Peter Gabriel / Talks at Google

In Your Eyes is last on the NINE TRACK vinyl version of So included in the new box set. No problem with bass now.

And after all the fuss, I bought the junior version. I had seen the 87 tour when it rolled through what was then Pine Knob, Clarkston, Michigan and the Setlist is very similar to Athens 87 in the package. The Athens show is a revelation – find your space and get it.
Oh and the So remaster is fabgear. I certainly cannot claim any expertise of previous issues except generation one, but it’s clean, separated and not over bright
So 25 years later, my daughter and I saw the Back to Front stop in Detroit and are waiting for the last piece of the So 2012, the encore show release

I’m in agreement – to me, IYE fits perfectly as the Side Two opener, and “We Do What We’re Told” is a perfect closer. Like what LEEMER said, “This Is The Picture” wasn’t on the original Vinyl or CD anyway, so he’s talking out of both sides of his mouth.

Listening to PG talk about the new So Reissue Box set, he says jokingly “we’ll throw any old shit in there” at about 4:10. Hmmm, PG. And the earlier comment about as long as they keep buying it, we’ll keep remastering it… Yikes!!!

I agree with Richard Harris’s question concerning PG’s statement about the running track order. It is true that vinyl really only can hold about maximum 22 minutes per side before the grooves need to be put so closely together the sound quality suffers. That was why LP’s were always about 40 to 45 minutes long.

However, So was only 42 minutes long as originally released and side 2 was just under 20 minutes as originally released. While I never purchased the vinyl, I was a DJ at a college radio station back in 1986 and I don’t remember the vinyl being any hotter than other records back then.

Furthermore, the song “This Is The Picture” wasn’t even originally included in the track order, so I really don’t buy PG’s track order argument. I think the just changed it because that way because the record company wanted it to be – you started S1 and S2 with uptempo hit songs and had groove pieces towards the end of the LP side. Putting In Your Eyes, which was an obvious hit to anyone with ears, at side 2 track one, was standard record track order practice in those vinyl days.

It’s interesting to note that The Beatles’ Abbey Road was over 47 minutes long – a minute longer than PG’s So album (with Excellent Birds included). Furthermore, they had I Want You (She’s So Heavy) on last track side one, and side one was almost 25 minutes. They cut it in 1969 and it sounded pretty good to me, a lot more bass than most records at the time, although I’ve not compared vinyl So with vinyl Abbey Road side by side.

So, I really don’t buy PG’s argument about So track order. But, if you look at the track order of Abbey road you can see that S1 and S2 both have rocking up-tempo numbers and trail off to deeper cuts.

Furthermore, I never thought This Is The Picture fit the So album’s character, it always seemed to be just a bonus track for those who spent the extra $8 for the CD. Remember those days when vinyl was actually cheaper than CD’s? I think Laurie Anderson’s version on Mister Heartbreak is the definitive version, anyway.

I’ll always prefer it as track 5, as it was on vinyl. It’s hard to get my head around the revised order after so many years of listening over and over to the original. Regardless, I think “We Do What We’re Told” is a better final track.

Given that We Do What We’re Told didn’t feature on the LP I think In Your Eyes might have sounded ok as the fourth and final track on side 2.

I’m puzzled why PG says that the strong bass line of “In Your Eyes” meant that it couldn’t be placed last on the original version of “So” back in 1986. I can see that it couldn’t be last on the vinyl version then, but surely the CD version that came out then could have had it placed last on the running order instead of “We Do What We’re Told” and “This Is The Picture (Excellent Birds)”. Unless he didn’t want versions then with a different sequence between vinyl and CD. It was the first CD I ever bought way back then and, without wishing to sound ancient, not every artist’s new albums were automatically coming out on CD as well as vinyl – I hunted in vain for a CD copy of Talking Heads’ “True Stories” but in the end had to settle for a vinyl one at the time.