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Post by Southernman on Aug 31, 2017 12:27:57 GMT
It's long been understood that at one point it was considered whether to issue Time as a double album with an additional disc of live material. But I've only recently picked up the suggestion that it was also contemplated to make it a full double studio LP, a la the aborted Secret Messages.
A supposed track listing for this album has been 'revealed' elsewhere, but I remain dubious as to whether the idea progressed that far. To me, it reads like the issued Time album with the various b-sides and whatever tacked on at the end of each side. There are even some 'unknown/missing' tracks.
Has anyone got more positive thoughts on whether a double LP Time ever came close to being a reality?
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Post by Timeblue on Aug 31, 2017 12:43:26 GMT
I've always heard rumours on this but nothing more than what you know. It's bad enough reading about a possible filmed Time concert without having to deal with this too!!:
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Post by ShardEnder on Aug 31, 2017 21:48:15 GMT
The persistent rumour was that Time was going to be half new material and the other disc 60-minutes of edited highlights from ELO's set at Wembley in 1978, which in its originally broadcast mono form would quite easily have fit across two sides of a record. However, that particular myth was recently laid to rest when a collector provided evidence of the original test pressing, revealing that it was actually going to consist of exclusively 1981 era studio recordings! Here's the tracklist:
LP1 Prologue Twilight Yours Truly, 2095 Ticket To The Moon The Way Life's Meant To Be When Time Stood Still Julie Don't Live Here [Title Unknown #1] Another Heart Breaks
LP2 Rain Is Falling From The End Of The World The Lights Go Down Here Is The News 21st Century Man The Bouncer [Title Unknown #2] Hold On Tight Epilogue
Considering its placement, I wouldn't be surprised if the second mystery song was the same brief instrumental piece - or maybe even a longer version of this - as hidden on the third disc of Flashback, where it serves as an unlisted introduction to Hold On Tight. As for the first, this was probably the slow ballad only known by the working title of Sad Affair according to an engineer present for the Time sessions. Saying that, it's also possible this was based on the Second Time Around demo Jeff included as a bonus on the 2001 remaster of Discovery, since he later recycled the same idea for Letter From Spain, clearly not wanting the basic concept going to waste. Either way, I'd love to hear both of these, along with the two other tracks claimed to feature slightly different mixes.
Despite these acetates surfacing, Bill Bottrell seemed to believe that Hold On Tight was recorded with him in Los Angeles after the rest of its parent album as a more suitable ending than The Bouncer, while he also engineered Another Heart Breaks earlier in the same two-day session because Jeff supposedly needed something to similarly replace When Time Stood Still, suggesting that Time was intended to be a single LP by this point. On the other hand, we have a quote from Bev immediately before he started work on Time where he hints that it was likely going to be a double concept album. Was this just wishful thinking, or did he knowingly tease Jeff's plans? By that stage, virtually all of the album had already been written, and Jeff had stated his intention for the next ELO project beyond Xanadu to be a return to a concept format as early as the fan club interview disc released in late 1979. For now, the mystery remains unsolved...
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Post by Timeblue on Aug 31, 2017 22:27:01 GMT
Now that Jeff has started to become less reclusive and appears more on talk shows than he ever did, I wonder if it's possible to get these questions such as these 'Time' queries asked?
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Post by unomusette on Aug 31, 2017 22:43:21 GMT
You would hope so, but unfortunately whenever he's interviewed they always ask the same old questions aimed at casual fans which we've heard the answers to a million times It would be good if he could do a session online where we submit the questions, although he'd probably weed out the ones he didn't want to answer.
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Post by BSJ on Aug 31, 2017 22:48:15 GMT
Wouldn't that be great? Someone like ShardEnder, asking the questions, perhaps?
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Post by BSJ on Aug 31, 2017 22:51:21 GMT
He'd be wise to sidestep yours and mine, unomusette!
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Post by unomusette on Aug 31, 2017 22:52:40 GMT
*evil cacklings* To quote the man himself, there's just no answer to give to the sort of questions we'd be posing
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Post by ShardEnder on Sept 1, 2017 8:07:11 GMT
Someone like ShardEnder, asking the questions, perhaps? As much as I'd love to interview Jeff, the reality is that he will typically only allow journalists to ask him about a limited range of subjects, which is why the creation of Mr. Blue Sky, helping to form the Traveling Wilburys and getting to work with The Beatles come up so often. In my past efforts to contact his management (for my upcoming book), I was informed that he would expect full control over the end result, so I politely declined - I expect this is also why other recent authors have chosen to go down the unauthorised route. On the rare instances when fans have been able to direct less obvious questions Jeff's way, such as during his Rockline appearances, he rarely provides a satisfactory answer. Indeed, I seem to recall he once confirmed that Time was originally going to be a double album, but couldn't remember where the outtakes went. Thanks to the owner of those acetates, we can at least fill in that blank, even if we don't yet know the identity of those two previously undocumented tracks...
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Post by sundown on Oct 15, 2017 9:04:05 GMT
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Post by tightrope on Oct 15, 2017 18:48:15 GMT
Thank you! I remembered him saying that once but couldn't remember when.
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Post by Southernman on Oct 22, 2017 8:29:29 GMT
Nothing here to suggest it was anything more than an idea, not a fully sequenced double a la Secret Messages.
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Post by ShardEnder on Oct 22, 2017 17:27:07 GMT
Nothing here to suggest it was anything more than an idea, not a fully sequenced double a la Secret Messages. As I mentioned earlier, the fully-sequenced test pressing of Time in its original double album form not only exists, but is safe in the hands of a noted collector. However, unlike the Secret Messages acetates, we don't know as much about these earlier discs - just what those two unidentified tracks are seems destined to remain a mystery (unless their owner is willing to share these, of course)...
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Post by Timeblue on Oct 22, 2017 17:38:25 GMT
Who is this collector,does anyone know?
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Post by ShardEnder on Oct 22, 2017 22:24:30 GMT
I don't believe the relatively new owner of those Time test acetates wants to be identified (probably to avoid suddenly being flooded with requests to share what must be even more of a holy grail to hardcore ELO collectors than the mythical Secret Messages double LP test pressings), but he runs a well-known fan page on Facebook if that helps...
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