Dolly Parton "Two Doors Down"

A little update on this song. I was speaking with a Parton expert who runs a Dolly Parton website, and he told me:

"Actually, what happened with "Two Doors Down" was the first half million or so copies of the album came out with the original version in late 1977. Then Dolly decided she wanted to market the song as more of a pop single than country and allow a newcomer, Zelda Lehr, to record a more country version of the song. To make hers sound more "pop," she re-recorded it around January 1978 and put the new version on the second half million or so copies of the record sold in 1978 (because it passed the 1 million mark before the end of the year) and released the second version as the single. So rather than it being just a "single" version, the song became the new "album" version. Dolly's new version made the pop top 20 and Zelda's made the country top 10. The new version was the one that appeared on pretty much every single compilation and re-issue thereafter."

So, much like Whitney's "Greatest Love Of All" single version actually replaced the original album version on later pressings of the album, the same thing happened here -- after about a half million albums were sold with the original version.

So for all the CD pressings with the "single version", it should be modified to say something like "single version and 2nd pressings of the album version".

For those interested, the original album version of "Two Doors Down" (which has a whole first verse not found on the single version) is only available on CD in Australia and the UK on a 3-CD set called "Legendary".

Lastly, this person told me: "And she did re-record the entire song: completely new lead vocals, completely new background vocals, completely new accompaniment, everything."

Gordon,
is my memory getting that bad?
I thought the last words in the song are "find your strength in "love". A minor point, but it is a classic. :-)

-mm

aw, i know, i was just bustin'. :-)
Actually i had never noticed the many differnces in the vocal track.
Very cool inside info about "Two Doors Down"!

-MM

KentT wrote: Yes, indeed. No LP original version on CD and most pressings of the LP. Another hard to get unique track from her (the AC mix of "Think About Me" being another hard to find on CD version.

Actually, there IS a CD with the original LP version of "Two Doors Down" - the 3-CD Set "Legendary", released in the UK and Australia, but never US. As for Dolly's "Think About Love", I think what you're calling the "AC mix" is simply the 45 version, which is indeed different from the LP version and has never been released on CD anywhere. As far as I know, there are 3 mixes for this song, the LP mix and an alt mix (both readily available on CD) and the 7" mix which is not on CD. Also, I think the 7" mix was served to country radio - I don't believe country radio stations received promo 45s that had the LP mix. But if anyone has proof they did, please show us a label. Also, though you talk about an "AC mix", does anyone know - was this song ever actually serviced to AC radio? It never charted AC, I never heard it on any AC station, and I always thought RCA decided to not promote this song to either pop or AC stations at the time.

Edited by EdisonLite

We've covered this same "Think About Love" 45 version/LP version ground previously in the More Dolly Parton thread. There was no "AC mix," per se; the Dave Thoener remix was the 45 version, as Gordon indicated.

RCA serviced country radio with the 45 version. That was what we played on the separately-programmed AM/FM country combo in Minneapolis/St. Paul where I worked when the record was current.