Re: TRS Tracklist

[Peter Byrne Manchester <PMANCHESTER@ccmail.sunysb.edu>]

Craig Heath <craig@sco.COM> replies to my suggestion that the track order for 
Side B of TRS suggested by the UK lyric sheets reflects Kate's original 
intention:

>             ...     I vehemently disagree with this.  I think, musically, 
>the tracks as they are ordered on the CD are in perfect arrangement.  I can 
>see there is an argument for the lyrics making more sense in the lyric sheet 
>order, but this is completely outweighed by the musical sense, IMHO.

He provides a very telling (but not, in my view, decisive) illustration of 
this last consideration, but I need to take a point he makes later first 
because the physical evidence is actually more ambiguous than I had realized 
when I posted.

>My personal opinion is that the lyrics are arranged on the lyric sheet the 
>way they are simply because they wouldn't have fit the space in a pleasing 
>manner if they had been in the proper order (and I'm not going to believe 
>that Kate had more control over the lyric sheet than she did over the track 
>order on CD).

I hadn't meant to suggest that Kate did not control the final track order--of 
course she did, and in that sense it is certainly authoritative.  My argument 
was that the track order on the album slipcover suggested that at one stage 
she had had a different order in mind, and was talked into the one released 
by marketing considerations.  I would never have entertained such an idea for 
an instant if we hadn't learned through Del Palmer that something precisely 
like that happened with RBG as the first UK single, rather than EtM which she 
preferred.  And I should add that even if another order was once contemplated 
this one clearly must have things in its favor, too.

Obviously my whole argument depends on the premise that the order in which 
the lyrics are arranged on the slipcover is meant to correspond to the 
playing sequence.  It certainly looks that way, since the Side A lyrics are 
in six black boxes across the top, in playing sequence, and the Side B lyrics 
are in six black boxes below them, in playing sequence except for the 
reversed positions of YtO and CotH.  Craig is right that in the particular 
format of the design, the lyrics box for CotH wouldn't fit under the box for 
EtM that would be above it.  I would answer that the design could be adapted 
in all sorts of ways to work around that, and why arrange the lyrics in two 
sets of six that match the album contents exactly (except for the one switch) 
in the first place, if you don't intend people to assume that they follow the 
playlist?

BUT! I now see that the order of the Side B lyrics on the UK CD foldout 
(which folds out to be 12 times larger and has the background fruit in color, 
as against the US which is only 8 times larger, on thinner stock, and with 
the background in black and white) is completely different from the album 
itself:  YtO, WSILY?, BSL, TotC, TRS, and CotH (the Side A songs, once again, 
are in correct order).  I cannot imagine defending this as a playing 
sequence, lyrically or musically.  Moreover, it is evident that the order in 
which the Side B lyrics have been placed is indeed chosen to maximize the use 
of space, with the longest (CotH) placed under the shortest for Side A 
("Lily"), the shortest (BSL) under the longest (EtM), and so on.  In 
addition, the album jacket itself prints the tracklist on the back in the 
same order as the disk.  (And finally, if it is relevant, the lyrics for the 
US CD are in three rows of four each, in an order that has nothing whatever 
to do with the album order, not even the contents of each side--which both of 
the UK lyrics sheets respect.)

Is my suggestion dead?  Maybe not.  Since the layout of the Side B tracks for 
the UK CD foldout does maximize the use of space, the layout used for the 
lyrics on the album slipcover does not, forcing the font to be ever so 
slightly smaller than it needs to be--but that is almost illegibly small.  So 
there is still a little room to argue that it is intentional.

I willingly admit, however, that I lept from one piece of physical evidence 
whose ambiguity I did not fully assess to a suggestion about artistic 
intention mainly because the playing sequence I described seemed like a 
revelation to me--certainly lyrically, where Craig sees some plausibility 
himself--but also musically.  He writes:

>The decider for me is "You're the One", which _absolutely_has_ to be last, 
>because of the "Whiter Shade of Pale" references (using Gary Brooker, "Doing 
>cartwheels 'cross the floor", etc.)  These are 70s references (I know WSoP 
>was 1967, but it didn't impinge on me until the 70s), and at any party I 
>went to in the 70s, no one would have even considered playing WSoP anything 
>other than last.

This is an excellent argument, very important for exploring this album, which 
is chock full of musical allusions of this kind.  I agree completely that at 
the end of "You're the One," some larger ending is marked, too, with the WSoP 
tonality working just as he describes.  But that fits exactly into the way I 
perceive "Big Stripey Lie," as marking a new beginning, moving through grief 
and pain to dismisal, and it amplifies the meaning of the start of TotC, 
"This chapter says, 'Put it out of your mind'."  And CotH still sounds to me 
like a natural album-ender, its funky upbeat made ironic by the lyrics, and 
the little gizmo in the trail-off seeming like a kb 'signature' (listen to 
the last time that the chorus can be heard singing the line that previously 
is "it's gonna be paradise" and see if you can hear what they say instead of 
"paradise").

Bottom line:  having thought this through once more, I think Craig's chances 
of being right are about 87%, mine about 13%.  The wonderful thing is that of 
course it is a matter of simple fact what, if anything, the order of the 
lyrics for Side B on the record sleeve is meant to signify--we just don't 
happen to know yet.  I will therefore cling for the time being to my tattered 
but still pleasing hypothesis.

............................................................................
                                                            Peter Manchester
       "Eat the Music!"                        pmanchester@ccmail.sunysb.edu
                                                     72020.366@compuserv.com