I've just gotten re-interested in GL after a lot of years and I remembered that I had always wondered what was the story behind the song and is there an answer to the riddle. Is there a real story or is everyone to make up there own meaning. All the rest of the songs seem straight forward and easy to follow or to get a meaning from, but this one seems special. And finally, why did they pick that one song to delete when they converted the Gord's Gold from cassette to CD format. There were a lot worse songs that could have been sacrificed for space, if that were the real reason. Hmmm??? Thanks for any help and answers to my mysteries!!

I think the song is just a fictional telling of an affair between a man and a woman. Then again,it could be Gordon doing sort of a "tell-all" about a woman he spent some time with.

I really hated it (and felt generally ripped off) when they left that song off the CD. Especially when other CDs being released at the time had enough song time showing that it never needed to be deleted to begin with.

You got that right. Don Quixote, Beautiful, and Cotton Jenney shouldn't have been on there to start with. :mad:

I guess he had his reasons, though. :)

I think most songwriters get their lyrics from personal experiences. I'd imagine there probably was a woman on 8th Avenue. It may have been from one of his times in NYC.

I've always felt the same about the exclusion of 8th Ave on GG1. Actually, I would have preferred it if none of the songs were excluded. I don't know if they ran out of room (which wouldn't be a problem with today's technology), or if Gord just didn't have a good reason to include it. It's a beautiful song.

I think so he ran out of room; it said he excluded it so that it could be released as a single CD, and not a double-set. ;)

But say he had left another remake off, such as Wherefore And Why or Song For A Winter's Night off, then we'd be wishing he hadn't taken that one off. :razz: :D

I'm with Cathy, I would have liked to have seen all of the songs on the LP make it to the CD. Affair on 8th Ave is one of my favorites, but I can't think of any song that I would have wanted cut in it's place. They should have gone ahead and made it a double CD, dammit :D

I'm sure I'm not the only one who would have gladly paid a bit more for a true representation of the album in CD format.

You said it!! :)

Do agree with all of you, 8th ave is a song that you never get tired of listening to. Wish I had wrote it.

Another one which I could listen to over and over is " The Ballad Of The Yarmouth Castle". That is a real masterpiece. He tells the story brilliantly, could have ended it sooner, and it would have still been a great song.
I sometimes wonder if he's humanly normal, great gift of a poet. The best around.

I like Ballad Of Yarmouth's Castle. The one problem is it's a very repetitious song. Sit Down Young Stranger is like that, too. I like it when it first starts playing, but I soon get bored with it.

In fact I doubt if it was Gord''s decision and the question of it being a single CD would have arisen because, don't forget, originally CDs were 650MB and held only 74 minutes of audio;
CD-ROM standards were further refined at a conference of CD-ROM developers called the High Sierra Group which met in 1985.(I have not checked but suspect that GG was first issued in CD format before 1985)
By the time Songbook came out in 1999 revisions to certain checking functions had allowed for an increase to 800MB so that the box set's 4 CDs each contain 80 minutes.It should therefore, as Valerie opined, have been a worthwhile and perfectly feasible improvement when repackaging Gord's Gold to have restored AO8A to its rightful place IMHO
John Fowles

I wonder, which track # was Affair on GG?

wonder no more James!

It just so happens that there was a Japanese GG vinyl on ebay the other day and the auction details included this scan of the album sleeve back
http://h1.ripway.com/corfid/johnfowl...sleeveback.jpg
see disc 1 side 2 track 1
John Fowles

Hi Cathy,

The Ballad Of The Yarmouth Castle, is not boring,especialy if you follow the words. A real story being told. Incredible lyrics in there,"Oh then the ship Bahama Star comes steaming through the night.
She sees the castle blazin and tis a terrible sight.

But you do have your opinion, and I respect that.

I agree partailly. They lyrics tell a great story. It's the actual music I'm talking about. Each verse sounds like the one before and there is only one instrumental break... no chorus to add a change of pace.

Cobwebs and Dust is another.

Rainbow Trout and I'll Do Anything are sort of like that, but they're better tunes, + they don't last as long.

You may have just hit the nail right on the head, James. To me, it's not so much the repetition, but the length of some of these songs. If the song is shorter, such as the two you listed above, I don't seem to mind.
Actually, I don't really MIND any of them, and I rarely skip a song when listening to Gord.