The Great Big Music Trivia Thread

robert

Another week, another interesting piece of trivia: there are six different studio versions of Breathing that have ever been released! We have:

the Diff's Lucky Day version, super-crude demo
the No Name Face version (4:25 long)
the radio edit version (4:11 long due to removing four bars from the intro; also used in the music video)
the rock remix, which is pretty much the same as the radio edit but adds an electric guitar with an ebow overtop of the banjo during the key melody and playing the same notes, removes some of the string and woodwind instruments from the mix and adds a few subtle synthesizers, and adds a crunchy guitar in the final chorus
this mystery version, which is decidedly not the DLD version and not the No Name Face version – note the slower tempo, slightly different instrumentation, and lack of a fade at the end
the iTunes Originals version, released in 2005 along with You and Me, All In All, and HBAM, celebrating the release of the self titled album (instrumentally this is the closest version to the way the song has been played live)

As far as I know, this is the most of any song Lifehouse has ever made. Interesting too, as it was the song responsible for getting Jason his initial record deal with Dreamworks (along with Somewhere In Between) :)

shawn

@robert Wow, I was not aware of the last two! Could that mystery version be from one of the various CD singles for that song? I just listened and his articulation is much clearer on some words and his is sublte accent is missing: "I'm finding my way back to sanity wh-again".

I was searching around YouTube and came across this interview where Jason mention's they were originally going to name album 5 "Django" until they found out about the movie "Django Unchanged" (which came out a couple weeks after their record) so they ended up with "Almeria" instead.

The host definitely called him "Jason Rade" too... :rolling_on_the_floor_laughing:

You can tell in that interview he was pretty proud of that record which makes me feel bad because I just could never get into it no matter how hard I tried. "Only You're the One" and "Aftermath" are probably the only tracks I enjoyed from the record (excluding bonus tracks).

robert

@shawn no way! Updated the post above to include a link to the version they did for iTunes. I've always liked it a lot. I think this was shortly after Ben joined the band as the touring guitarist, and I guess would've been the first time they ever recorded with Bryce in a studio? Also I'm glad I'm not the only one scratching my head at that version of Breathing... could it be from the "Bliss" version of DLD?? I didn't know of any differences between them.

One final tidbit about Breathing: if you turn up your speakers as the NNF version of the song is fading out, you can hear the song actually finish and all of them stop playing. This isn't the only time Ron Aniello did this – on Matt Nathanson's Beneath These Fireworks, the final track 'Sing Me Sweet' actually ends deep within a fade he put on it. Have a listen! (ensuring there's no song queued afterwards or you'll blow your ears off)

Almería was an oddball of an album, but I always appreciated how much they took a chance with it. That's an interesting fact about the title. I think some of Jason's favourite moments as a songwriter are when he unlocks something new, which I guess is where the whole 'we don't want to repeat the same album twice' thing came from. It's an album that I revisit every once in a while and it always sounds incredibly fresh to me, which I find kind of fascinating. Not all of it, but some songs are just so texturally interesting – the little sounds and mixtures of sounds and layers of sounds all felt digital, but were so uncommon or unconventional to my ears. In that respect, in its own way I think a good chunk of the record actually holds its own against No Name Face (my favourite-textured record of all time) and the self-titled album (which I consider their best-sounding record from a sonic/recording perspective). Slow Motion is a controversial song but I can get lost in those tones and the ambience for days :grin:

shawn

@robert Some times I need to learn to put my bias aside and listen to the album at face value and check my expectations at the door lol I was just listening to Winzlo Vol. 1 this morning and actually made it through this time. I was put off by the sound originally but out of the six songs, I really enjoyed "Voyage of the Underling" as it's own thing, outside the shadow of the Lifehouse catalog.

Going through each EP/album Jason has put out over the last few years in order to review them, I've really started shifting my attitude/opinion of some of these releases and started to really enjoy them. If you're interested, maybe you can kick off the next release we review/discuss... could make it a weekly/bi-weekly thing (time permitting) with the amount of releases we've gotten over the last few years.

robert

@shawn Love it!! Voyage of the Underling is one of my favourite solo tracks of his, despite how massively different that set of songs were to anything else he made. His voice can fit so many different genres, it's honestly really wild. Magnetize and Santa Monica also gets into my head sometimes... never thought of it until now but Dragonflies really carries that EP onwards, doesn't it?

