The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway: Make it fit onto a single disc

It's simple: Genesis' The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway is 94 minutes. You've got a single blank 80 minute disc. Which 14 minutes do you cut?

Please, no "What is this heresy? It's a masterpiece, you can't cut a single note!" Yeah, we know - but if you had to...?

 

The real challenge is to cut it into a single ~50 minutes LP album.

 

Why?

Double albums are a statement and confusing as it is this one has a narrative. The whole point of a double album is that it has the ability to ebb and flow, the peaks and troughs are a part of the whole. Leave it alone.

 

I'll do the heresy. It's the most overrated prog album ever.

I can make it fit on one side. Cut out an hour of boring Banks-wash, and just have
- The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
- In The Cage
- Counting Out Time
- Carpet Crawlers
- It

27 minutes. Done. Now go back to enjoying the masterpieces that came before and after.

 

Lillywhite Lillith, Supernatural Anaesthetist, Slippermen

I don't have timings on my discs, but that should cover at least 14 mins.
I wouldn't cut a song from the first LP down but may shrink In The Cage a bit.

 

Why?

Just because. There's lots of these threads and some I join in with, some I don't.

If you don't want to play the game, then don't.

*adopts Isaac Hayes rumble*
"Scroll on by, just scroll on by"

 

I have to admit the main reason it's in my collection is that it was in the box set. I think the fatbox took up more shelf space than it deserved compared to the other PG era albums.

I do like large chunks of it, though. Maybe Steve Hackett should do a Lamb tour.

 

I couldn't edit Lamb, to me it is another of the band's masterpieces.

 

I'll do you even better and cut this preposterous and entirely overrated concept album down to a 7" single of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway b/w The Carpet Crawlers (or even just The Lamb... with stereo on one side and an AM radio style mono fold on the b-side.)

 

Th

That's where we will have to disagree.....

The first disc/two sides of vinyl is stronger than the second IMO so if the aim is to make it a single cut then if pushed I would just listen to half the 'story'.

 

You’re absolutely right of course. I just fundamentally believe in the principle of the album as a whole and I rally against (somewhat pointlessly) carving them up. For me it’s no different to going on a film forum and saying “Citizen Kane is a bit long which scenes would you take out?”. I mean I’m sure that happens even if for me it just feels wrong. Albums and especially concept albums are no different in my mind. Particularly albums from that period between the mid 60s and mid 70s where they were often conceived as a whole rather than an arbitrary collection of tracks.

 

Movies frequently get edited down for theatrical release, and longer "director's cut" versions aren't always better. There's even rumored to be a longer director's cut of Citizen Cane.

 

We never really know whether projects like this are conceived of as whole or built as the project progresses.

For example, some directors shoot and edit according to a fixed storyboard. Others develop an idea, shoot lots of stuff and edit the best movie they can. The same happens with albums and novels. Process changes ideas.

Lots of great movies are the result of rigorous (or studio enforced) editing. Blade Runner arguably better as the original edit against the director’s cut. With regards albums, as an example, Cale and Nico recorded a lot more material than was used on the Marble Index album. The label Elektra decided that 15 mins per side was enough, resulting in the classic album we know today. Lou Reed’s Berlin was going to be a longer album but RCA would not have it.

I saw that Lamb was largely self-produced, with the engineer John Burn getting co-oroduction credit. Maybe a more active producer would have persuaded them to edit at the time.

 

As I age I have a lot less patience for immersing myself into long Prog pieces like The Lamb. I now see it as a much easier task to go on and on, building up a song, or an entire suite of music. The real trick, real art if you will, is in the editing and the making of a 3 to 5 minute track.

I have come to appreciate economy. I think you could make this a single album very easily. Just leave Side 1 and 2 as they are and skip Sides 3 and 4.

 

A friend of mine is a relatively successful author, and he said signing to a major publisher with an experienced editor gave him real discipline, after getting novels passed really easy by a niche (read "club of fanboys") publisher. His first novel with the major required five drafts. Subsequent novels only took one or two rewrites once the lessons were learnt.

In music it's the A&R team or producer's job to do this editing with the band. Once the band get too big and/or self important to listen to a producer or A&R man they are in trouble. (see Michael Jackson after Thriller, Prince after Sign o The Times)

It's up for debate how much the creative process for this album contributed to Peter Gabriel's departure, but Banks and Rutherford are both on record as saying it's too long as once the decision was made to do a double they were putting in stuff they'd normally reject. Not sure which bits they each would pick for the cutting room floor.

 

This album always seemed to have a lot of filler. I could probably trim it down to a 45, but not clear theres a solid B side.

 

Agreed and of course there is always a battle between commerce and the artist. Indeed history often shows that people do their best work under commercial pressure or other constraints. If they want to edit out re edit their work I’m ok with that, but we should aim to view it as a whole where it’s intended as one.

I’m basically an old man shouting at a cloud

 

With regards writers, Raymond Carver is a case in point. His reputation as a shorts writer aided by his editor Girdon Lish’s eye for brevity and giving the stories intriguing titles. Lish even at times changed the names of Carver’s characters.

 

It would be easy enough to trim some of the instrumental bits on disc 2 that seem to have been included to give PG a chance to change costumes ("Silent Sorrow In Empty Boats", the faux Oriental opening to "Colony of Slippermen", "The Ravine"). Many might choose to axe "The Waiting Room" though I've come to appreciate it as a rare instance of Genesis attempting improvisation. Although the second half isn't as consistently successful as the first, I've come to embrace the album as a whole, warts and all, and even these instrumental pieces help to enhance the mood. The Lamb remains the band's masterpiece in my eyes with an adventurous character unlike anything else they ever did.

 

NO, I couldn't edit this album, it s a masterpiece.

 

There are only three tracks out of twenty three, that are over five minutes, and the majority are much shorter than that.
The reality is, this album has a higher percentage of shorter tracks than probably any Genesis album from the seventies... so your comment doesn't seem to make sense

 

Essentially most folks posting here at the moment just don't like the album, and that's fine, but it isn't really relevant.

To suggest this album only has one song on it worth hearing, really speaks more about the listener than the album.

 

Great album! But I would get rid of Side D, which is already how I listen to the album most of the time. After the fantastic "The Lamia / Silent Sorrow in Empty Boats", I'm usually done with the album.

 

I probably felt somewhat like this prior to a closer examination in the Genesis album thread. Since then, I need all of it

 

dump "the waiting room", "counting out time" and "back in nyc"