This rant's been a long time coming

There used to be a Virgin record shop in Nottingham before they invented the Megastore. It was the one that defended the Sex Pistol’s Never Mind The Bollocks obscenity case which for some reason completely passed me by at the time, despite never missing an episode of Rumpole of the Bailey and John Mortimer acting on behalf of Virgin. It says something about the teenage me that during this well-publicized palaver I did not buy the offending article as a mark of punk solidarity but opted instead for Johnny Cash At San Quentin.

A pretty cool album nonetheless, with the following track listing:

Side 1

1. Wanted Man (Bob Dylan)
2. Wreck of the Old 97 (arranged by Cash, Bob Johnston, Norman Blake)
3. I Walk the Line
4. Darling Companion (John Sebastian)
5. Starkville City Jail

Side 2

1. San Quentin
2. San Quentin
3. A Boy Named Sue (Shel Silverstein)
4. (There’ll Be) Peace in the Valley (Thomas A. Dorsey)
5. Folsom Prison Blues

Ten tracks, and two of them ‘San Quentin’, repeated by popular demand of those present. Some years later I came to relive my original analogue experience in a digital world and found eighteen tracks in a different order. How could this be?

1. Big River
2. I Still Miss Someone
3. Wreck Of The Ol’ 97
4. I Walk The Line
5. Darlin’ Companion
6. I Don’t Know Where I’m Bound
7. Starkville City Jail
8. San Quentin
9. San Quentin
10. Wanted Man
11. Boy Named Sue
12. There’ll Be Peace In The Valley
13. Folsom Prison Blues14. Ring Of Fire
15. He Turned The Water Into Wine
16. Daddy Sang Bass
17. Old Account Was Settled Long Ago
18. Folsom Prison Blues/I Walk The Line/Ring Of Fire/Rebel Johnny Yuma

Ladies & gentlemen, we are officially rewriting history. Or more importantly, my history. No matter that the reissue is a more accurate representation of the concert, or that I get more tracks for my money, I wanted the album I used to listen to in a more convenient format. I did not want someone’s idea of a ‘better’ version.

I realise that this makes me seem unreasonable, grumpy and old. I don’t care. I also realise that it’s potentially unfair to those of the digital generation who do not have the ten tracks in the non-historically correct order hardwired into their brains and who, for whatever reason, enjoy the later version. I still don’t care.

My biggest realisation though is that all I need to do is build a playlist with the ‘correct’ order and i have lost nothing, gained a few previously undiscovered tracks and also the possibility of preferring the fuller version. This makes this album therefore a lousy candidate to start the great ‘anti-remaster’ rant, which I will now put off till another day.

I feel strangely better for that.