BlueShakooo said:

luvgirl said:

...He's sad because he doesn't have the only person in the world he could talk to anymore, but he still sounds resolved and optimistic through his sadness....

Perhaps you're right, but I hear completely the opposite. It sounds to me like he's putting on a brave face, behind which he's desperate, depressed, and at a loss what to do.

fen said:

RaspBerryGirlFriend said:

You could well be right that it's not that different but it's hard to say really. My interpretation of what Susan Rogers said was that Prince felt the original take was far too emotionally devastating and so in his rerecording he decided to dilute that considerably by injecting more levity into the tone of his performance and adding lots more instrumentation. Having listened to this version I could well believe that a stripped down, rawer version of this song, with Prince playing it relatively straight instead of joking around, could be incredibly powerful. I could well be completely wrong but sadly we'll never really know. I'm just glad that we finally get to hear a version of this song and like you I think this rendition of it is great as well.

[Edited 7/17/17 11:14am]

I agree with this entirely. That said, musically this version doesn’t sound particularly busy or over-elaborate to me.

You're right, I definitely think the instrumentation in this version works very well and feels appropriate for the sentiment it's conveying. That said, I think what I was getting at in my original post was that perhaps the bombast of the horns and the blazing guitar solo might not have worked as well in the context of the original if it was more despairing and mournful. Again that's speculation though as we'll never know what the original truly sounded like.

I was just talking to Wally Safford a couple of weeks ago about this song...he offered to let me hear it and I declined...but now it's out! I really like it!

macaylasdad said:

I was just talking to Wally Safford a couple of weeks ago about this song...he offered to let me hear it and I declined...but now it's out! I really like it!

Why did you decline?

macaylasdad said:

OnlyNDaUsa said:

novabrkr said:

I honestly didn't expect a song titled "Wally" to be among his best tracks.

It really isn't either.

for one the song title has almost nothing to do with the quality of the song

and two you have not heard it...

I doubt the composition itself on the earlier version differs signficantly from the version that's gotten leaked.

Can you prove otherwise?

novabrkr said:

OnlyNDaUsa said:

for one the song title has almost nothing to do with the quality of the song

and two you have not heard it...

I doubt the composition itself on the earlier version differs signficantly from the version that's gotten leaked.

Can you prove otherwise?

I never said it was... I also never said I could evaluate the quality of a song I have not heard. I again used the 2 versions of "Old Friends" as case and point that the other may be a vastly better song.

OnlyNDaUsa said:

novabrkr said:

I doubt the composition itself on the earlier version differs signficantly from the version that's gotten leaked.

Can you prove otherwise?

I never said it was... I also never said I could evaluate the quality of a song I have not heard. I again used the 2 versions of "Old Friends" as case and point that the other may be a vastly better song.

Well, okay. "Old Friends 4 Sale" is a decent example in that regard, although there was a much longer gap between the recording and the re-recording than the case was with "Wally" (as far as I've understood). I do like the later version of OF4S though.

I'm just not hearing that much going on in the melody of this leak that'd suggest the earlier version would be that much better. I suppose it's still a "show tune" type of a piece, even if it has a sparser arrangement.

rdhull said:

macaylasdad said:

I was just talking to Wally Safford a couple of weeks ago about this song...he offered to let me hear it and I declined...but now it's out! I really like it!

Why did you decline?

I think the "legend" of the song is more interesting then the song...If i woild of heard it and been disappointed then the "mystery" would of died... same thing like the vault songs ...there is so much hype to get it out, but what if the songs were like the opinion of "Jughead"??

macaylasdad said:

rdhull said:

Why did you decline?

I think the "legend" of the song is more interesting then the song...If i woild of heard it and been disappointed then the "mystery" would of died... same thing like the vault songs ...there is so much hype to get it out, but what if the songs were like the opinion of "Jughead"??

And what if you'd been underwhelmed in front of Wally--I mean, no, it's not about him or his work or anything, but still, if he shares it with you and you're "eh,yeah. Okay" it could be a bit uncomfortable.

Or maybe that's just the way I think.

macaylasdad said:

rdhull said:

Why did you decline?

I think the "legend" of the song is more interesting then the song...If i woild of heard it and been disappointed then the "mystery" would of died... same thing like the vault songs ...there is so much hype to get it out, but what if the songs were like the opinion of "Jughead"??

ah, gotcha..agreed too but I dont think would have been able to pass on hearing it. But now that we have, like you sid and Ive always said, the mystery is now gone....and some of the thrill like BB said

rdhull said:

macaylasdad said:

I think the "legend" of the song is more interesting then the song...If i woild of heard it and been disappointed then the "mystery" would of died... same thing like the vault songs ...there is so much hype to get it out, but what if the songs were like the opinion of "Jughead"??

ah, gotcha..agreed too but I dont think would have been able to pass on hearing it. But now that we have, like you sid and Ive always said, the mystery is now gone....and some of the thrill like BB said

i like the song too...but you know, the story is it was a personal song...even behind Prince's superstardom, he was a person like you and me...I am sure if was a personal as the story says, Prince didnt want anyone to hear it...hence why he deleted it. But i also makes me wonder...how many more "wally" type songs are left in the vault?

macaylasdad said:

rdhull said:

ah, gotcha..agreed too but I dont think would have been able to pass on hearing it. But now that we have, like you sid and Ive always said, the mystery is now gone....and some of the thrill like BB said

i like the song too...but you know, the story is it was a personal song...even behind Prince's superstardom, he was a person like you and me...I am sure if was a personal as the story says, Prince didnt want anyone to hear it...hence why he deleted it. But i also makes me wonder...how many more "wally" type songs are left in the vault?

