I have been intrigued by the very detailed report of the TRC listening sessions at the Celebration in 2002 published in Uptown. According to this, the version of the album played there in June was a liitle different from what was released. The tracks on the CD were spilt up differently and one song is out of order:

• The 3 minute coda at the end of Rainbow Children is a separate track, an untitled segue.
• The Work, Pt. 1 ends when the song ends, and the narrative that follows is part of the next song, Everywhere.
• There is a 7 second segue at the end of Everywhere.
• After Everywhere comes Mellow, and then The Sensual Everafter. On the released version it goes Everywhere, The Sensual Everafter, Mellow.
• 1+1+1 is 3 includes Deconstruction and the Wedding Feast (not separate tracks as on the CD).

After that it's pretty much the same as the released version.

The person who wrote the report could obviously see the CD player because he knew how long each song was and when one track finished and another started. Now I know that how the tracks are split up is a minor issue - at one point TRC was only supposed to be released online and the NPGMC version is one long track, a la Lovesexy. My guess is that for these listening sessions in June, a tentative CD sequencing was done, perhaps a littlle carelessly - why the 7 second segue, and why three tracks in one?

The only significant difference between the released version of TRC and a possible early sequence that I can see is the placement of Mellow. For fun, I edited my own version of the album using this model. It flows nicely, and interestingly, the narrative at the beginning of 1+1+1 is 3 that says, "As she fell deep into the Sensual Everafter..." comes immediately after the Sensual Everafter, which seems appropriate. On the released version, that flow is interrupted by Mellow.

I am curious to know if anyone here was at those listening sessions and could recall anything about them. Would you please share what you remember? I know that there was a TRC book (like a large version of the CD booklet) that some not all received - I have seen them on e-bay going for a few hundred dollars. I would love to see a scan of this. I wonder if it has the tracks listed as Chapters and if that could verify that the sequence was indeed different from what was eventually released.

I was there. I don't remember that but it is possible. I do know for sure that "The Work" was different. The original version chanted "gotta lotta work to do, gotta lotta work to do". Liked it better than "willl...willin to do the work" The newer version seemed slightly more overproduced.

I have the program book that came with the listening session, but I think I was more mesmorized by actully meeting prince after with kevin smith and hanging in the atrium for like 3 hours.

[Edited 10/3/12 6:44am]

Yes, I like that version of The Work better too. I have it on CD single. It has more electric piano parts in the breakdown instead of the guitar fills in the album version. A little more subtle, imo.

Does the program you got list the songs as chapters like the CD booklet? And are they in the same order as the CD?

I attended one of the first listening sessions at the Celebration (there were a couple held in different rooms at the start of the first morning).

Please be aware that the booklet issued to accompany the session had simply been assembled incorrectly with the pages stapled together in the wrong order. This meant that people had to shuffle around the pages a bit to follow what they were listening to on CD. It might also have meant that people misreported what they heard afterwards by referring back to the booklet. I'll check later, but this most likely explains the variation in running order to which you have referred.

In answer to your question about chapters - there are no 'chapters' in the A5 booklet.

Regarding the coda to the opening track: this understandably seemed like it was a separate instrumental track into which the opening track segued, but it was reported shortly afterwards that it formed part of track 1.

Thanks lang, that information about the book being assembled with pages out of order might explain why Mellow was out of sequence in Uptown's report.

I may be making too much of the report in Uptown, but given Prince's tendency to change things up before they are released I suspected that there might actually be an early configuration of TRC.

I'm pretty sure that any earlier pre-release configuration of the album, if known about, would have been included on the album section of the Princevault discography (as has been done on the pages for other album releases e.g. Diamonds and Pearls, and The Gold Experience).

Nothing to add unfortunately, just wanted to say one of the more interesting threads in a while