John: I agree with Jim. I noted in my post with soundcheck & show setlist that The Darkness is blues which reminds me on Billy Sunday, and indeed Leonard used such songs for his soundchecks... When he was singing it, I even had a thought that it's maybe a cover of Dylan or simply based on some blues standard, and that it's only-soundcheck song for playing around. In any case, it reminded me on Dylan in a way that for Dylan it's usual to use traditional and blues patterns for his new songs, while Leonard did that rarely (if ever; maybe The Faith, but that's direct use of melody, not of the musical structures of Smithsonian Folkways collections), so in such way it's Dylanesque. I don't know are shorter lines (quite unusual for Cohen's songs) result of blues pattern, but the way of delivery and structures of lines did call Dylan to mind - but again, maybe that's just the blues style in general.
Now, will this song remain only sound check material, I don't know. Bob Metzger clearly said to Jarkko it's a blues work in progress, and Leonard, when asked about the new song backstage, repeated that, saying "no title, still in progress". I think he finds the song very funny.
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]
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".
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 I firmly believed he's gone back to that song."[...] 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
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
7. Lullaby, performed live in 2009"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
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
I love Bob's "nobbly knees" 
Thanks for sharing.
