Leonard Cohen - News from the Authorities - Non-Album Tracks (1970) (NEW TO PUBLIC CIRCULATION)

I recently explained on this blog that I'd found Leonard Cohen's copyright extension release for 1970. To quickly summarize, there's a European Union law that says music must be publicly released within fifty years of the year it was recorded in order for the copyright to be maintained. So record companies have often released music in their vaults literally for a mere hour or two in the middle of the night on some obscure platform so they can technically say it was publicly for sale. That's what happened to a bunch of 1970 Cohen recordings in 2020. That release included four concerts (though without the banter and most of the applause) and some studio outtakes. I've already posted two of the concerts, including one with the banter and applause put back in. This  is an album of the studio outtakes, plus a couple other rarities from 1970.

Note that this is far from all the studio outtakes that were included in the copyright extension. It took me a couple of weeks to put this together because I wanted to weed out the weaker material and make this a solid album that stands up to repeat listenings. There's a lot of repetition on the copyright extension material. For instance, there are five versions of "Passing Through," generally extremely similar to each other. So I cut out those repeat takes. There are also lots of incomplete takes. For instance, there's an apparently original song called "Solitaire" that I didn't include because it's only 20 seconds long! To hear something so promising but so short is just frustrating. I have included incomplete songs here when they're a bit longer. For instance, "I Was Standing on the Wooden Stair" is a little under a minute long.

The copyright extension release also includes an entire album of poetry recitals. Cohen was already a fairly successful poet before his music career began. Sometime around 1970, he recorded about half an hour of poetry from his 1964 book "Flowers for Hitler," and another ten minutes of poetry from his 1956 book "Let Us Compare Mythologies." I haven't included any of that because it's a whole different kettle of fish. However, I could post an album of that if there's enough interest. Alternately, I've posted the ENTIRE copyright extension material without any changes via SoulseekQT. Just search for "Leonard Cohen" plus "copyright" plus "1970" there and you should find it.

So let's get to what is on this album. I'm going to go song by song. Note that all the titles are from the copyright extension release.

"Priests" - This is probably the most important song in the copyright extension. For years, I've longed to hear a Cohen version, because Judy Collins released a version in 1967, then Richie Havens released a version in 1968. Cohen recorded a version in 1967 for his first album, but it didn't make the final cut, and he never played it in concert. It's known that a version is on a 1967 copyright extension release that I don't have a copy of (although with several other still unreleased original songs). If anyone has that, please share! Luckily, Cohen rerecorded the song again in 1970, so we have a version here.

"Az der Rebbe Singt" - This is a complete song, but it's a cover song sung entirely in Yiddish. Cohen played it in concert a few times in 1976.

"Joan of Arc" - I've generally avoided including alternate versions that aren't that different from the final versions. I figure those are only for the die-hard fans who'd want the entire copyright extension release. But this is an exception because Cohen experimented with basically talking the lyrics instead of singing them, so it's quite different from the released album version. (Interesting tidbit: I believe he's mentioned that this song is about the singer Nico.)

"I Was Standing on the Wooden Stair" - This seems to be an original, but it's frustratingly incomplete. For some reason, he stopped after singing just three lines. Ugh!

"Sing Another Song, Boys" - This song was released on Cohen's 1971 album "Songs of Love and Hate." But that was a live version taken from the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival. This is the studio version.

"I'm in the Darkness" - This uses the chords and melody of his song "Avalanche," but the lyrics are totally different. He managed to get through two verses before the song faded out.

"Passing Through" - This is a cover song that appeared on Cohen's 1973 live album "Live Songs." This is a studio version. The "Live Songs" version, which is from a 1972 concert, contained four verses, and this one only has three. The ending came abruptly, so I patched in a bit of instrumental music from a different take to give it a more graceful ending (so that's why "[Edit]" is in the title). I would have included more of the instrumental part, but that was all there was.

"Time for Counting" - Another frustratingly incomplete original song, but at least there's more of it. This one almost lasts two minutes. He stopped abruptly, and said, "That kind of thing, you know."

"Travel" - This is a recited poem. It's from the copyright extension release, but it was done at a concert in Paris in 1970. 

"Why Don't I Have the Magic" - This is another studio outtake, but the song title indicates that it was improvised. It's surprisingly good, and done with a band backing him up, considering that it was made up on the spot. The lyrics are an obvious plea for musical inspiration.

"Celebration" - This one is not from the copyright extension. Instead, it's unreleased, from a 1970 concert in Frankfurt, Germany. It's a short recited poem. The sound quality is still pretty good.

"The Arms of Regina" - This is a strange one. It seems to be a song that was jointly written and sung by Cohen and the rest of his band. Apparently, it was only performed twice. The version here is from a 1970 concert at the Henderson Hospital in London, before a crowd of less than fifty mental patients there. It was included on the copyright extension. The other version is unreleased and comes from a brief appearance at a French radio station in 1970. The two versions are very similar to each other, with Cohen's voice largely buried by the voices of his band members, but I've used this version because the French radio one has poorer sound quality. However, for this version, the first few seconds were cut off, so I patched in a bit from the French radio version.

"Tonight Will Be Fine" - This is the other one not from the copyright extension. It's from the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, and released on the live album of his set there. The reason I've included it is because it includes two verses not on the studio album version.

"News from the Authorities" - This is another improvised song, done at a Berkeley, California concert, and included in the copyright extension. (I recently posted the entire concert.) Clearly, what happened was the police or some other authority told Cohen that people were sitting in the aisles and the concert couldn't continue until the aisles were cleared. But instead of just passing that information on to the crowd, he made up a surprisingly good song about it, lasting no less than six minutes! His backing band caught on quickly, and it turned into an enthusiastic audience participation type of song by the end. 

"As the Mist Leaves No Scar" - This is another short, recited poem. It's from the same Berkeley concert as the previous track.

I'm so very pleased to be sharing this album. As I mentioned above, the copyright extension was ever so briefly released into the public domain in late 2020, which means it languished in total obscurity until I found a copy in late 2023. It's known that copyright extension releases exist for 1967 and 1972. If anyone has those, I again implore you to please share them with the public. This material is too good to keep hidden away.

This album is 44 minutes long.

01 Priests (Leonard Cohen)
02 Az der Rebbe Singt [When the Rabbi Sings] (Leonard Cohen)
03 Joan of Arc [Spoken Lyrics Version] (Leonard Cohen)
04 I Was Standing on the Wooden Stair [Incomplete] (Leonard Cohen)
05 Sing Another Song, Boys [Studio Version] (Leonard Cohen)
06 I'm in the Darkness [Alternate Lyrics for Avalanche] (Leonard Cohen)
07 Passing Through [Studio Version] [Edit] (Leonard Cohen)
08 Time for Counting [Incomplete] (Leonard Cohen)
09 Travel (Poem) (Leonard Cohen)
10 Why Don't I Have the Magic [Improvised Song] (Leonard Cohen)
11 Celebration [Poem] (Leonard Cohen)
12 The Arms of Regina (Leonard Cohen)
13 Tonight Will Be Fine [Alternate Lyrics Version] (Leonard Cohen)
14 News from the Authorities [Improvised Song] (Leonard Cohen)
15 As the Mist Leaves No Scar [Poem] (Leonard Cohen)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15968243/LeonardC_1970_NwsfrmtheAuthrities_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken in Amsterdam in 1972. I couldn't find any really good ones from 1970 that weren't from the Isle of Wight Festival.