I recall first hearing this album, Tales of Mystery and Imagination, in c. 1976 when a teacher played it during class. I recall the opening cut being this uptempo instrumental. The repeated synth motif it used was very insistent. I later bought the album myself and listened to it quite a few times, natch.
I just went to Youtube to try to listen to said album, and listened to the opening cut according to Rate Your Music, which is called “A Dream Within a Dream.”
Problem is that it isn’t the same cut, at all. This one is much more mellow in a slower time signature, and shorter than I recall (only 4 minutes vs. 7 IIRC). Thinking perhaps I got the sides mixed up over the decades, I checked out the 1st cut on the 2nd side-no dice their either.
Did I wander into some alternate reality or something? Wikipedia says that the CD version was remixed in 1987 or so, but that wouldn’t have completely changed the entire cut in question so as to make it utterly unrecognizable, would it?
I’ve owned two different pressings of the “Tales of Mystery and Imagination” album and “A Dream within a Dream” has always been the opening track as far as I know.
If you hadn’t said you bought the album yourself and listened to it several times, I’d think you were confusing it with the opening track to “I Robot”, which fits your description almost perfectly. - YouTube
It’s always been the opening track but the entire album was re-engineered at some point along the line and yes, the opening track (among others) was changed a bit. I don’t think the voice-over or the precursor-to-House-of-usher chords were on the original.
EDIT: Here’s the original, going on to the next track as well. Note the missing voice-over (“for my own part…”).
Can you believe they cut out Orson Welles? I have both vinyl and CD, and they are noticeably different, but I think the speculation re: I Robot is correct.
Indeed. According to the tale of mystery and imagination (see what I did there?) on the album notes of the '87 re-engineered release, Welles volunteered the recording unsolicited in '76 after the original album was released (in '75). At least, Wikipedia says the album notes said that:
