leonardcohenforum.com

Cheshire gal wrote:hi astranger,

I can quite understand how you feel. I'm sure everybody is looking forward to a new album very much. However, Leonard did say he takes his time to get it 'perfect', so I suppose we will all be waiting a little while longer. I would love to hear about a tour to introduce it though.

Cheshire gal wrote:I'm sure everybody is looking forward to a new album very much. However, Leonard did say he takes his time to get it 'perfect', so I suppose we will all be waiting a little while longer. I would love to hear about a tour to introduce it though.

Maarten wrote: My latest (more or less reliable) information is that their will most probably be a new tour.

Maarten
(eating bread, drinking water and saving money)

Maarten wrote:My latest (more or less reliable) information is that their will most probably be a new tour.

Maarten wrote:Maarten
(eating bread, drinking water and saving money)

Cheshire gal wrote:Maarten,

I think you have made a lot of people happy with this news. Prayers are answered.

carlowmike wrote:Between ourselves, it appears that things are "firming up" for April 2012

tomsakic wrote:2. Born in Chains - WORLD PREMIERE in Salzburg July 27, 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv6aZ945StQ
Sung by Leonard, Sharon, Hattie and Charlie; the album version will be by Leonard.

Earlier known as "Taken Out Of Egypt", it started as the original version of "I Can't Forget" and was 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

Leonard can be heard 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. That's when I got the clue that he works on this old song again. Out of the blue, he premièred it on the sound check in Zagreb, July 25, and in public show two days later in Salzburg, July 27. Since then the song is included in every show of the European Summer tour of 2010. I am still honoured that I was only person in the audience in the empty Zagreb Arena on July 25 afternoon soundcheck.

Versions from Sligo July 31, with recitation of the lyrics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f37lh9LqRs, Malmo August 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDBOhN0V-Ew, Goteborg August 12 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0fT0SH57EA, Odense August 14: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AfMWBuWl7U, Berlin August 18 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31fRbKyq1is, Gent August 22: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkndB4KcXtM

Artur wrote:I have played the "unknown" song from Muenster 85 soundcheck and it IS Born in Chains. Chord progression same as I Can't Forget, but out of the mumbled words you can make our "I was bound down to a burden" and "written in my heart in burning letters".