Who would have thunk that finding the 7" version of"Come Sail Away" would be so hard? A good friend of mine and friend of the blog sent me a message earlier today asking if I had the 7" single version of "Come Sail Away". It runs about half the length of the album version. I wasn't sure, but I thought perhaps I had the record. However I was at work and couldn't confirm it. So in the mean time I thought I would just short cut it and find it online. Surely someone else had digitized this or that it was available on some CD somewhere so I could download it. I searched on and off throughout the say, but I just couldn't find it. I couldn't believe it. In away it actually made me even more excited to get home and see if I did indeed have the record.
Well, as you might have guessed by now I did have the record. I kind of thought I did because I was pretty sure I recognized the cover. Sure enough I did have the record and I had scanned the cover years ago. I must admit that when I was scanning years ago it wasn't for the blog and so I wasn't as thorough which means I didn't scan the back and I didn't scan the record. I'll get around to it and perhaps update the post again, but that's not for tonight. The goal tonight is to just get the post up and get the music to my friend.
A big disclaimer is that the record is by no means pristine. There is some really annoying noise during the opening piano solo, but it passes quickly. Even with the noise and the pops and crackles near the end, the record is interesting to listen to because of it's edited brevity. If you are familiar with the album version you will be listening along and thinking the song is going to go one way and then it goes another. Gone is the instrumental bridge section of the song that normally kicks in at about the 3 minute mark. You know the part with all the synths that sound like lasers at first. It gets all spacey and trippy and then the big guitar chords kick in bringing everything back to the "angels" section of the song.
So have some fun remembering what this song sounded like on pop radio back in the day with this single version of the song. I've included the b-side for kicks as well. More of a prog rock piece really.
Enjoy!
2 comments:
That was probably the case. By the 80's when I was listening to rock radio I was only listening to FM and I think I always heard the album version. I'm sure when the song was on the charts and being played on top 40 radio, there were stations that played this shorter version. It reminds me of the short version of Bob Seger's "Night Moves" that I posted a while back. It's missing the slow middle section that is the best part of the song.
Thanks for posting this! I'm doing some research on Styx right now, and this was helpful to find. So much for the "childhood friends" from the long version.
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