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can anyone give me some info on this version of a questionably amazing song? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45WwGS_tke0&feature=relmfu

I discovered this for myself a couple months ago and put it in the various discussions thread thingy. It is so much better than the released version it's silly. Double tracked vocal, alternate lyrics. No piano outro. I think if this version was the one released on Sunflower, it wouldn't get so much flak.

Agree 100%. Bruce hams up the lead too much in the released version.

Thanks for sharing that. I hadn't heard that version before, and I have to say, it does sound better IMO than the album version.

Just an alternate vocal take. But it's excellent.

I swear, just a few months ago, everyone agreed that the alternate version was laughably bad and very much inferior to the final. I haven't really given the alternate version a super srs listen, but teh hell.

Other way around.

I can't even remember what thread it was. Someone said "tears in teh mornin suxxx" and someone else said "I like it. At least give credit to Bruce for salvaging it from the pile of sh*t it was", then talked about how the early version was even more cheesy and made use of some arcane term, which, according to the author of the post, was amusing/in poor taste. And then everyone else chimed in "lol yeah it sux" and such.

I SWEAR.

Hrm, this sound drastically different in spots, to me, and not just the vocal. The first chorus, for instance. Commas, commas.

The horns are brassier, it sounds great.

I think I very much prefer the mix/feel here in general, but prefer the lyrics/vocal of the final. His vocal on this version is a bit too "excited little puppy dog" for me. The brassier brassiness is indeed a big plus. Wasn't the final version the result of some record company d00d requesting the song be tweaked?

Alternate lyrics?

Surely the big difference is the lack of backing vox; maybe a different mix of instrumental track, but it's the lack of vocals that really differentiate it.

norbit

After watching the Desper video I think they could have done some really cool stuff with a double tracked lead. Imagine if the second track was a female singer, and if the verses the two tracks sang countermelodies in opposite channels, and then in the chorus the two voices are both panned to the center.

That could have given the song a whole new dimension that it didn't originally. Bruce could have gotten his wife to pair with him, or the lyrics could have been turned over to Brian and Marilyn. One of the best things about Sunflower is its' sense of family (just look at the cover!), and sometimes I wish they took the whole Beach Boys as one big family idea further, and incorporated the families a little more. Murray's cocredit on Breakaway is a perfect example from that era that would have meant even more on Sunflower than on its' own as a single. 

norbit

WOOO! ANother one of my YouTube uploads!

On Topic: yeah, I do really like this version, but then again I have an interest in any alternate versions of anything, so...

I definitely don't think this version is "better". I hate that weird processing* on Bruce's voice. and without the backing vocals this just sounds like a demo. And who uses "nepenthe" in a pop song? Geeze.

*or the effects of reel to reel tape being converted to an acetate being converted to a cassette tape being converted to another cassette tape being converted to another cassette tape being converted to a CD being converted to a digital file being converted to a video and then being uploaded to youtube.

Oh man, BJ and his nepenthe.

I find the key change in the alt version gives the performance a feel which better suits the lyric. 

Wait, what "Desper video" are you talking about?

Go to SWD thread. That's AWESOME, i'll tell ye!!!

So awesome. Thank you!

Perhaps Mr. Desper has some recollections concerning the evolution of "Tears." Opinions regarding the relative worth of the versions notwithstanding, the song's placement as the lead track on Sunflower side two remains as baffling to me today as it did when I first heard it forty-odd years ago. That doesn't matter nearly as much today, of course, since "sides" of LPs are obsolete, but it meant something back then and many of us were simply scratching our heads at this decision.

Bruce is a great backup singer, but he is by far the weakest lead singer in the group. I get the impression that the reworking was done in order to give the song an echo-y tag that would make for a "preview" of the infinitely more accomplished "All I Wanna Do," when the best thing to have done (IMO) was simply start side two with it instead of "Tears."

Ha, you think that's bad. Tears is the first song on the 8 track of Sunflower.

I think it's so funny that Tears in the Morning comes only two tracks after Deirdre, especially on the CD / digitally when you don't get any time gap between It's About Time and Tears.

Deirdre: "oh my god, my girlfriend who left is back. I was so sad when she was gone! now we can have a wonderful life together!"
It's About Time: vaguely political hippie intermission (I've never really understood if this song actually meant something)
Tears in the Morning: "oh god, she left again, everything's horrible again, I'm so depressed"

If the placement was switched it looks like Bruce wins in the end, but with this it's like you break up with a girl and then you get back together for like a week, and then the second time you break up is so much worse than the first.

The Fifth Dimension (Jimmy Webb):

http://www.myspace.com/thefifthdimension/music/songs/dreams-pax-nepenthe-remastered-2000-28412528

That's one of the reasons I prefer the old European vinyl sequence, which put Deirdre before Got to Know the Woman.  :smokin

Not quite, Aegirrrrrr.

What do you think it's about (don't say "time")? I remember once reading the story of how the song was written by Bob Burchman but I couldn't find it on the board so I don't know where it's from. The chorus was written by Carl or Al, unrelated to the verses, and Burchman says Al (or Carl, whichever one didn't write the chorus, I can't remember) just got added on the writing credits for monetary reasons.

I think Burchman has some explanation of what the song's about if someone can find that interview, or essay, or whatever it is.