I watched my fingernails grow to the extended release of “Freebird”
I always thought that verse referred to the radio edit of Piano Man which chops out a verse. Then again, I’m no Billy Joel expert and it was just my WAG. I don’t even know which song came out first 
Yea, BJ is referring to Piano Man. Don’t know what the running time on the 45 was, but there was either a verse or an instrumental break cut out.
Led Zep’s Whole Lotta Love was played on the radio without the psychedelic noodling in the middle, which improves the song greatly.
A few more songs bastardized for AM radio…
Time…Chambers Bros.
Bluebird…Buffalo Springfield
Crimson & Clover…Tommy James
Fire…Arthur Brown
Going Home…Rolling Stones
“Crimson and Clover” was the other way around–the single version was the original, and the extended version for the album was created by editing in a long break (which is noticeably out of tune with the rest of the song).
I don’t remember “Fire” being edited–it’s not a very long song to begin with. The mono and stereo mixes are very different, however.
And I’ve never heard “Going Home” played on AM radio.
There were even 2 different album versions. The vinyl version of “Brothers In Arms” contained a shorter version than the “extended version” (mostly more synth noodling and “I want my MTVs” at the beginning) found on the cassette and CD.
I still remember my parent’s shock when I cranked up “Get The Knack” for the first time and we all discovered that “Good Girls Don’t” had …um… different lyrics than the familiar radio version.
Sort of related… I can remember David Lee Roth describing how “Intruder” came about. Supposedly, the video for “Oh! Pretty Woman” ran too long, so they came up with an instrumental introduction to fill the time, which was later given its own title when it appeared on the “Diver Down” album.
My Sharona. Lordy, do I hate it when the extended guitar solo is hacked out.
As I recall, there were TWO radio edits of it, maybe more with each taking out more.
That was an organ? It sounds like a calliope. Ray Manzarek must be the worst keyboardist this side of Lee Michaels.
I guess that’s because I live in Oklahoma, which isn’t the hippest place around. Now that I have the Internet, maybe I can get a better sample.
I hope you do because that album stayed on the Columbia House magazine inserts for decades and since Atco wasn’t owned by Columbia it wasn’t so they could clear out warehouse overstock. It was the Led Zep IV of the late 60s–something everybody owned but were embarassed to play after a while.
I’m with you on that. If you get a chance, check out the Knack’s “Live from the Rock & Roll Funhouse”. They do a great version of the song, long solo and all.
A slightly different take:
“Sultans of Swing” (the LP version) suffered having its final guitar solo talked over by DJs.
When Mark Knopler heard about this, he and the band went back to the studio and recorded an AM-radio-friendly version with so prominent. It was only available as a promo single. It has yet to appear on CD, AFAIK.
[quote=BtES]
I don’t remember “Fire” being edited–it’s not a very long song to begin with. The mono and stereo mixes are very different, however.[/quoteIMHO, the only way to listen to ‘Fire’ is playing all 3 tracks from the album: Fanfare/Fire Poem/Fire.
Wasn’t Focus’ *‘Hocus Pocus’ * edited down to single length?
If I’m not mistaken, the middle of Sweet’s ‘Love Is Like Oxygen’ also got the chop.
Well, for that matter, the whole first side of the LP should be listened to as a suite, being something of a rock opera (as we said in the olden days) about Hell, complete with the recurring “Nightmare” theme.
“Love is Like Oxygen” by Sweet has a long version and a short version with most of the bridge cut out of it. Bastards!
From what I remember reading about The Doors, LMF was the first song to undergo that kind of editing. Other approaches had been used previously to adapt longer songs to a singles-oriented world. For instance, the Isley Bros. “Shout” was issued as a two-sided single.
“Horrible organ solo?” That and the guitar solo that follows were the whole point of the song. If you think it’s horrible it must be the case that you don’t care for The Doors. That band frequently gets slammed (ahem) for playing repetitively, but when you listen closely there are usually subtle variations in the repeats.
The edit was sanctioned by the Ray Manzarek, as I recall.
(Had to wait until I got home to dig out the 45)
Single, 3:18
Album, 6:43
So yeah, cut down to almost exactly half its length.
An interesting case is Kraftwerk’s “Autobahn.” On the album, it’s 22:42 and takes up all of side A. According to this website, there are five edited single versions, ranging in length from 3:06 to 9:00.