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Topic: David Bowie - "China Girl"

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RichM921
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Posted: 21 January 2009 at 9:11pm \| IP Logged

This is a question that has puzzled me for many years, and I have finally found examples to make it easier for me to explain. There seems to be two different short (single?) versions of "China Girl." Both seem to be similiar except for the final guitar note.

Exhibit A:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qjTStVY6Hk

Listen to the end guitar note starting at around 3:53

Now... I present Exhibit B:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uZETFSmOxE

That same guitar note should be there at 3:53 but it's missing.

Over the years I've heard both of these versions, although the one I remember most from "back in the day" was "Exhibit A." Which one of these was the single version? I really want to find "Exhibit A" on CD, but all I ever seem to run into is "Exhibit B" or the full length album version.

Pat Downey
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Posted: 24 January 2009 at 12:44pm \| IP Logged

Now that you mention this Rich, I went back and listened to the cd's in the database that indicate the 45 version of China Girl and the cd's manufactured by Rykodisc seem to have additional guitar notes around 3:53. The question now arises, do these Rykodisc cd's deserve a "neither the 45 nor LP version" comment or were there actually two different 45 pressings of China Girl? My 45 pressing does not match the Rykodisc cd's.

aaronk
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Posted: 24 January 2009 at 3:05pm \| IP Logged

That's an interesting observation. Those "additional" guitar notes are not anything unique; it's just a matter of where the edit was placed on the LP version. The Rykodisc version has the edit placed a few seconds later than the 45 version. So, unless there were two different 45 versions, the Rykodisc version would be an "improper attempt at re-creating the 45 version."

RichM921
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Posted: 24 January 2009 at 9:53pm \| IP Logged

But the "additional guitar notes" version (for lack of a better term right now) appeared on the original censored version of the video. So I wouldn't call it an improper edit if that version was around when the song was released. Perhaps it's a "video version"?

aaronk
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Posted: 25 January 2009 at 1:43pm \| IP Logged

RichM921 wrote:

Are we sure about this? I've seen many instances where the video audio was extremely poor quality, so someone dubbed over it with a higher quality sound file. Someone could have easily replaced the audio track. Also, it seems odd that they would've used a different version of the song for the censored and uncensored vidoes, given that the two edits are practically the same.

sriv94
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Posted: 25 January 2009 at 2:58pm \| IP Logged

Is it just the Rykodisc versions that have the different edit?

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RichM921
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Posted: 26 January 2009 at 7:16pm \| IP Logged

I checked dozens of "China Girl" versions on You Tube and and they seem to have the different edit. I doubt that a user re-dubbed it, but perhaps this came from a Rykodisc VHS/DVD which subbed the track on their release?

You may be right, I won't rule out that this "different" edit didn't exist in 1983, even though I thought it did. The only Bowie album I ever owned was the "The Singles 1969-1993" collection, which did happen to be on Ryko. Maybe that album had that version and that's what I'm remembering?

aaronk
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Posted: 27 January 2009 at 2:56pm \| IP Logged

RichM921 wrote:

You may be right, I won't rule out that this "different" edit didn't exist in 1983, even though I thought it did.

You might also be right. I'm just hesitant to use YouTube as an official source for anything, since those videos can easily be manipulated by anyone who decides to post a video. If we were to find an official copy of the videos, then we could say for sure if this was a "video edit" or not.

aaronk
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Posted: 27 January 2009 at 3:04pm \| IP Logged

RichM921 wrote:

I checked dozens of "China Girl" versions on You Tube and and they seem to have the different edit. I doubt that a user re-dubbed it...

I just listened carefully to the "Exhibit A" version (the one with the improper Rykodisc edit), and that video has without a doubt been dubbed over with a different audio track. For one, David Bowie's lips don't even come close to matching the audio track. Also, there is virtually no "hiss" that would be found if it were taken from a video tape. By contrast, the "uncensored" video with the correct 45 version has lots of hiss reduction applied, and the audio is in sync with the video. I'd be willing to bet you that all of the dozens of YouTube copies with the "different" edit are all from the same bogus dubbed-over source.

Edited by aaronk on 27 January 2009 at 3:05pm

aaronk
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Posted: 27 January 2009 at 3:10pm \| IP Logged

Here's a link to the video posted by "OfficialDavidBowie." The video is definitely in sync with the audio track, and the edit is the correct 45 version---not the Rykodisc version. It is also the censored version of the video, so here is more proof that those censored videos with the "different" edit are unofficial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE1QLKusd0o

Edited by aaronk on 27 January 2009 at 3:11pm

RichM921
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Posted: 28 January 2009 at 8:00pm \| IP Logged

Thank you Aaron for the investigative work. Although I am disappointed that my preferred version turns out to be the "improper edit", at the the same time I have a new respect for what I considered to be "that other version." And if I still want to enjoy the "improper" version, at least I know where to find it :)

aaronk
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Posted: 28 January 2009 at 8:12pm \| IP Logged

Rich, we still can't say for sure that the Rykodisc edit wasn't released in 1983, perhaps on a different 45; however, I think it can be concluded that it is not a video edit. It just might turn out that we have two different 45 versions, but we still need proof. It could also be that both versions were created in 1983, but only one was intended to be released. It wouldn't be the first time the wrong master tape was used.

