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Hold Your Fire: the directors' cuts?


Ged Lent's sis
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Hold Your Fire or Fire away  

36 members have voted

  1. 1. If HYF had been limited to 22'30" per side, would it have been perfect?

    • Nah, I wouldn't like it anyway.
    • No way, José Feliciano, leave it the way it is!
    • Absolutely. See my track list is in the comments section.


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http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XpuyyFVo8Bc/Ug5UY5Jg1nI/AAAAAAAAC4w/tD0ol0Rf0Ok/s600/LEDRUSH+LOSING+IT.png http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kqZDfngU8kE/Ug_7pM2H-pI/AAAAAAAAC5g/op4VLZWG2-M/s290/HYF+2112.png

 

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RTTONMLGss4/Ug5UacApbkI/AAAAAAAAC44/iuranfjGF3w/s600/CYCLONUS+RUSHGOOBER.png http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dwSaiqlmwnw/Ug_7uMTfVoI/AAAAAAAAC5o/sEEP2HCOJ0I/s290/HYF+CIRCUMSTANTIAL+TREE.png

wrong! I want all 10 songs but with Tai Shan and High water as bonus tracks!
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wrong! I want all 10 songs but with Tai Shan and High water as bonus tracks!

 

Sincere apologies. It's just that light of what you said here...

sometimes a song heard all by itself takes on a new feel often than when heard with the other songs on the album. I can see why people might diss Tai Shan and High Water. When I first bought the album, I felt the same as most that those two songs seemed out of place or unnecessary. I grew to love them though even though I never disliked them. I think High Water is a good song to listen to by itself and Tai Shan as well.

 

...I figured your production might help others appreciate the songs the same way you did and eventually go back to listening to the cd in all its ten-track glory.

 

And, anyway, I'm only pressing vinyl of the highest audio quality; there are only 22m30s per side, like I said before. So, if you like, think of your tracks as having to be on a single, inserted in the package as a bonus to supplement the production of J2112YYZ and Virtualbob64 -- thus:

 

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kqZDfngU8kE/Ug_7pM2H-pI/AAAAAAAAC5g/op4VLZWG2-M/s290/HYF+2112.png http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dwSaiqlmwnw/Ug_7uMTfVoI/AAAAAAAAC5o/sEEP2HCOJ0I/s290/HYF+CIRCUMSTANTIAL+TREE.png

I mean, it's the same running order—so no harm, no foul.

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You still don't have it right. My running order is:

 

Force Ten

Time Stand Still

Open Secrets

Second Nature

Prime Mover

Lock and Key

Mission

Turn the Page

Tai Shan (bonus cut)

High Water (bonus cut)

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You're telling me that HyF wasn't primarily composed of rejected songs from power windows?

 

If that were true, we wouldn't have the songs in side 2 of Power Windows (well, 3 out of 4, anyway).

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Whatever you want to delete is always a song someone out there likes. Most people seem to dislike the larger bowl from SnA but it is one of my faves. I say leave it be.

 

The Larger Bowl isn't one of my favorites off S & A but I wouldn't replace it. Good News First holds that honor!

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I wouldn't re-mix, re-edit anything on Hold Your Fire.

 

I listened to HYF again for the first time in many years, and a thought came to mind; It was 1987, and you know what a lot of popular music sounded like?

 

Phil Collins

 

F'in Phil Collins

 

HYF sounds like an attempt to have that smoothed out "adult contemporary" sound that was so pervasive on so many recordings of the time, and while there are some great songs on the record, that's the taste left in my mouth after having not listened to the record in forever.

 

Force Ten is probably the only track on the album that doesnt' give me that vibe.

 

I don't know, maybe they were shooting for a "mature" record, and that was the result.

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Well, all I know is, back when the album was first released in 1987, people still commonly used 90-minute cassettes (45 mins per side) to copy albums for car stereos and stuff. Tai Shan was the one most commonly left off when you wanted to fit it on one side, heh. (Myself, I think I ended up just using a 60 min cassette and matched the vinyl album sides. ;))

 

Tai Shan... the song Geddy says is an "error" and we'd be "waiting a long time" for the band to play live, but I think if I had to take something off, it would be Second Nature. Tai Shan has some interesting atmospherics and was clearly something a little experimental, but Second Nature just sounds corny to me. But still, it's hard to imagine the album any differently after all these years.

