The weekly posting from The World’s Worst Records blog arrived today. I was shocked. How could he lump XTC, Todd Rundgren and the delightful track Dear God in with his usual “audio atrocities”. I am a big fan of the blog, the author and the two books he has written. He must be mistaken.
Relax dear reader. This version is the one recorded by Todd for his LP (Re)Productions, a collection of tracks he produced for other artists. The conflict he had with XTC during the sessions for Skylarking are well documented and are worth reading about on the blog. In the meantime I am going to search out more of Todd’s versions to see how bad they really are.
http://worldsworstrecords.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/dear-god.html
I love XTC. I hate ‘Dear God’. ‘Skylarking’ is much improved by its absence.
Amen.
Unfortunately it’s on my version of Skylarking.
It wasn’t originally. It appeared as a single, which got a lot of play in the US. The US album was then re-pressed with ‘Mermaid Smiled’ deleted, and DG in its place. Pretty sure it wasn’t on the original UK cd version, and its not on the Japanese card-sleeve CD from the mid-2000s. Is on the recent APE reissue.
I really dislike the child’s intro verse. . .
Wasn’t it a B-side that got popular with US college radio and then the US album got the re-pressing etc? I like it, anyway.
It was on the b-side of ‘Grass’.
It is,’t on the original UK CD (which I have on the desk in front of me at this moment), but is on Andy Partridge’s recent re-tooled version (with the original artwork which Virgin refused), slipped in between The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul and Dying
What a marvellous site that is. The articles are so well researched and well argued. Impressive that he decides to include a track by a band he loves to death. The story of that album is a strange one. Utterly vitriolic chemistry between the band and the producer yet a masterpiece emerged.
I love the song. I bought the vinyl re-issue the other year with the original artwork and it was on there so I knew no better about the track listing. I would be disappointed to hear it now without the song on there. The chalkhills website explains about the original track listings. http://chalkhills.org/reelbyreal/a_Skylarking.html
Burning Shed have some info on a forthcoming book by Andy Partridge and Todd Bernhardt;
https://www.burningshed.com/store/ape/product/405/7076/
At least Todd has done something quite different with Dear God. I think it is fine.
On his album Faithfull he made carbon copies of classics, none of which were any good. And don’t get me started on his Beatles pastiche album Deface The Music.
I actually thought Re-Production was Todd’s most bearable album of recent years and I consider myself a big fan. Deface The Music is also one of the most bearable Utopia albums in my opinion.
There’s an excellent Marc Maron WTF podcast just out with Todd, in which (towards the end) he discusses his experience with XTC – let’s just say he’s less than complimentary about Andy Partridge…