BROTHER OF MINE (2)

I bought this one back in 1989 or 1990 as a three-inch "import" CD for the non-album song "Vultures in the City." In addition to an edited version of "Brother of Mine," the album version of "Themes" is also included.

The music of the verses of "Vultures in the City" sound a bit like "Birthright," and I wonder whether Steve Howe was involved in writing those parts (there is a joint writing credit on all ABWH songs). But the remainder suffers from the malady which beset several other songs on Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe: a sentimentality in both melody and lyrics. It's better than some of the weakest material on the album, but its exclusion from the final running order is no tragedy.

And then there's the single's lead song, an edited version (elsewhere called the "long edit" of "Brother of Mine." The first two parts of the song, "In the Big Dream" and "Nothing Can Come Between Us" occupy the first 4:35 of this single version, compared to 6:37 on the album. There are edits throughout, but none are obvious. The final part of the song, "Long Lost Brother of Mine," is just under two minutes on the edited version, a reduction of nearly half. Some of the edits used to achieve the abridgment of this part are a bit less artful, but they're not really bad.

What I've always scratched my head over is why the last section of "Brother of Mine" wasn't featured more prominently on the single edit. The catchy vocal part where they sing "long lost brother..." comes just over five minutes into the edited version. While there is an art to editing songs for radio airplay, it doesn't really seem to have been practiced here. Instead, to achieve an edit of roughly two-thirds of the original length, about one-third of each part has been removed. It's true that the album version of "Brother of Mine" takes its time getting to the really good parts at the end, which includes not only the "long lost brother" chant, but also extended solos by Steve Howe on electric guitar and Rick Wakeman on piano. But the radio-friendly section is at the end. The drum fill indicating the beginning of "Long Lost Brother of Mine" starts at 6:37 on the album version, leaving around 3:43 left: not a bad duration for a single, I would think. (The "radio edit" of the song doesn't even include "Long Lost Brother of Mine," so what do I know?)

"Vultures in the City" and both the "long" and "radio" edits of "Brother of Mine" are included in the most recent reissues of Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe, the group's lone studio album, so this single is redundant for all but serious collectors. But even before these were available as CD bonus tracks, they weren't what I would consider essential. Two stars.