DON'T KILL THE WHALE

The titles on both sides of the original 7-inch vinyl are easily available on the most recently released version of the Tormato CD, and both have been available on CD since the early 1990s. Before that, this single was sought after by Yes fans for the non- album b-side, "Abeline," which must have gone out of print soon after the single was released in 1978.

But an underappreciated aspect of the "Don't Kill the Whale" single is that the a-side (at least the version I have) is a different mix of "Don't Kill the Whale." This mix is shorter (about 3:20 compared to the Tormato version of 3:57 or so), and (a) the bass is louder and more distinct, and (b) the synthesizer and guitar parts are mixed in a less balanced way - - which is good. In other words, during the keyboard solo, the guitar is pushed further back in the single mix than on Tormato, and for most of the rest of the song, the keys are treated as a backing instrument, rather than fighting for space with the guitar parts, as they seem to on the album. On the single, the vocal part that begins around 2:40 seems to use a slightly different take. The single also fades before the coda. There are other, more subtle differences between the two versions in what I believe would be referred to as compression and equalization, although I'm comparing the single to one of several remasters of the album.

And then there's "Abeline," which should have, in my opinion, been featured on The Steve Howe Album the next year. A nice song, and a better tune than about half of the songs that made it onto Tormato, "Abeline" nonetheless doesn't seem in retrospect to have been a good fit with the sound of that album. The same can be said for "Money" and several other songs recorded at the same time. As much as I like "Abeline," and as much as I feel that there was insufficient compositional input from Howe on Tormato, I would've chosen "Money" as the b-side of "Don't Kill the Whale" simply because I'm guessing that it might have gotten a bit of radio play.

Is this single essential? No, especially since "Abeline" is so readily accessible in CD and via digital download. But given the relatively high quality of Yes's other output, I still wouldn't rate this long out-of-print single "essential" if it was the only way to get "Abeline" and the single mix of "Don't Kill the Whale." So, as a good, but not essential single, it gets three stars in my book.