Raw sessions and song development: SYW & GDML

I've been listening to NOTW Raw Sessions... and how interesting these works in process sound. One thing I paid attention to was the different intros as opposed to what ended up on the finished track . Interersting enough, Get Down Make Love misses the John's distictive bass line with octave interval (1-8-1-8). So, it was propably invented later as the band jammed with the song. Also, the intro to Spread Your Wings is different. The finished song also has an intro that plays with a full octave interval (8-1-5-1). Quite similar to GDML but in reverse. What I find curious is that GDML (Fredie's song) has a bass line (John playing) fiddling with octave and SYW has a piano intro (Freddie playing as they jam and develop the song) doing somewhat the same octave thing reversed. I can easily see that both intros were developed as they tried out these songs. Who exactly wrote what and how much they contributed to each other's songs...We'll probably never know but I think it's interesting that these songs have similar octave-intervals in the intros that were created later phases of the songs development... And that Fred's song has John doing the ocave thing and vice versa.

Let the speculation begin... ;)

Nice point. I think that's just part of normal song development right? Add an extra note in there / and an octave seems the best idea. The additions suit the songs, I'm not sure making those particular parts too flowery would've worked. It was their 'back to basics' album and anything more adventurous might've just led to same old same old. There was some discussion about that take of SYW having John on piano (maybe Brian?) but I can't remember the outcome of that.

That is how song making naturally jappens in a band, there is collective input which is very healthy and creative...it was just their personal decision to give credit to the songwriter in the early part of their career to prevent petty squabbles

Oh, I assumed it was Freddie playing the piano, 'cos of the "What a jam!" comment in the end.

Probably was. I just recall it was a moot point on here when the set was released.

Frederick played the piano on the record. John mimed it for a few seconds at the beginning of the video, because Frederick was pissed and uncooperative.

Makes sense. That wasn't snow on the lawn..

This is the kind of stuff we all want but QP seems reluctant to release it. The NOTW alternate tracks were great and I would love to hear more from ALL the album sessions. The extended Champions track for one, the Freddie vocals on All Dead, All Dead was another great listen - also it was great to see them put extra work into putting that video out with Brian’s cat and the robot :-)

The people who went to the Innuendo listening session were full of praise for what they heard so we know this stuff is out there. Hopefully we’ll be able to hear it without having to pay hundreds of pounds for a 3 hour session!

Surely the future releases can’t include any more compilations after the tsunami of sales they’ve had since the film was released? So why don’t they put out the material that we’ve all been asking for?

Did Greg Brooks do all that archiving work for nothing?!

Yeah that extended WATC really made me feel like that small boy again listening to these songs for the first time. Lovely stuff.