45 Version or Album Version

[dougray2]

In 1975, Elton John had a couple of long songs, Philadelphia Freedom and Someone Saved My Life Tonight. AT40 sometimes played the full version, other times it was edited. The same is probably true for his 74 hit Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me.

[mrjukebox]

I do remember there were some weeks during the summer of 1975 when "AT40" played the edited version of "Someone Saved My Life Tonight"-The song clocks in at a little over six minutes.

[Hervard]

Did AT40 ever play the full version of "Come Sail Away" by Styx? The single version is only half as long as the album version.

[mkarns]

Apr 23, 2009 9:38:44 GMT -5 briguy52748 said:

* The obvious one: "American Pie" by Don McLean, where the full version was played a couple times (during its chart run of December 1971 through early April 1972), but more often than not it was the single edit and/or AT40's own edit ... even on retrospective specials long after stations were starting to play the full 8:32 version and discarding the single edit entirely.

Brian

I think Casey played the full version three times when the song was #1. He also played it on 3/18/72 (recently rerun by Premiere) because, he stated, that was likely its last week on AT40. That turned out to be wrong, as it had one more week left.

[reachinforthestars]

Apr 24, 2009 11:23:15 GMT -5 Hervard said:

Did AT40 ever play the full version of "Come Sail Away" by Styx? The single version is only half as long as the album version.

I was listening to AT40 pretty much every weekend during this period and I don't ever recall hearing the long version. In fact, I remember how disruptive it was to hear the long version for the first time after the song had fallen off the charts because I was so used to the single version.

[vince]

On this weeks AT40 the 70's, "Sunshine On My Shoulders" by John Denver was played long. According to the original cue sheet, the segment was long enough for it to have been played in the original show. "Sunshine" was played long on the 1974 year end show and according to Pete's book it was played long on 4/13/74. AT40 would have had easy access to the 5:10 long version as it was on the promotional 45 along with the 3:18 short version. The commercial 45 only had the short version.

[mkarns]

I'm pretty sure that AT40-the 80s this weekend, in the 4/27/85 show, ran the full album version of Wham!'s "Everything She Wants", as it included an extra verse that I have rarely, if ever, heard on radio before.

[mrjukebox]

What about Elvin Bishop's "Fooled Around & Fell In Love"?-Did "AT40"ever play the album version during the spring of 1976?

[vince]

There is no indication in Pete's book that the Lp version "Fooled Around And Fell In Love" was played while it was in the top 40. The 45 version was played on the 1976 year end show.

[Indycolt]

Here's another one for you: I don't believe AT40 ever played the long version of Earth,Wind & fire's single "Thats The Way Of The World" which reached #12 in 1975. Truth be told,I liked the 45 version alot too,but it was definatly edited for more of a "commercial" sound.

[pandy]

Was there at least three versions of "I've Got The Music In Me by Kiki Dee on its 10/19/1974 chart run?

[mayberrymiles]

AT 40 did play the album version of "That's The Way of The World" by EWF on the 1975 year-end countdown program, as well as a few other album versions. Guess they had some extra time to fill as they were used to playing 40 songs in 3 hours and had 4 hours for 50 songs (for each half of the countdown), so that was only 10 extra songs for 1 extra hour when they had to average 13-14 songs per hour under the regular format.

I also just listened to the Top 100 of 1974 and Casey played the long version of "Boogie Down" by Eddie Kendricks, which seemed to be 7 minutes or close to it. Good song, but it went on a little long for my tastes.

[mstgator]

AT40 never played the commercial single / LP version of "She Blinded Me With Science" by Thomas Dolby, instead opting for the promo version (which also happened to be the video and UK single version). Which made perfect sense, since I believe that's the version that got the most radio play. Still, interesting that they never played the commercially available version at least once for variety.

[Scott Lakefield]

Especially when you think about the oft-used liner, "These are the records you're buying and radio stations are playing from coast-to-coast." If it was JUST the video/European version that was played for the full chart run, that liner was never true about "She Blinded Me With Science." Picky, I know...

[reachinforthestars]

May 21, 2009 13:15:34 GMT -5 Scott Lakefield said:

Especially when you think about the oft-used liner, "These are the records you're buying and radio stations are playing from coast-to-coast." If it was JUST the video/European version that was played for the full chart run, that liner was never true about "She Blinded Me With Science." Picky, I know...

You're not being picky at all. I think it is another indication that the staff behind the scenes at AT40 were clueless about many aspects of music. The number of errors in the program were mind-boggling to people who are passionate about music and follow it closely. One might conclude that the AT40 staff were nothing more than assembly line workers that would punch the time clock at the start of their shift and go through the motions of assembling the program for their 8 hour work day (minus a lunch hour and a few smoking breaks). There would be the normal amount of glitches in the assembly line and periodically a supervisor would have to come out and yell at them for playing the wrong side of a 45, etc etc. But sometimes the faulty product would be missed and make it all the way to the store (the radio station, in this case). How often have we listened to these programs and thought, "I could have done it so much better".