Post by teddinard on Dec 2, 2017 15:20:12 GMT -5
I was at the gym today with my "complete Replacements" shuffle on, and a lot of For Sale tracks came up. It must have been my lucky day, or maybe I was just in a good mood, because several of them just seemed better--in some cases a lot better--than the studio versions.
1. "Dose of Thunder" tops the list for me. On Tim, it's passable to average filler, but the For Sale version makes it an excellent and maybe great song, raw, loose, and powerful, with strong lyrics and a lot of attitude.
It's almost painful to listen to because it makes me wonder how much greater Tim might have been had Tommy Erdelyi not made a hash of the sound. And Tim's my favorite record as it is.
2. "Bastards of Young." I have always rated the song highly. It's a top ten, or at least top 15 Mats song for me. But the For Sale version is so much stronger. I can get completely behind it, like every other fan.
And here the flubs with the lyrics actually add depth. PW sings "Unwillingness to name us / You got no war to claim us" (reversing claim/name on the studio cut). The For Sale version's a bit darker i.e. the older generation doesn't even want to give us a name, and "war to claim us" means "war to kill us," as if it would be preferable to the older generation to get rid of us by sending us all off to some 1980s version of Vietnam. Works beautifully.
3. "Color Me Impressed." I love the Hootenanny version with the whistle etc. But this one seems looser and much more driving. And some more fortuitous lyrical changes: "Giving out my word / Because that's all that I won't keep" instead of "Their word.../ they" on the studio cut. I always like it when PW includes himself in the rot. Otherwise song risks being just a smug satire of hipsters.
4. "Go." Just a fuller and more emotionally immediate version.
Of course there are ones on For Sale that are far worse than the studio cuts such as "Left of the Dial." But the above and others are not just better versions, they make the songs better.
I'm not a big collector of bootlegs, so this is a revelation for me.
1. "Dose of Thunder" tops the list for me. On Tim, it's passable to average filler, but the For Sale version makes it an excellent and maybe great song, raw, loose, and powerful, with strong lyrics and a lot of attitude.
It's almost painful to listen to because it makes me wonder how much greater Tim might have been had Tommy Erdelyi not made a hash of the sound. And Tim's my favorite record as it is.
2. "Bastards of Young." I have always rated the song highly. It's a top ten, or at least top 15 Mats song for me. But the For Sale version is so much stronger. I can get completely behind it, like every other fan.
And here the flubs with the lyrics actually add depth. PW sings "Unwillingness to name us / You got no war to claim us" (reversing claim/name on the studio cut). The For Sale version's a bit darker i.e. the older generation doesn't even want to give us a name, and "war to claim us" means "war to kill us," as if it would be preferable to the older generation to get rid of us by sending us all off to some 1980s version of Vietnam. Works beautifully.
3. "Color Me Impressed." I love the Hootenanny version with the whistle etc. But this one seems looser and much more driving. And some more fortuitous lyrical changes: "Giving out my word / Because that's all that I won't keep" instead of "Their word.../ they" on the studio cut. I always like it when PW includes himself in the rot. Otherwise song risks being just a smug satire of hipsters.
4. "Go." Just a fuller and more emotionally immediate version.
Of course there are ones on For Sale that are far worse than the studio cuts such as "Left of the Dial." But the above and others are not just better versions, they make the songs better.
I'm not a big collector of bootlegs, so this is a revelation for me.
