I have several songs where I think they could have done better on the album version.
This includes a lot of Mink Car:
- Bangs - Snapping Turtles had the more John-y lyrics in my opinion.
- Man, It’s So Loud in Here - The first demo just had more soul, in my opinion. I get they were going for Pet Shop Boys pastiche/parody, but I really liked the general 80s vibes of the original demo.
- My Man - There’s a demo that has some better compositional choices in my opinion.
- Another First Kiss - I prefer the one from Severe Tire Damage by leaps and bounds.
Another addition is I like the Severe Tire Damage version of They Got Lost more than the Long Tall Weekend version.
Fingertips live, eg the one on the Gigantic DVD.
And most live versions of Istanbul - recent versions with Curt Ramm were fantastic.
I’ve never listened to a live version of Istanbul, and I am now questioning my life choices.
After hearing it some many times and it being the song most associate with the band, I’d always skipped over it. I always felt it just needed a smidge more compositional complexity, and the live versions deliver it.
I think because it is such a simple song that they’ve played so much, they can easily play around with it. They usually have Dan Miller play a semi-improvised acoustic guitar intro (Miller Time), and they add an extended outro.
