Song of Leonard Cohen (Alternate Takes) | Albums That Should Exist

Leonard Cohen - Songs of Leonard Cohen - Alternate Version (1967) 

 

Oh now this is fascinating again about copyright extension releases and Albums that Should Exist makes a sterling job of examining Cohen’s first album here with very different ( to my ears) arrangements to this classic - hey, here’s an idea, get both!

I have played little else this morning!

Paul says:

Two months ago (as I write this in January 2024), I posted three albums that came from a 1970 Leonard Cohen copyright extension release. In brief, that's an extremely limited official release record companies sometimes to do retain the legal rights to music, based on a law in the European Union. After discovering all that great 1970 music that had never been in public circulation before, I found out that there were 1967 and 1972 copyright extension releases as well. I'm very happy to say that some kind souls gave me copies. This is the first of several albums I'm making to get this material to a wider audience.

For starters, I'm focusing on the 1967 copyright extension release. 1967 was the year Leonard Cohen put out his first album, "Songs of Leonard Cohen," which came out just a few days before the end of the year. It's an undisputed classic. For instance, Rolling Stone Magazine has ranked it Number 195 in its 2020 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Because this was Cohen's first album, and he was a total novice when it came to recording music, there were many takes done of nearly all the songs. Plus, he brought in many more songs than could fit on a single album. The 1967 copyright extension release apparently includes all the different takes of each song in the 1967 recording sessions, other than the final versions that made the album. There are so many takes, in fact, that it would get too repetitive for all but the most die-hard Cohen fan. For instance, in the most extreme case, there are 22 takes of the song "Love Calls You by Your Name.” . . . . . . . .Paul 

check the link for the entire article 

here . . .

01 Suzanne [Take 1] [Edit] (Leonard Cohen)
02 Master Song [Take 1] (Leonard Cohen)
03 Winter Lady [Take 1] [Edit] (Leonard Cohen)
04 The Stranger Song [Take 1] (Leonard Cohen)
05 Sisters of Mercy [Take 1] (Leonard Cohen)
06 Come On, Marianne [Early Version of So Long, Marianne] [Takes 2 & 3] [Edit] (Leonard Cohen)
07 Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye [Take 4 plus Take 2] [Edit] (Leonard Cohen)
08 Stories of the Street [Take 5] (Leonard Cohen)
09 Teachers [Take 2] [Edit] (Leonard Cohen)
10 One of Us Cannot Be Wrong [Take 8] (Leonard Cohen)

The cover is very closely based on the official cover. However, I added the words "alternate version" at the bottom, and I used a different picture in the middle. This picture is from an August 1967 photo shoot that probably was meant for the album cover. It was a black and white photo, but I tinted it the same way as the version on the official album.