Great interview with Al. He seemed really comfortable, with it and excited to talk.
I think there might be more versions of "Waves of Love" than there are of "Heroes and Villains."
It's to the point that I have no idea which one they meant to release. I'm not sure if I've even heard the version he's talking about with Matt Jardine singing the second verse. I wish "Waves of Love" had been included on TWGMTR. It would have been one of my favorite songs on the album, and I think it's cool that Bruce and Al were working on the song together.
Yeah, I don't think even Al knows which ones he wanted to release, let along which ones were actually released. His description is confusing. I'm pretty sure he's talking about one of the three versions we've heard, but Matt doesn't sing anything solo on any version on than one line "on the waves of love" near the end of the song.
It's also confusing because he mentions that Universal put an incorrect mix of the song on one of their pressings, but it's not as if they broke into Al's studio and took an alternate mix. It had to be a mix serviced to Universal at some point by Al.
Here's another theory that offers both a possible explanation and more confusion: The Japanese "SHM" pressing has two mixes of "Waves of Love": It has the "download" version of the song (the punchier version in a higher key with Carl's vocal more audible), which had previously only been available to download on Amazon and iTunes (this was not the version included on the US standard CD, which was a completely different recording). The *second* version of the song on the Japanese CD is the same "download" version, just with minor mix variances. One theory I have is that they meant to include the two variations (download and US standard CD) on the Japanese SHM CD, and someone screwed up and grabbed the download version and then simply a slightly alternate mix of that same version. With many Japanese CD pressings, the Japanese distributor asks for "exclusive" bonus tracks. Al supplied "The Eternal Ballad" or whatever it was called, and then also supplied them with two different versions of "Waves of Love", one of which would be "exclusive" to CD at least.