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Let's Pretend: BCR


Wendy-Ann

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I'm figuring this would go here since it's the Bay City Rollers performing "Let's Pretend' in 1976. This is a pre-mixed recording. The final mix is on "Dedication."

Les McKeown really does a beautiful rendition of this, but I have to admit, Kyle Vincent's vocals trump Les' by a mile! Let me see if I can upload that version for you to hear.

Enjoy!

Wendy

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Wendy that's a real blast from the past for me. My girlfriends and I were SO in love with The Bay City Rollers, ha ha. I remember running home from school to watch them on Mike Douglass. Still love Eric beautiful voice on "Let's Pretend" the best though! Thankyou for that one.

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I love the BCR version of "Lets"...it doesn'T quite capture the intensity and vocal performance of Raspberries, but the key is much more friendly to the ear and the mix is quite interesting...both were produced by Jimmy Ienner...I guess he thought the BCR could have a Smash with it since they were so popular.

bah

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The only thing I don't like about the Bay City Rollers version (and I LOVED them when I was little) is that the harmonies are wrong. You'd have thought with Jimmy Ienner producing that they'd at least have got that right. The descending "aa-aa-ahh" harmony goes to a Minor 7th on the 4th bar of the chorus (yes, I am a music geek) that on the Raspberries version, which you can hear very clearly on that video of them in the studio, when Shelly Yakus solos the vocal tracks. I LOVE that part!

The Bay City Rollers version goes to the root note instead, which is a bit boring and safe.

For the non-technical among you, hehe, it's the clever use of chords and harmonies that make lots of the Raspberries songs & recordings soooo great for me, and so the BCR version misses out by getting one of my favourite parts wrong.

Speaking of bad covers of Raspberries songs, there's a cover of Ecstasy on youtube, by The Honeys, which was Marilyn Wilson's (Brian Wilson's wife) band in the 60s. They did an LP in 1983, and it had this cover on it. It's awful. They get loads of the chords wrong, change the structure completely, miss out the intro, squeeze the first two verses together, and make up a load of new lyrics!!

Saying that, she does some great growly vocals on a few parts of it, but that doesn't save it.

Maan, I don't understand why someone would choose to completely change such a perfect song as Ecstasy in the first place, but there you go.

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OUCH! i just came across it & it's awful, but in a charmingly cheezy kind of way. but it really is total milktoast compared to the 'berries & if you were lucky enough to have heard them do it in cleveland in dec, well then you were...very lucky. the auditorium was just completely filled out, soaked, & drenched w/ melody & harmonies..

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From what I remember, Brian had nothing to do with the track.

I think they also recorded a Brian tune, "Go Away Boy" for the album.

Speaking of The Honeys though, I really liked "American Spring" and their album of the same name. Brian produced it along with David Sandler in the early 70's.

Sweet Mountain.

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