Its like his diary and not for public consumption. Us judging the song on this and that kind of makes me feel weird about it.

NouveauDance said:

Am I alone in my beliefs that this is the one and only 'Wally' there has ever been, independent of various degrees of overdubbing or revisiting (that changed/'ruined' the intimacy of the original recording), and that there is faulty memory or mythologization at play with the claims that the an earlier take was too deeply personal and erased?

.

[Edited 7/23/17 16:09pm]

imprimis said:

Am I alone in my beliefs that this is the one and only 'Wally' there has ever been, independent of various degrees of overdubbing or revisiting (that changed/'ruined' the intimacy of the original recording), and that there is faulty memory or mythologization at play with the claims that the an earlier take was too deeply personal and erased?

.

[Edited 7/23/17 16:09pm]

Without any hard facts each version is as likely as the other, no?

I see no reason to call Susan a liar about this but maybe what we have comes directly from the tape of the original session that she said Prince made. Maybe not as well though.

imprimis said:

Am I alone in my beliefs that this is the one and only 'Wally' there has ever been, independent of various degrees of overdubbing or revisiting (that changed/'ruined' the intimacy of the original recording), and that there is faulty memory or mythologization at play with the claims that the an earlier take was too deeply personal and erased?

.

[Edited 7/23/17 16:09pm]

You're probably not alone in your beliefs. I tend to believe that the whole story is so strange that there was some sort of debate over erasing it. And I would think that Rogers would know whether or not that happened. And I don't see any reason for her to lie.

So, why not assume that she's telling the truth? Now, as to whether this differs much from what he had at the end of that first pass at making the record: the intimate version she loved so much was destroyed in her view by the overdubs he did that first night. I'm guessing he was proving a point to her--she dared to question what he was doing, and he showed her that it wasn't her place to do so, and that what he'd done was his to do with as he wanted, no matter what Rogers or anyone else thought. Now, I think he then went right back and did it all again, probably pretty much just like he had the first time, because he thought there was something significant in the song, even if he never would release it.

Susan Rogers was right on the money with her assessment of what she heard. There is no reson to disparage her or her opinions of her rndering of the exerience of what Prince orignally and succesively put to tape. The music or the feeling of the song we heard does not take away from what the emotion of the og and new lyrics expressed/expresses. I am willing to concede that, as should we all.

rdhull said:

Susan Rogers was right on the money with her assessment of what she heard. There is no reson to disparage her or her opinions of her rndering of the exerience of what Prince orignally and succesively put to tape. The music or the feeling of the song we heard does not take away from what the emotion of the og and new lyrics expressed/expresses. I am willing to concede that, as should we all.

Well said!

I've never heard of this song.

jaawwnn said:

imprimis said:

Am I alone in my beliefs that this is the one and only 'Wally' there has ever been, independent of various degrees of overdubbing or revisiting (that changed/'ruined' the intimacy of the original recording), and that there is faulty memory or mythologization at play with the claims that the an earlier take was too deeply personal and erased?

.

[Edited 7/23/17 16:09pm]

Without any hard facts each version is as likely as the other, no?

I see no reason to call Susan a liar about this but maybe what we have comes directly from the tape of the original session that she said Prince made. Maybe not as well though.

This is true, and Wally has the actual tape. The version that leaked is the version that Wally played for me years ago, and he said that Prince gave him the tape when the session was done and just said "here, it's yours." and he never heard Prince speak about the song or the tape again.

So did I (well a lil while after it came out). Its busy at times, but I like it alot. It's humorous n emotional (the "if I don't find somebody, somebody will find me" line got to me cuz its kinda my philosophy ) n very interesting the whole narrative n storyline behind it. Thanks generous strangers! N Prince, of course .

help a fellow orger brother out>??>>??

great song.

jaawwnn said:

imprimis said:

Am I alone in my beliefs that this is the one and only 'Wally' there has ever been, independent of various degrees of overdubbing or revisiting (that changed/'ruined' the intimacy of the original recording), and that there is faulty memory or mythologization at play with the claims that the an earlier take was too deeply personal and erased?

.

[Edited 7/23/17 16:09pm]

Without any hard facts each version is as likely as the other, no?

I see no reason to call Susan a liar about this but maybe what we have comes directly from the tape of the original session that she said Prince made. Maybe not as well though.

.

I don't know if you'd call it hard facts but The Vault entry for Wally cites some lyrics that do not appear in this version.

Bebop17 said:

jaawwnn said:

Without any hard facts each version is as likely as the other, no?

I see no reason to call Susan a liar about this but maybe what we have comes directly from the tape of the original session that she said Prince made. Maybe not as well though.

.

I don't know if you'd call it hard facts but The Vault entry for Wally cites some lyrics that do not appear in this version.

I do not remember where I read it but there was more... like borrowing some money and then deciding there was no point... some say this version is missing some...but I am not sure... but yeah reports over the years had some mentions of other lyrics.