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Well, all I know is, back when the album was first released in 1987, people still commonly used 90-minute cassettes (45 mins per side) to copy albums for car stereos and stuff. Tai Shan was the one most commonly left off when you wanted to fit it on one side, heh. (Myself, I think I ended up just using a 60 min cassette and matched the vinyl album sides. ;))

 

Tai Shan... the song Geddy says is an "error" and we'd be "waiting a long time" for the band to play live, but I think if I had to take something off, it would be Second Nature. Tai Shan has some interesting atmospherics and was clearly something a little experimental, but Second Nature just sounds corny to me. But still, it's hard to imagine the album any differently after all these years.

I, too, am finding it hard to settle on the songs to remove. At one point I was about ready to remove three or four, to help the decision, but after listening to the others' running orders, I find virtue in a song I'd remove in a slightly altered context (I suppose I should have posted this is the "games" section of the forum).

 

The main thing for me is that the album is weakened having all fifty-and-a-half minutes of the ten songs on it. Maybe, had they opted for a couple of three-minute tunes it might flow better for me.

 

Like you, I'm not a Tai Shan hater, but have to admit that it's the one track firmly on the chopping block. But the clincher for that decision is that I feel that the—er—mystical territory had been covered on the previous album somehow.

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Well, Tai Shan. It's finally not sounding too good to me. A.so either Ooen Secrets or Second Nature need to go

Yikes. I shutter to think of HYF without Open Secrets. Nevertheless, would you leave the running order otherwise the same?

 

Wells yes. I think I meant Second Nature though.

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Well, Tai Shan. It's finally not sounding too good to me. A.so either Ooen Secrets or Second Nature need to go

Yikes. I shutter to think of HYF without Open Secrets. Nevertheless, would you leave the running order otherwise the same?

 

Well yes. I think I meant Second Nature though.

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Part of what's muddying this discussion is that Turn the Page is a good album closer.

But there are 2 more songs after it.

 

So, to me the real question is:

If Tai Shan and High Water (or Open Secrets or Second Nature, or whatever your least 2 favorites are...) were nestled into the middle of the album, and Turn The Page was the last song on the album, would you still want to lop any songs off of HYF?

Edited by sitboaf
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Part of what's muddying this discussion is that Turn the Page is a good album closer.

But there are 2 more songs after it.

 

So, to me the real question is:

If Tai Shan and High Water (or Open Secrets or Second Nature, or whatever your least 2 favorites are...) were nestled into the middle of the album, and Turn The Page was the last song on the album, would you still want to lop any songs off of HYF?

Now you're talking. And that just about settles it as far as the second song I wanted to omit; you clarified something I'd thought a while back.

 

Now my question for you is (not that you gotta play, but...): Are you willing to remove two songs, and what would your running order be (before TtP)?

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Part of what's muddying this discussion is that Turn the Page is a good album closer.

But there are 2 more songs after it.

 

So, to me the real question is:

If Tai Shan and High Water (or Open Secrets or Second Nature, or whatever your least 2 favorites are...) were nestled into the middle of the album, and Turn The Page was the last song on the album, would you still want to lop any songs off of HYF?

Now you're talking. And that just about settles it as far as the second song I wanted to omit; you clarified something I'd thought a while back.

 

Now my question for you is (not that you gotta play, but...): Are you willing to remove two songs, and what would your running order be (before TtP)?

I'll play. I kick the last two songs off, and not because they come after Turn The Page. They just aren't up to snuff.

I agree with the earlier post about Tai Shan; I kinda like listening to it separately, but it doesn't seem to work in the context of the album. I'm not making excuses for it; it's an average song (not an average Rush song, an average ROCK song) that kills its own momentum. After the pretty, bendy keyboard parts, it stalls. I keep half-expecting a kickass section to start right there. Anyway, the point is, any song that kills momentum is bad for album flow. There's just no good place to put it.

As for High Water, it's just OK. If you can stick some very good songs around it, it doesn't hurt you much. But Hold Your Fire has too many C+ songs that manage to keep the flow going but can't hold up a weak neighbor. Again, not trying to be mean - a "B" song is a true album highlight, and HYF has four of them.

 

So, that's why those two go. I end up with this:

 

Force Ten (great opener)

Time Stands Still

Open Secrets

Prime Mover (good closer)

 

Mission (works well as an opener or a closer)

Second Nature

Lock and Key

Turn The Page

Edited by sitboaf
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