I've been wondering about Through The Past Darkly.

The US edition (the common one today), features Greatest Hits. A 'normal' compilation kind of thing. Great for what it is.

The British one is really strange. Why put an almost forgotten EP track (You Better Move On) and an Outtake (Sittin On A Fence) on a Greatest Hits compilation?

As far as I know, The Stones oversaw both editions, but what were they thinking with the UK edition? It seems they took a little bit of 'artistic' liberty with that one. Making it more of a listening experience than just a 'normal' hits compilation. In other words, trying to make an alternate album out of it.

You Better Move On was apparently very popular in the UK. (The EP reached #15 in the charts)

Sittin´ On A Fence had only been released on the non-UK LP Flowers,
so it could have been an early example of putting "rare" tracks on a compilation to make it a "must have" for the fans...

Yeah, it's a little strange.
Even the US version isn't exactly hit only, either, since it has She's A Rainbow, 2000 Light Years From Home and Have You Seen Your Mother Baby. But at least those songs were on singles.

It must be because the Stones were actively involved at that point. This was a release by the band, no? And back then the Stones cared much about doing things their way; following the music.

One of the first stones albums I bought. Love the UK edition.

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ablett
One of the first stones albums I bought. Love the UK edition.

Same here and still have my much cherished vinyl with cut away cover.

The UK version is one of the last missing pieces in my collection.

For the LP lovers the US version of this album is hands down the very best---nothing like it before or after..The octagon shape album cover and the close up shots of the stones is so cool..And they even added a nice inside shots to the album making
it look a feel like a double lp.
Plus it really turned off our parents which made me like it more..ha..Anyway its a real rock and roll look..

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Palace Revolution 2000
It must be because the Stones were actively involved at that point. This was a release by the band, no? And back then the Stones cared much about doing things their way; following the music.

Exactly correct ! and a very important point in relation to everything post Some Girls in my opinion

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ablett
One of the first stones albums I bought. Love the UK edition.

This was THE album (UK-version of course) that made me a life-long Stones music fan. I was about 14 years old when it was released. Of course I knew the earlier Stonessongs like Satisfaction etc., but this album caught me definitely.

Very soon after having bought TTPD I bought LIB, and that album hit me too. It sealed my fate musically, because actually I love the music of only few composers/songwriters/bands. And there's only one band I really feel musically attracted to. About a year later I bought YaYa's. And on that album I discovered a very new and exciting element: the Taylor factor. At that time we got a very simple stereo pick-up and I remember that I almost put my head in the little speaker where you could hear Taylor the best. Albums were very expensive in those days, so it took me a while to get BB, Their Satanic, BTB, Aftermath, High Tide Green and Grass (wonderful title!), the predecessor of TTPD, and all the albums from 1964 and 1965. Boy, I was in a musical paradise back then! Anyway, the British Through The Past still has a special place among all Stones albums for me.

Btw: Of course I got the original octagonal-shaped album cover!

"Same here and still have my much cherished vinyl with cut away cover."

Same here although the vinyls pretty scratched.

Many lost the cover that easily ripped.

Great artwork throughout.

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hot stuff
Plus it really turned off our parents which made me like it more..ha..Anyway its a real rock and roll look..

Bang on there hot stuff. This with Electric Ladyland and Blind Faith were three albums covers I had to sneak into my collection. I remember my mum seeing the cover and saying they look like they take drugs. Heh heh. And Jagger with his long black hair - the longest it's ever been - looked so deranged but amazing. This was the stuff that teenage rebellion was made from in the late 60s.

Was this the album Mick was talking about in this letter to Warhol?

Very interesting letter, skipstone!

They must have been planning another earlier hits LP, as Honky Tonk Women wasn´t even recorded/finished in April 1969.

But Andy later designed Sticky Fingers, of course...

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rootsman
Very interesting letter, skipstone!

They must have been planning another earlier hits LP, as Honky Tonk Women wasn´t even recorded/finished in April 1969.

But Andy later designed Sticky Fingers, of course...

Yeah, Andy clearly paid attention to Mick's advice to "take little notice" of Steckler... he was surely no hurrying up and it would two more albums to finally get teh album cover done... funnily, LET IT BLEED was originally planned to release under the name of STICKY FINGERS. Could it 've been case that Andy might have something to do with it too but it was, once again, postponed?

Was it also THROUGH THE PAST DARLKLY cover with which way too friendly mr. Jagger tried to reach M.C. Escher who put it the offer quite coldly down? Jagger seemingly had a mission to get true "artist" to get the thing done. But it findly turned out to be "just" a photagrapher...

