Barry White's LOVE'S THEME .... the other version

[remicks]

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Maybe everybody is on to this :icon_rolleyes: :icon_redface: but I just learned this recently (credit to Vinyllife)

.... there's a very different version of LOVE'S THEME on this album:





Do you all know what makes it so different???




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[SandraDee]

It's got lyrics.

[Videoskooter]

Yep, it's sung by the girlz!

You can hear it here, just click on the song in the player:

ILOVEREMMY

[remicks]

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Vidioio ...... what about this one .....

sung by The Three Degrees





......... I see now why LOVE's THEME was a hit as an instrumental ... (smart move !!) I wonder how many other vocal songs would've benefited using a similar aproach ... ....



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[Mixmachine]

http://www.discomusic.com/records-more/5214_0_2_0_C/

[remicks]

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OK OK .... you knew already !!! In the vault and everything ....

... I said it was probably old news !! :icon_lol: :icon_lol:

released a year after it had already been a hit as an instrumental ... would love to know the story behind that .....instrumentals being so rarely successful .... I wonder how they finally decided ...you know what , it sounds best like that !!!! and decided to go with it ....



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[SandraDee]

I see now why LOVE's THEME was a hit as an instrumental ... (smart move !!) I wonder how many other vocal songs would've benefited using a similar aproach ... ....



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Quite a few I feel. I really love instrumental disco music & often preferred the instrumental b-sides of 12"ers. In the early 80s many Prelude instrumental b-sides were often better mixes & arrangements, not simply the same track minus the vocals; e.g. D-Train's 'Youre The One For Me', Electrik Funk's 'On A Journey' & Wuf Ticket's 'The Key' had instrumental sides that were far superior to the a-sides IMO.:icon_cool: I think it's great that there were instrumental disco records that were huge hits such as Love's Theme 'cos generally records can only be commercially successful if they have a definite song involved that the public can sing along to. I always hated how radio stations only played instrumental records up to the news or ads & invariably cut them short.

[Disco Funk]

I found out about that vocal version in the early 90s, when I bought a Collectables issue 45, thinking I was getting Love Unlimited Orchestra's version, but when I listened to it later, it was the vocal version.

It's a completely different performance from the instrumental version, they didn't just overlay the vocals onto the '73 performance. I find it a lot less gritty than the instrumental mix. Perhaps it's the way the hi-hat was mixed or played by Ed Greene. Also, Melvin Ragin's wah guitar isn't as prominent in the mix in the vocal version.

The reason to get that LP (In Heat) isn't for the vocal version of Love's Theme; it's to get the awesome track Move Me No Mountain. That track wasn't released as a single back in the day, for some reason, but it's since become an in demand cut. That's too bad, because I would have loved to have gotten the 45 with an instrumental mix on the flip, like so many other singles BW put out.

Disco Funk

[remicks]

It's a completely different performance from the instrumental version, they didn't just overlay the vocals onto the '73 performance. I find it a lot less gritty than the instrumental mix. Perhaps it's the way the hi-hat was mixed or played by Ed Greene. Also, Melvin Ragin's wah guitar isn't as prominent in the mix in the vocal version.


Disco Funk

I shouldn't be so quick to nay -say it . I typicallly love alternate versions ... and you're right this is a total reworking of the song and by Barry White himself ... ...how exciting is that ....it just takes some getting used to ...with its much less of a total "orchestra" sound...strings more recessed ... drums very different.... .....starts off like an opening to a fifties game show with the same original swirling strings but also a timpani drum ...as if building up for the game show host to be introduced and come bursting out from the parting curtains ...then the girls do a cooing that is most promising ..before going into the song itself . I think the lyrics are just kind of clumsy ... too wordy ..... but the underlying new instrumentation is fun to compare to the original ...

BTW the original version came out on Love Unlimited's previous album UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF LOVE ... as an instrumental just thrown in as filler !!!!!! ... WOW ! The big hit on their album was the one song where they sang .... nothing ! :icon_redface::icon_redface:

How do you go on tour with that !!! :icon_lol: *





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[Disco Funk]

I shouldn't be so quick to nay -say it . I typicallly love alternate versions ... and you're right this is a total reworking of the song and by Barry White himself ... ...how exciting is that ....it just takes some getting used to ...with its much less of a total "orchestra" sound...strings more recessed ... drums very different.... .....starts off like an opening to a fifties game show with the same original swirling strings but also a timpani drum ...as if building up for the game show host to be introduced and come bursting out from the parting curtains ...then the girls do a cooing that is most promising ..before going into the song itself . I think the lyrics are just kind of clumsy ... too wordy ..... but the underlying new instrumentation is fun to compare to the original ...