The Hits Man
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Posted: 20 April 2015 at 9:38pm \| IP Logged

Fast forward to 2015.

I just bought the 2014 2-CD Columbia/Legacy David Bowie
comp "Nothing has changed". "China Girl" is marked as
the single version, and has the guitar part at 3:53,
followed by a strange edit at exactly 3:54. It matches
my EMI America 45.

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David Pro
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Posted: 22 March 2021 at 10:01am \| IP Logged

aaronk wrote:

Rich, we still
can't say for sure that the
Rykodisc edit wasn't released in
1983, perhaps on a different 45;
however, I think it can be
concluded that it is not a video
edit. It just might turn out that
we have two different 45 versions,
but we still need proof. It could
also be that both versions were
created in 1983, but only one was
intended to be released. It
wouldn't be the first time the
wrong master tape was used.

This wrong edit of "China Girl" was
created by Rykodisc for the
Changesbowie compilation
album released in 1990 and didn't
exist in 1983. It was also included
on the The Singles: 1969-1993
compilation album released in
1993.

NightAire
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Posted: 20 July 2022 at 12:16am \| IP Logged

I just noticed tonight in the LP version in the final fading seconds you can hear bleed through of the upcoming track "Let's Dance" for a second or two before China Girl is completely gone.

I believe my versions would have been made from the master tape at the time of the release in 1983 (Discogs shows it coming out on CD in Europe & Japan in '83 and the USA in '84), so I assume the bleedthrough has always been there rather than being the result of years of storage.

Does anybody know if the LP version has appeared (without fading early) in digital form without that bleedthrough? (If it was there on the original release, I think they'd have to go back to the individual tracks and mix it back down, perhaps.)

I'd love to know if anybody has the original 1983 CD release and could bring up the volume on the tail end of China Girl to see if the bleedthrough exists there.

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mjb50
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Posted: 20 July 2022 at 3:02am \| IP Logged

Yes, it's on the Japanese CD (CP35-3034), and the fadeout ends kind of abruptly there as well. You've really gotta crank it up to hear this, though.

Jody Thornton
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Posted: 20 July 2022 at 11:29am \| IP Logged

RichM921 wrote:

Thank you Aaron for the investigative
work. Although I am disappointed that my preferred
version turns out to be the "improper edit", at the the
same time I have a new respect for what I considered to
be "that other version." And if I still want to enjoy
the "improper" version, at least I know where to find it
:)

So is this the version you preferred? I swore this was
how I recalled the radio single as well. And the other
links posted in this thread are dead.

Is This
the Original Edit?

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RichM921
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Posted: 20 July 2022 at 12:34pm \| IP Logged

Jody Thornton wrote:

So is this the version you preferred? I swore
this was how I recalled the radio single as well. And the other links
posted in this thread are dead.

Is This
the Original Edit?

Yes, that was the one I first thought was the single version. But I was
likely misremembering since I had one of those Rykodisc compilations
when it came out in the '90s. I had been listening to that version for
song that I became used to it.

crapfromthepast
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Posted: 20 July 2022 at 8:41pm \| IP Logged

It appears that when Ryko inherited the David Bowie catalog, they never received tapes of the proper 45 edits from EMI, so they made their own. They made some minor errors on just about all of the tracks, with an edit here and there that was a beat or two too early or too late. All of the Ryko recreations flowed well, and you'd likely never realize that there were errors unless you did an A/B comparison with the true 45. Which I did.

The true 45 has one edit, at 3:55. On the downbeat after the words "she says" at 3:28, begin counting with "1". The true 45 edit falls on beat number 55, which is on a snare.

The Ryko edit falls at 3:57, exactly 8 beats after the true 45 edit. Using the same numbering scheme as above, the Ryko 45 edit falls on beat number 63, which is also on a snare.

The Ryko edit first appeared on Ryko's Changesbowie (1990). Editing errors notwithstanding, Changesbowie is really a superb overview of David Bowie's career to that point. This CD was a staple in my radio/mobile DJ library for years. The same analog transfer is used on:

Ryko's 2-CD The Singles 1969-1993 (1993) - digitally identical
EMI Holland's 2-CD The Singles Collection (1993) - digitally exactly 0.3 dB quieter
Time-Life's Sounds Of The Eighties Vol. 3 1983 (1994)
Sony Germany's 2-CD Pop And Wave Vol. 8 (1999)

I suspect that a Time-Life 2-CD collection called Love Rocks also used the Ryko edit, but can't confirm.

The true 45 edit first appeared on CD on Virgin/EMI's Best Of Bowie (2002). It seems to have a small amount of added noise reduction, because the high end sounds a little bit odd on the fade. As a practical matter, the noise reduction is not a big deal for this track. It sounds fine here, with a great dynamic range, sturdy EQ, and seemingly low-generation source tapes. Any discs released after 2002 that used the 45 version used the proper 45 edit.

Edited by crapfromthepast on 21 July 2022 at 7:19am

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mjb50
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Posted: 01 May 2024 at 10:05pm \| IP Logged

The database is still showing the Rykodisc releases as having the 45 version. It should say "failed attempt at recreating the 45 version" or some such.

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