Oh yeah it was. Take a look at: [www.iorr.org]

- Doxa



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2010-03-05 19:30 by Doxa.

Well, seemingly the astute of Andy Warhol seem to have a very intersting copy of THROUGH THE PAST DARKLY if Jagger really sent the record as he said he would in the letter... There was some kind of version of it before without "Honky Tonk Women" as rootsman noticed.

Anyway, The Stones seemed to put quite a lot of effort to their doings in 1969 to really make a grand-scale "come back". The best of album seemed to have a big part in it. It also indicates why Brian's days were numbered in the band. The big wheels were running, and no free passengers were no longer allowed. It is tragedical that the album was finally released after Brian's death but still with Brian in the cover and being an essential part of the band and of its image. It must have felt strange to Mick Taylor to be in that ackward position.

What a ghosty album that it was. Brian's presence is so strongly to heard in it - in tunes like "Ruby Tuesday" and "2000 Light Years From Home" particularly. Through the Past, Darkly indeed.

They don't do big hits albums like that no more...

- Doxa



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-03-05 19:50 by Doxa.

Like a few others here, this was the first album I bought (UK version) (though the first one I owned (a present) was Around and Around - German import). (The two albums with you Better Move On on them!)

Apart from the fantastic photos and overall design - I was particularly taken by the poignant poem in memory of Brian. Nice touch. As if the album was dedicated to him - and it effectively marked the end of his era, as LIB marked the beginning of Mick T's.

Anyone know the poem's author?

Thinking about it - TTPast Darkly must have been released after the recording and release of HTW - cos Brian died in July that year, didn't he?

Deluxtone, I was just to ask how Brian's poor faith and his relation to this very record felt at the time it was released. You just told it! In any case, THROUGH THE PAST DARKLY is not "just another greatest hits package" - it is an essential part of the whole story. (And even without the Brian tragedy especially for Brits those two big hits albums was the only way to get all the hot singles on LP). I have understood that THROUGH THEPAST DARKLY were their biggest selling album in the 60's.

- Doxa

According to Bill (A Stone Alone) Through The Past was originally planned for the third week of May -
so how the tracklist was meant to be we may never know...

Doesn´t really matter, of course, but i`m kinda curious about these things!
What! Trainspotting? Not me...

This was the very 1st Stones LP I bought. Up till that point I pretty much only bought singles, plus the radio was still the main source of listening. Always loved this lp. I have an original octagon that I have played the heck out of. I actually have a cd version with the octagon cover. With in the next few years, this teenager had pretty much all of the lps.

It's so very lonely, you're 2,000 Light Years from home

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kleermaker

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ablett
One of the first stones albums I bought. Love the UK edition.

This was THE album (UK-version of course) that made me a life-long Stones music fan. I was about 14 years old when it was released. Of course I knew the earlier Stonessongs like Satisfaction etc., but this album caught me definitely.

Very soon after having bought TTPD I bought LIB, and that album hit me too. It sealed my fate musically, because actually I love the music of only few composers/songwriters/bands. And there's only one band I really feel musically attracted to. About a year later I bought YaYa's. And on that album I discovered a very new and exciting element: the Taylor factor. At that time we got a very simple stereo pick-up and I remember that I almost put my head in the little speaker where you could hear Taylor the best. Albums were very expensive in those days, so it took me a while to get BB, Their Satanic, BTB, Aftermath, High Tide Green and Grass (wonderful title!), the predecessor of TTPD, and all the albums from 1964 and 1965. Boy, I was in a musical paradise back then! Anyway, the British Through The Past still has a special place among all Stones albums for me.

Btw: Of course I got the original octagonal-shaped album cover!

As if I read my own story Kleermaker...started almost the same way as you buying records, great time for me especially the Bleed and Ya Ya's releases.

Through The Past Darkly, always loved this album although both You Better Move On and Sittin On A Fence didn't fit on the record

__________________________

Well spotted regarding that circa April/May 60 hits lp. Different track listing for sure, but what!?

Also, I wonder what material/photos Mick sent? Could this be a possible indication that the Ethan Session took place earlier than May?

Unanswerable questions eh!?

I'm curious now.

Were the pictures (photos) on the album done specifically for that album - i.e. with Brian still as full Stone? Or did they just have those shots anyway and then decide to use them on the album?

when did they show Brian the door?

And anyway, to have decided to make a 2nd Greatest Hits album (esp in UK) when they had not infact had many great hits after 1966's High Tide is a bit odd. Decca must have been pushing them. or was it London perhaps?!

