Alternate of Borderline?

[liftmeup1990]

I recently purchased a re-release of Armchair Theatre it came on white vinyl unexpectedly (it was supposed to be blue but I'm not complaining). I listened to all the songs but I noticed something off when I went to side D. That being that borderline sounded very strange. It had different lyrics to it and it other differences as well. Has anyone else noticed this or have this occur? I'm certainly not complaining because it sounds probably better than the standard version.

[ShardEnder]

Jeff appears to have reworked Borderline at some point since its original appearance as a b-side, with this version being what he included on the remastered edition of Armchair Theatre. While it's a welcome addition, I miss the old recording... and what happened to Sirens, for that matter?

[Platypus]

Only having got Armchair Theatre recently, I had no idea what the earlier version of the song was like. My download certainly features the alternative form.

[liftmeup1990]

Feb 22, 2016 2:59:47 GMT ShardEnder said:

Jeff appears to have reworked Borderline at some point since its original appearance as a b-side, with this version being what he included on the remastered edition of Armchair Theatre. While it's a welcome addition, I miss the old recording... and what happened to Sirens, for that matter?

Yeah, I do find it interesting he didn't add "I'm Gone" or "Sirens". I love sirens. I have the 7 inch of Lift Me Up including it. I do prefer the alternate but I would like to have seen the original take as well because they're both great.

[ShardEnder]

At the time Armchair Theatre was released, Jeff considered Sirens the completed version of an idea he'd been trying to perfect for years, which he first attempted in 1982 (during the sessions for Secret Messages). Frustrated with his inability to find a satisfactory structure for the basic chord sequence, he quickly shelved this approach in favour of using the verse melody as a short instrumental prelude to Hello My Old Friend, an extended mix of this appearing on the Rock 'N' Roll Is King single as its b-side, After All. This later served as not only the foundation for Sirens, but also Night Calls - a song he offered to Joe Cocker in the form of a finished recording with a guide vocal. From what I've read, Joe preferred to collaborate or at least be in the same room as any writers he worked with, so even though the result led to a hit single and would go on to become the title of an album, he wasn't happy with Jeff's method. In preparing to assemble what became the Flashback retrospective, it's known that Jeff rediscovered the original abandoned '82 fragment, using Pro Tools to rearrange the pieces into an order he felt would provide a definitive resolution to his pursuit for the ideal presentation. Reshuffling its order and wiping off the majority of the lines once sung through Dave Morgan's vocoder, also prominently featured on the Time Tour, Jeff decided instead that Tears In Your Life was more suited to a three-part harmony. So, you could argue that his reason for not including Sirens on the Armchair Theatre remaster is because he's since found closure with Tears In Your Life, now regarding this as the definitive treatment of his rather captivating Eastern-influenced tune, which I do agree works fantastically in the context of his lone solo album's other similarly-sounding tracks.

On the subject of I'm Gone, I often champion that as perhaps Jeff's finest excursion into rockabilly, with a characteristically offbeat breakdown section and the kind of all-out piano solo he rarely allows himself to indulge in! Saying that, could it have been another performance from Richard "Magic Fingers" Tandy, who is credited on other tracks recorded durng the Armchair Theatre period?