You said it perfectly: "outside of the shadow of the Lifehouse catalog". I feel like Jason could be ten different artists if the guy wanted to. Over the past few years, I've really been trying to not let my preconceptions of music get in the way of just listening to and enjoying it... I know I've historically been someone who really obsesses over songs and how an artist's work compares to their old work, and 'worrying' somehow about 'what they're getting into' or if they've 'changed', and putting all of this pressure on this person I clearly don't know but feel like I do to support me with the same music time and time again. So I feel almost uncomfortable when I hear something very different from them. But then there are those little moments that happen from time to time, like walking through downtown Toronto at night and putting on Winzlo and just feeling this incredible feeling during the final breakdown of Underling that's just transcendental! Or going through a rough breakup and depression and getting deeply into Sweet Delirium, with all of its emotional ups and downs. It's a hard skill to learn, but when I'm not feeling it, I can always stick the self-titled on or WWA on or NNF on and revisit those old friends ;)

I'd love to kick off the next discussion! There's a lot of material to cover, but I think doing them out of order could actually be really nice. Anything in particular you're thinking of?

robert

Also, this week's random trivia fact: Gresham, which came out on July 4, 2019, was recorded in early/mid 2018 in the same two weeks as Sweet Delirium. Both were recorded in his old home studio in LA (I believe where S&M, Almería, and OOTW were worked on), around the time he and Steve moved fully to Nashville. Fascinating how the timing of such different groups of songs overlap like that

shawn

@robert I'm down for any of them. I've been listening to them all lately and find myself picking out things I enjoy more and more from each of the collections.

I loved Gresham! I felt at least some of those tracks were a little dark as well. Do we know the relevance of Gresham? A place he spent time maybe or a relative/friend? I don't remember if he posted about it.

I didn't realize that was recorded during the same time frame as Sweet Delirium. It's interesting because you start to draw comparisons or get a sense of a bigger picture when you can start connecting dots to other events/releases/facts in a persons life. You really know your stuff!

robert

Happy Monday! Today's interesting piece of trivia is a two-parter. Both Lifehouse records released under Dreamworks, NNF and SCf, had tracklists that were reworked prior to the albums' respective releases. These are known as 'Advance' copies in Dreamworks-speak, and they can shed interesting light on the process of making the records that otherwise wouldn't come to be. Let's go through 'em :sunglasses:

No Name Face, before it had a name:
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Jason's said before that the album was otherwise almost finished when HBAM was written, and that he was tracking vocals for Somebody Else's Song the day he sat down and created the song. What's interesting to me is that the record name seems to have come later – this copy of the album has no title and contains WWWT as a thirteenth track, nestled in between Quasi and SIB. But wait, there's more! Check out the reorganized tracklist... Only One and Trying are moved up and swapped, changing the feel of the first half of the record. Also note that WWWT seems to be 22s shorter than the version that made it onto the HBAM Single (which was 3:54), unless this was a typo. SSC is also a bit longer, at 4:31 versus 4:23... perhaps they sped it up for the final release? Cling & Clatter was slowed, and Breathing is 4:18 instead of 4:25, a significant enough difference that it must've had a fade or an extra bar or something added in. Super nerdy but it's fun to geek out ;)

Stanley Climbfall, four months before its release:
alt text
As for SCf, some of us have seen this before, but The Beginning was the last track written and Wish was a placeholder for a while. This album was closer to the final, except for one difference: My Precious and the title track (the two softest songs on the album) were in opposite places. I've been listening to it this way for a couple of months now and honestly prefer it – I never really liked My Precious because to my ears, it didn't fit with the nine songs that came before it. But moving it up allows for less build-up, and it's a nice change of pace from AIEGFO that would've come before it. Interesting!

Bonus trivia piece: the self-titled album has no record of the tracklist ever almost being different, but The End Has Only Begun was originally simply titled, "The End". A fitting nod to "The Beginning".
alt text

robert

Hi all, 
Reviving this thread in preparation of a track-by-track commentary on Ode to Silence that I’ll be posting in the coming week. I was thinking about songs that were written in one era, but released in another, and this got me thinking about what Lifehouse songs fit this description. Let’s go through a few

You and Me 
Written 2000, released 2005 
LH’s biggest hit, we likely all know, was written in the same few months as Hanging By A Moment — it began as a track called You, Me, and All of the People, written when Jason proposed to his now partner. Jude Cole is responsible for the relatively simple G chords that make up the song’s main theme, and this was likely their first cowrite. The legend goes that it was featured in a movie by Ean Mering titled All Over Again, though I’ve never been able to verify this point. The song missed No Name Face (they were deep into the Blyss songs and newer rock songs like SSC and Quasimodo), but was tracked for Stanley Climbfall with what Jason describes as a “weird carousel theme”. They shelved it when it got too artsy, and revived it with John Alagia in 2004 while working on the yellow record — this third version had strings by the legendary Oliver Kraus, and became the song as it is now known.

Spin
Written 1997, released 2002
Spin began as an early poem of Jason’s, written near the beginning of the Blyss era but lacking a bridge — Ron Aniello helped him write one, turning it into a song and setting it up to be the first track off Stanley Climbfall.

