Alright, you guys might remember me geeking out over Nat Turner Rebellion last year and
trying to find every extra morsel of unreleased material from them. I have a bit of an update that I discovered purely by accident.
A couple of weeks ago I was buying a record off of discogs and saw the seller also had a copy of
Nat Turner's Can't Go on Livin'/Laugh to Keep from Crying single for like, two bucks. Both songs made it to the VMP album so it wasn't anything really on my radar but at that price I thought I could give it a loving home.
When I got it the other day I gave it a spin, not expecting much. And indeed it was pretty crackly but something felt... different about Can't Go on Livin'. The bass felt more prominent, and Major Harris' vocals almost sounded mournful than what I was accustomed to. I knew the songs had been remastered for the VMP release so the two versions would undoubtedly have some minor differences in their sound but... this is different.
Sure enough, I started playing them side-by-side and much to my surprise this wasn't just a different remaster, not even a different mix: it's a
completely different take!
Listen and compare!
The original 1971 single:
And the VMP remaster:
One of the most obvious parts is if you skip to around 2:46 on each song. In the original, Major Harris sings, "What in the world am I gonna do without ya, baby? Oooooh ooh ooh!" In the VMP remaster Major sings, "Lord, I don't wanna go without ya, baby. Whee hee wait! Don't make me go on without ya baby!"
This is all a really neat surprise! I really do hope VMP or someone else puts out an EP with the missing Nat Turner songs and if they need to flesh it out, we now know of at least one alternate take they can also use. I actually went back to the Philly Groove CD compilation I bought last year
for The Robot Parts 1 and 2, and sure enough, Can't Go On Livin' is the original take, not the VMP version. I now might have to really listen and compare to see if any other alternate takes are out there.
Edit: If you're wondering, Laught to Keep from Crying is the same. I think. Maybe, I'm a bit drunk right now tbh I'll compare them side by side later. But it didn't stand out the way this did.
Edit 2: I've closely compared my vinyl single version with the one that was on that 1990s CD compilation and while I can determine they're the same take (and thus different from the VMP album remaster), the CD compilation seems to have the audio slowed down and it fades out sooner, maybe about 5-10 seconds before the vinyl single does. My turntable could be playing my 45 a little too fast, but honestly the CD compilation version feels like it drags too much, so I'm thinking the CD version's speed is the one that's incorrect.
Furthermore, while the vocals and band's instrumentation are different, I believe the orchestral string arrangement is the same across both versions. And again, lining up VMP's version with the CD compilation, the orchestral strings almost immediately go out of sync, with the CD compilation lagging behind the VMP remaster. I might encode a clip of them playing together and going out of sync, it sounds really fucking creepy.
