Who did it better - "Everytime You Go Away"

I really hate this song. The only way I can make it somewhat palatable is to hear the lyric as "every time you go away, you take a piece of meat with you."

My brother and I do that too lol.

I can see how Young's frog in throatisms can be annoying.l, though I think his arrangement plays more to his strengths. Hall sings way better on a technical level, but their version is more of a sparse showcase for his voice that even they/the label didn't release as a single.

I kinda like it being reimagined as a much more minor middle of the road pop ballad so I go Young (ducks)

https://frog101.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/img_0585.jpg

i love Hall’s version

i grew up only knowing the Paul Young

Hall just has an innate (natural?) ability to sell the song more effortlessly, whereas you really notice how hard Young is trying

I like the Paul Young version better because it sounds more 80s hyperreal/otherworldly than the H&O. The H&O is kind of a straight line from Righteous Brothers or something and sounds kinda more trad, like you say, Neando. Young is not afraid to show off his hairspray and I think the smoothness and more “modern” production provides a softer landing for the over-the-top emotiveness. Not sure if that makes any sense at all.

I never thought that 2024 would be the year I compared and contrasted the Hall & Oates version of "Every Time You Go Away" with the Paul Young cover. I have to admit I didn't realise it was a cover. To my ears the Hall & Oates version has a boring, static-sounding arrangement. It's so dull. And it's just as plastic as the Paul Young cover, but earlier plastic, a slightly more classy type of plastic. It's still plastic.

The Paul Young cover is really busy, and I'm not sure why there's a finger-picking guitar solo. Why didn't it have saxophone? It was 1985! It would have benefited enormously from some editing and a sax solo. It really needed a sax solo. It should have had a sax solo. Sax solo. I also wonder why it has so many 1960s-sounding ideas, e.g. the sitar and the Leslie-speaker piano. But it's a more interesting arrangement despite the lack of a sax solo. I've always had a suspicion that Paul Young was self-aware.

had never heard this before -- hate it

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There's a version of the Paul Young cover that's mostly straight production and an alternate version that has echo placed on the drums.

Echo version PY > Straight version PY > OG H&O

Respectfully disagree on the sax solo. One's sense that there ought to be a sax solo is why I'm glad it's not there.

(Thread idea, POO classical guitar solo in pop. Have you ever really loved a field of gold)

The song itself is just OK. The Paul Young cover has a bunch of nice arrangement touches that make it more listenable - the electric sitar, the octave piano, the fretless bass, the unusual grain in the backing voices.

Here's the version w/o heavy echo (still not sure of its origin, because the album version and single version I always heard on the radio are NOT this version)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUKBuAkr4Lg

Here's the more common version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfk6sCzRTbM

Paul Young's take is ranked #13 in the 1985 Pazz & Jop singles poll, enough to beat (deep breath):

Talking Heads' "And She Was," The Smiths' "How Soon Is Now?", Prince & the Revolution's "Raspberry Beret," Run-D.M.C.'s "King of Rock," The Commodores' "Nightshift," John Mellencamp's "Small Town," and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' "Don't Come Around Here No More," all of which placed lower in the top 25 results. (FWIW, Young's single was also tied with John Fogerty's double A-side "Rock & Roll Girls"/"Centerfield" and Katrina and the Waves: "Walking on Sunshine.")

it's a great song/recording, sorry. better than multiple of those

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Daryl Hall's version sucks -- he's a great singer best at revenge and resentment, not warmth. Therefore, Paul Young's version forever.

Also: I love the electric sitar and tinkling piano on Young's version.

i said what i said