"We’ve Only Just Begun" - Carpenters

Scanner wrote: I was listening to AT40 on Sirius and heard this song at # 11. (I could not talk about a countdown show and exclude the chart position! It had just fallen out of the Top 10.) I was stunned when the version of the song that was played was not the 1970 single version, but a later version featuring that piano flourish that is first played when Karen sings the "Before the rising sun, we fly" lyric. I was stunned - I thought Sirius' AT40 programs were authentic and unchanged from when they first aired. I'm reminded of this when Sirius plays shortened versions of some songs as Kasem often did.     (I always found that very annoying back when...and still do now!) So, did Sirius alter the past or was this piano flourish version of "Begun" already circulating 51 years ago? Considering how frequently Richard always tinkered with their recordings, it wouldn't surprise me if he did then already.

A Carpenter thread (a rarity around here). If I remember reading at some point those original versions are in people's collections, Richard has tinkered with them so much that often I think these shows don't know the difference. I doubt this was the original 1970 version. Though if you can point to a clip, maybe crapfromthepast can answer your question he is our resident 1970 expert here...

I think you answered my question, Hykker. Sirius must
have been sourcing the music themselves for this
particular show. The Carpenters were preceded on the
countdown by the Supremes' "Stoned Love" and featured
Kasem's intro to the song after the song's cold opening.
Although I only discovered AT40 in the late 70's, I
don't recall Kasem talking over or after songs that
started with cold openings like "Stoned Love." Sirius
must alternate how it sources the music for AT40. Last
summer, I was listening to a 1978 countdown for the week
that "Boogie Oogie Oogie" debuted. The show played a
version of the song with the second verse and chorus
edited out which, as I mentioned before, Kasem often did
which made me expect the 1970 would be more "authentic."

Then again, it's amazing that a 50+ year old radio
program is still available in any form! I assume AT40
always provided the music for its shows as not all songs
would have been on a station's playlist or library when
aired.

Thanks, Paul. I never realized I could learn so much about
AT40 just because of a piano flourish! :-)

BTW - I always thought this embellishment to "Begun" was
unnecessary. Richard's constant tinkering of Carpenters'
music over the decades has always been frustrating dating
back to "The Singles 1969-1973" and how the songs segued
into one another on Side 1. I never thought it would take
40+ years before a compilation, thanks to PBS, of their
singles in their original state would finally be released.

That's exactly right.

The reel-to-reel period was very brief - from the show's origin in July 1970 until late 1971.

The vinyl LPs lasted until the end of the prime AT40 years, until the late '80s at least.

The show was in mono until about 1973, then stereo thereafter.

The show began embedding national ads in 1982, when ABC acquired Watermark.

In general, the producers at AT40 selected which version of the song to use (commercial 45, promo 45, LP, in-house edit) based primarily on timing. They had to make the segments for each hour work out to exactly 60 minutes.

*many of the earlier