The Rolling Stones - Flowers - Alternate Version (1966)

In the summer of 1967, the Rolling Stones released the album "Flowers." It gathered up stray tracks from mid-1965 to early 1967, with only three of them previously unreleased. This is related to that album, but it's drastically different. I've used it to gather up a bunch of stray tracks, mostly from 1966. Then I've made another album called "We Love You" to gather up others, mostly from 1967.

It so happens that there already is a collection of stray tracks from this time period that was released in the US at the time, "Flowers." But, as was often the case with such albums, it included some songs on official British albums (which I'm using as the standards), and failed to include other stray tracks. So, although I'm using the same title and cover art, only five of the songs here were on the original "Flowers."

The original "Flowers" was a mess. Released only in the US, it collected some singles, plus songs that had been omitted from the US versions of "Between the Buttons" and "Aftermath," plus the three previously unreleased songs I mentioned ("My Girl," Ride On, Baby," and "Sittin' on a Fence"). The problem was a lack of musical consistency. The band had come a long, long way from a mid-1965 cover of the Temptations classic "My Girl" to the psychedelic sounds of a late 1966 original like "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?" Because I've moved everything from late 1966 onwards to another album, this version has much greater consistency, still focusing on a more soulful and bluesy style.

This version is so different that the only songs it shares with the original version are the three previously unreleased ones. And speaking of unreleased, it contains one nice original song that's still unreleased to this day, "Looking Tired."

Note that I made a rare exception for my rule not to use any songs featured on official albums with the song "Out of Time." The demo version here is notably different from the other version, with heavy use of strings and female backing vocals.

This album is fairly short at 33 minutes, but it makes up for that with quality, including the two classics "19th Nervous Breakdown" and "Paint It, Black." The only covers are "My Girl" and "I've Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now)."

01 19th Nervous Breakdown (Rolling Stones)
02 Sad Day (Rolling Stones)
03 My Girl (Rolling Stones)
04 Paint It, Black (Rolling Stones)
05 Long Long While (Rolling Stones)
06 I've Been Loving You Too Long [To Stop Now] (Rolling Stones)
07 Ride On, Baby (Rolling Stones)
08 Sittin' on a Fence (Rolling Stones)
09 Looking Tired (Rolling Stones)
10 Out of Time [Demo] (Rolling Stones)
11 Hear It [Instrumental] (Rolling Stones)

https://www.imagenetz.de/d8DXc

The cover art is just the official album cover, unchanged.