Wish 
Written 2001, released 2015
 I’ve mentioned this in past posts, but Wish was written in 2001 and demoed for Stanley Climbfall, before being shelved for over a decade. Jason began working on the song again in 2012 for Paper Cuts, and finished that version of the song in 2013. The band once again totally overhauled the song for OOTW, and we are blessed with three versions of a fan favourite.

Storm
Written 1997/1998, released 2007
Storm was initially featured on Diff’s Lucky Day, and wasn’t played in concert until it was requested at the Cleveland House of Blues in May 2005. Jason played the song there, and began to incorporate it into his set once in a while, and the band ultimately tracked the song in 2007 while finishing Who We Are.

Crash and Burn 
Written 2006, released 2010 
Crash and Burn was a song written during the Who We Are era and used for soundchecking during their 2006 tour. The original version included a longer instrumental intro and several pre-chorus lyrics that were ultimately removed in an early-2009 revamp. The band began playing the song as part of their set that year, releasing it as a bonus track for Smoke & Mirrors in 2010.

By Your Side 
Written 2006, released 2010 
By Your Side was written during the Who We Are sessions, and copyrighted alongside the bulk of that album. Jason said in an interview that they tried twice to record it and weren’t satisfied with what they had found, electing to pause developing it any further. After they invited a fan with declining health to their studio in 2009, whose family heard and loved the song, they decided to record it with her present and released it on Smoke & Mirrors in 2010.

Central Park 
Written 2007, released 2015 
Jason wrote Central Park and Sink or Swim on a songwriting trip to New York the fall after Who We Are was released, and the band tracked it for Smoke & Mirrors before putting it on hold. J recorded the bulk of the song at home making Paper Cuts, before the band filled it in and re-recorded some parts for OOTW.

Let me know if anyone knows of any other songs that skipped an era or two — it’s always interesting to hear what wasn’t scrapped but rather “paused” because it didn’t fit something but was too good to give up.

shawn

@robert said in The Great Big Music Trivia Thread:

You and Me 
Written 2000, released 2005 
LH’s biggest hit, we likely all know, was written in the same few months as Hanging By A Moment — it began as a track called You, Me, and All of the People, written when Jason proposed to his now partner.

I didn't realize it was written that early on. It's a good thing they held off on releasing it. It definitely wouldn't have fit in with the rest of No Name Face!

Spin
Written 1997, released 2002
Spin began as an early poem of Jason’s, written near the beginning of the Blyss era but lacking a bridge — Ron Aniello helped him write one, turning it into a song and setting it up to be the first track off Stanley Climbfall.

I love, love, love the extended outro on Spin!

Wish 
Written 2001, released 2015
 I’ve mentioned this in past posts, but Wish was written in 2001 and demoed for Stanley Climbfall, before being shelved for over a decade. Jason began working on the song again in 2012 for Paper Cuts, and finished that version of the song in 2013. The band once again totally overhauled the song for OOTW, and we are blessed with three versions of a fan favourite.

2001: Best. Version.

Storm
Written 1997/1998, released 2007
Storm was initially featured on Diff’s Lucky Day, and wasn’t played in concert until it was requested at the Cleveland House of Blues in May 2005. Jason played the song there, and began to incorporate it into his set once in a while, and the band ultimately tracked the song in 2007 while finishing Who We Are.

The Blyss version of "Storm" is magic. One of the best tracks on Diff's Lucky Day in my opinion. The lead guitar during the intro set up this dreamy, floating-on-the-water feeling that pulled you in and set the tone for what was to come. His vocals at this point were so sincere and raw it felt like you were standing in the midst of what he was going through. I've never been a big fan of the re-recordings for Storm or Wish because I felt they lacked that raw emotion and were over-engineered but I'm glad there are these other versions. Not everyone connects to a song the same way and these songs are too incredible to miss.

Barely survivng has become my purpose / 'Cause I'm so used to living underneath the surface

After spending the past couple of weeks listening to Gresham again, I definitely see this song in a new way.

The songs I can think of are "Exhale" and "Shiny Silver Beast". Both were written around the yellow record (or before?). They were originally shared on the original LHF site sometime between May 2003 and May 2006 (Wayback Machine doesn't have that gap sadly). As we know, "Exhale" was released in 2015 as a bonus track for OOTW and "Shiny Silver Beast" was recorded in 2013 for Paper Cuts but not released until 2017.

I always assumed these were related to the Dear Mr. Tumnus project but I have no reason to believe it was true. The song names "Porcelain Mask", "Dear Mr. Tumnus", "White Witch", "Shiny Silver Beast" and "Exhale" all seemed to fit together at the time.