back then people wanted to break down social barriers.
I’ve heard versions of “Don’t Fear The Reaper” with and without the middle section with the screeching guitar solo.
Genesis, Tonight Tonight Tonight. In 1986-87, the Genesis Invisible Touch album tracks could be heard on both Top 40 stations as well as rock stations. The top 40 stations would play a version shortened by a couple minutes of the instrumental break in the middle of the song. There was a noticeable edit and then a jump to, “You keep telling me…”
Mama, from the Genesis album, also had an edited version. That song didn’t really catch on with pop stations.
:o Barry Manilow’s “Copacabana” has at least two shorter versions, both edited pieces of the break between verses two and three.
The Whispers song “And The Beat Goes On” has a single and an extended track one of which is 3:35 and the other which is 7:12. The 7:12 version was used by Djs who needed to take a bathroom break and be able to get back in case the album or track skipped to avoid dead air. Most of the time anymore, you’ll only hear the shorter version.
The late great duo of McFadden and Whitehead have THREE versions of their 1979 hit “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now.” One is 3:38 (single),7:02 (album cut) and 10:45 ( the disco cut). The disco cut is usually only heard on oldies stations and at clubs which play 70s hits. The usual version is the 7:02 album cut, which was also a “bathroom break” song for radio DJs.
Funkadelic’s (Not Just) Knee Deep has two versions one of about 5 minutes and change, and the other is 15:21 in length. Oddly, the shorter version is almost never played on radio and it’s difficult to find in many places.
There’s also a long and short version of “Twilight Zone”, the short version cuts out most of the instrumental interlude. I think the DJ plays the long version when he needs to pee. 
And when he needs to go #2, that’s when “In-a-Gadda-da-Vida” comes on. 
Come to think, wasn’t there a shortened version of IAGDV? It was released as a single, but I don’t recall ever hearing it.
there is a shortened version of In-a-Gadda-da-Vida; but I haven’t heard it too many times on the radio (nor the long version for that matter).
Blinded by the Light (Manfred Mann’s version) has a long and short version. That’s the one I immediately thought of.
I once heard a DJ play a version that was cut down to about 30 seconds: Opening organ fanfare, a couple of cycles of the riff, two lines of lyrics, closing organ fanfare. Cracked me up at the time.
There was blood and a radio edit, but just who cut whom?
Your grammar surpasses BM’s. Take a bow.
And now…EVERYBODY SING!!
Indeed!
It just seems to lose all context without the lead-in of The Load-Out.
There’s at least three versions of Heart’s Crazy On You that are commonly played.
The earlier radio version typically started out with the fast guitar strumming that sounded like a TV western soundtrack (the posse’s ridin’ out at sunrise…); the longer version would include Nancy’s classical-style acoustic guitar introduction. An even longer version starts with Silver Wheels, which segues nicely into Nancy’s intro to the longer Crazy On You.
The original radio version of Heart’s *Magic Man *tends to drop out about half of the instrumental middle, leaving out a chunk of synthesizer noodling. The longer version includes the extra synth stuff.
*Blinded by the Light *by Manfred Mann & His Earth Band (which Sigene mentions) was originally aired with a hefty chunk of the middle dropped out. The counter-verses of the final chorus get cut shorter (or dropped out as well). There’s some odd stuff in the counter-verses that mention “buckshot” and “forget-me-not” and some other stuff. I always thought those were referring to whole verses that got left out of the short and longer versions, but I’ve been told they’re just extra words thrown in to the background counter-verse.
I’ve heard two versions of Bon Jovi’s Lie To Me. The longer one includes a lead guitar middle, a bridge, and shifts back into the chorus. The bridge starts with “It’s a bitch, yeah life’s a rollercoaster ride!”
The shorter one, which I’ve heard on Muzak radio in restaurants, cuts out the bridge – perhaps because someone thinks people eating dinner don’t want to hear such a pessimistic message.
–G!
No, they’re verses that are in the song. Manfred Mann’s version is a cover of Bruce Soringsteen’s original song from “Greetings From Asbury Park, New Jersey.” Manfred Mann left out some of the verses and switched around the order of some of the others.
There is a longer version and a slightly shorter version of My Chemical Romance’s “Welcome to the Black Parade,” but I’m not sure if I ever heard the longer one on the radio.
Before “Free Bird” became an FM radio staple and concert cliche, there were a number of radio edits that excised either the long jam at the end, part of the piano intro, or the second verse. They were all pretty awful.
There are two versions of Ike and Tina Turner’s cover of Proud Mary. The single (which my mom bought back in the day) cut out the “cleaned a lot of plates in Memphis…” verse in both the “easy” and “rough” sections.
Both versions are played on oldies radio these days.
Are there 2 versions of Meatloaf’s Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad? On the CD the song is about 7 minutes long
You mean the real version and the rip-off? Personally I HATE when radio stations do that. There’s a local station that plays some really good stuff but it often plays the rip-off versions of classic rock songs and that REALLY sticks in my craw. Another example? My Sharona by The Knack.
Yeah, there are two versions of that song. The short version leaves out the bridge, which is:
“You’ll never find your gold on a sandy beach
You’ll never drill for oil on a city street
I know you’re looking for a ruby
In a mountain of rocks
But there ain’t no Coupe de Ville hiding
At the bottom of a Cracker Jack box”
and also cuts the last verse down to:
“There’s only one girl that I will ever love
And that was so many years ago
And though I pleaded and I begged her
Not to walk out that door
She packed her bags and turned right away”
Finally, the short version fades out, leaving out the last two lines, “Baby, we can talk all night, but that ain’t getting us nowhere.”
The short version clocks in at 3:50, as opposed to the album version’s 5:27.
Roundabout by YES. Long FM cut from the album and a cut down version, which sucks IMHO.
Re:Freebird. Oddly I watched the 1976 ( pre crash ) lineup perform it in a concert on YouTube 2 Days ago.
Before it was a cliché, it was a tightly played smokin’ piece.
And this from someone who dislikes Skynrd.