Only Great Hit on it (by time of April/May 1969) is JJF. Ok and LSTNT.

I love the album - great compilation - but hardly full of great hits.

Fazed Cookies - yup - all in favour of fazed cookies.

Munch, munch, munch.

Brian was still officially in the band when the pics were taken, but not sure if the glass smashing/london docks Ethan sessions were specifically for the hits album or not.

This from Wikipedia:

"The name of the album is a play on a line from the KJV translation of I Corinthians 13: "For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face: . . .", but it is more likely the Stones intended an homage to Ingmar Bergman and his 1961 film Through a Glass Darkly.

In the inside flap of the album, there is a tribute to Jones, which reads: "When this you see, remember me, and bear me in your mind. Let all the world say what they may, speak of me as you find."


And also this review:

"This album was spawned by three coinciding events -- the need to acknowledge the death of band co-founder Brian Jones (whose epitaph graces the inside cover) in July of 1969; the need to get "Honky Tonk Women," then a huge hit single, onto an LP; and to fill the ten-month gap since the release of Beggars Banquet and get an album with built-in appeal into stores ahead of the Stones' first American tour in three years. The fact that the Stones had amassed a sufficient number of hits since their last greatest-hits compilation in early 1966 (Big Hits: High Tide and Green Grass) made this a no-brainer, and its song lineup was as potent at the time as any compilation of hit singles by any artist. From the group's excursions into fey psychedelia ("Paint It, Black," "Ruby Tuesday," "She's a Rainbow," "Dandelion"), space rock ("2000 Light Years From Home"), punk decadence ("Mother's Little Helper"), and back to straight-ahead rock & roll ("Jumpin' Jack Flash"), some of it with a topical edge ("Street Fighting Man"), it's all incredibly potent, though also redundant to the extent that "Ruby Tuesday" and "Let's Spend the Night Together" had previously appeared on two U.S. albums. The presence of "Honky Tonk Women" propelled it to gold record status upon release on both sides of the Atlantic, although the simultaneously released British version (long out of print, except as a bootleg CD) is different and more confusing, but also more diverse and rewarding musically than the American version. Both this album and Big Hits: High Tide and Green Grass have been supplanted by Hot Rocks and More Hot Rocks, but are still handy in their tight respective focuses. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-03-05 23:41 by Deluxtone.

The funny thing is that the Beatles releases the same kind of compilation in the same year with some old tracks ...don't which came first though

Hey Jude

Side one
"Can't Buy Me Love" – 2:19
"I Should Have Known Better" – 2:39
"Paperback Writer" – 2:14
"Rain" – 2:58
"Lady Madonna" – 2:14
"Revolution" – 3:21

Side two
"Hey Jude" – 7:05
"Old Brown Shoe" (George Harrison) – 3:16
"Don't Let Me Down" – 3:30
"The Ballad of John and Yoko" – 2:55

__________________________

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NICOS
The funny thing is that the Beatles releases the same kind of compilation in the same year with some old tracks ...don't which came first though

Hey Jude

Side one
"Can't Buy Me Love" – 2:19
"I Should Have Known Better" – 2:39
"Paperback Writer" – 2:14
"Rain" – 2:58
"Lady Madonna" – 2:14
"Revolution" – 3:21

Side two
"Hey Jude" – 7:05
"Old Brown Shoe" (George Harrison) – 3:16
"Don't Let Me Down" – 3:30
"The Ballad of John and Yoko" – 2:55

That was at the instigation of Allen Klein, came out in 1970 I think.

Two more personal comments:

Negative: I always considered Dandelion the album's weak link.

Positive: (Drumless) Sitting On a Fence as penultimate track - it's dual acoustic guitar jingly closure........... Followed by The Epic drums and opening (open?) electric chords of that Era-defining,nay Epoch-defining HTW.

One of their best album sequences ever.

From the incipient writing skills of a jaunty Aftermath out-take - to the perfected swagger and confidence of song-writing maestros in three and a bit tumultuous years.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-03-06 00:12 by Deluxtone.

For what reason I still don't know I always liked this album better than disc 2 of Hot Rocks. Maybe because it was more 'current'? I do wonder though relations were between the Stones and DECCA/ABKCO/LONDON/WHOEVERTHEFUCK at that time. Mick seemed rather pleased in that letter about the album.

The original pics by Ethan Russell used on the cover:






"As we say in England, it can get a bit trainspottery"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-03-06 01:44 by Deltics.