make an album. Arguably one or two of leonard's albums have suffered from unsympathetic overproduction. An album that recreates the soundscape of the concerts is the way to go

[Jonnie Falafel]

REM created an album that consisted of new material recorded at soundchecks. Dylan once tried to to create an album of entirely new material recorded in concert. Saved would have been a much better album if Columbia hadn't vetoed the live idea.