BTW the original version came out on Love Unlimited's previous album UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF LOVE ... as an instrumental just thrown in as filler !!!!!! ... WOW ! The big hit on their album was the one song where they sang .... nothing ! :icon_redface::icon_redface:

How do you go on tour with that !!! :icon_lol: *

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I agree about the lyrics, they're just too bland. Like if they had lyrics for the theme from Rocky that went 'he's gonna punch them all out; beat them all in every title bout....' Sometimes an instrumental is best kept as an instrumental.

Although Grazing In The Grass, when it gained its lyrics, was really fun! :)

Yes, the original appeared there. It was also on Rhapsody In White, I think.

I wish the flip to the single would be put on a CD. 'Sweet Moments' is just such an awesome groover, very ahead of its time in terms of the way it sounds. But it was never put on an LP, and has yet to be put on CD! They could have put it on the Best of or one of the CD reissues of his LPs.

I also wish they would compile a CD of the instrumental B sides to B White produced/related songs. I think they've only done two instrumental B sides onto CD -> I'm Gonna Love You Just A Little More, Babe, and Let The Music Play.

Disco Funk

[Disco Funk]

Here's an interesting cover version of Love's Theme. I thought of it after mentioning the artists name in the thread about boobies: Fausto Papetti. It was on the album I was thinking of. This track was featured on a series called Ultimate Breaks & Beats which a lot of producers used to sample from back in the mid 80s to early 90s, and probably to this day:

Love's Theme

Not a great version, and the funky scratched wah guitar is missing, but that intro break beat puts it slightly (very slightly) ahead of the vocal version by LU, for me. It's looped for a couple of bars in the audio sample. The original only has a 2 bar intro break beat.

Disco Funk

[Disco Funk]

And while we're still on the topic of the vocal version:

Love's Theme '76

Disco Funk

[remicks]

I agree about the lyrics, they're just too bland. Like if they had lyrics for the theme from Rocky that went 'he's gonna punch them all out; beat them all in every title bout....' Sometimes an instrumental is best kept as an instrumental.

Disco Funk

I know what you are saying .......A love song being sung about the song being a love song !!!! ...... :icon_eek: :icon_rolleyes:




It goes like this :

Play our love's theme tonight
My love's here, it's no dream tonight
It's been so long
Since we've danced to our love song
I know the melody that made him mine
Will be the melody that keeps him close to me (love's theme)

Play our love's theme once more
Make him feel, like he felt before
While the lights are low
Please, let the music flow
I know that the melody that made him mine
Will be the melody that keeps him close to me (love's theme)

Come and play our love's theme again
Touch his heart, touch his soul and then
Once we sip the wine
His lips will come to mine
I know that the melody that made him mine
Will be the melody that keeps him close to me
Love's theme...



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[juswax]

on the subject of Love's Theme, can anyone tell me where to find the longest version of the original instrumental?

the album clocks 4mins some, but i've heard a version played by the great Tom Savarese & it was over 6mins?!?

thanks
x/m

[Cdnbob]

I posted this in the Andy Williams thread on the forum, but as it also relates to the Love's Theme, I thought I'd post it here too.

Here's something interesting I found on AllMusic.com about the release of Andy Williams "The Way We Were" album in 1974:

"The album's single, which made the easy listening charts, was a vocal version of the Love Unlimited Orchestra's number-one instrumental "Love's Theme," a foray into disco."

Interesting.

[Disco Funk]

the album clocks 4mins some, but i've heard a version played by the great Tom Savarese & it was over 6mins?!?
x/m

I've bought up pretty much everything that has Barry White, Gene Page, the Love Unlimited Orchestra or Love Unlimited on the record from around the early to mid 70s, mainly for the instrumental B-sides Barry liked to put out for some of the tunes he produced, but I haven't come across in all that time a version of Love's Theme that's longer than the 4min LP version. He actually had it on two LPs, Under The Influence by Love Unlimited and I think White Gold was the other one (I'm too lazy to look it up right now). They're both exactly the same mix and length. Only the vocal version is different in the fact it has lyrics and the playing is different. I'm not even sure if its Ed Greene, the usual LUO drummer, playing on their version.

Disco Funk

[juswax]

ok thanks disco funk.

having just played the two together side by side i think that what Tom Savarese did was just play two copies one after the other - he caught the change so well that it was seamless

4 mins it is then

x/m