Kirk

Another discovery since getting Sirius radio in my car- James Taylor songs just seem to resonate with me:

No, not the book that inspired GATW, but the 60's song by the Squires. Never heard it before:

BTW, Bob is large and in charge when shooting a special. I was expecting him to maybe come on stage and crack a few jokes and leave. Nope, he was directing and telling people what to do and where to go, in the nicest way, of course!

Had almost forgotten about this until I saw this photo on one of my local FB groups- A Bob Hope special taped at UCLA with America as a guest. I remember them doing Sister Golden Hair on the show. I was there...

Good luck! I'd have trouble doing 52 books in 52 years...

LC, some great analysis there, but, other than the songs being of equal length, it's kind of apples to oranges for me. Runaway, is 8 minutes of, well, Runaway. I Can Remember is 8 minutes of Opus Magnum, with several movements and Grandiose ambitions! I could listen to either one repeatedly and wouldn't get tired of them. Push comes to shove, I'll take ICR.

Sounds like the South of the Border Taylor Swift!

I'm always behind on the technology. In 2020, when I was ordering my Durango from the factory, I had a choice between cd or cassette. Both were still popular, but 90% of my music that wasn't on vinyl was on cassette, so I opted for that. In the meantime, my cd collection grew, and about 5 years later I wished I had gotten the cd player in my car. Fast forward to last year, I bought another new car, looking forward to listening to all the cds I've collected over the past 20 years, and the darn thing doesn't even have a cd player! Everything is digital radio or satellite radio! I give up!!!

Unlike his first solo album, which had a very noticeable improvement in the mix on Essential, the differences on Boats are more subtle, no doubt because Eric produced the album himself. The Essential Run Away is a little cleaner and has a bit more punch.

See if you can hear the difference in the remastered version:

A couple of observations: Eric nearly always lists Run Away as one of his favorite songs, and I can see why. I can also see why Clive didn't want to lead off the album with this song. If someone went into a listening booth to see if they wanted to purchase the album, Run Away, at over 8 minutes, would be too long to capture a casual listeners interest. On a production note, there's always been a, for lack of a better term, American Indian feel in the bass and drum line, accented by the piano and string arrangement. I like it, and I don't intentionally listen for it, yet it strikes me every time I hear the song. It's probably never going to crack my Eric Top 10 but I really like it!

Great bit of writing, LC and good insights. I'm going to listen with a different set of ears for the next 8 minutes.

Lew, I was referring specifically to a musical twist to the ending, where the songwriter takes it in a different direction than is expected; maybe a key change or two, or a modulation. But James answer is legit, also. Just not what I was looking for when I posted the topic.

That's a lot of data. Not sure I'm on board with the equivalency factors and all that stuff...

I think Eric's Starting Over is one of the finest 'surprise' endings I can think of. Another fine ending with a twist is Boz Scaggs We're All Alone. Not as sophisticated as Starting Over but it's pretty cool: