Green-Eyed Lady (1970) 5/12/20

Back in the day, long before digital editing, there were several sneaky tricks Top 40 stations employed that would allow them to play more songs an hour than their competitors.

One was to record songs to tape, edit entire verses and/or choruses out of them, and re-record the altered versions on to cartridges (sort of like single-song 8-tracks) . (As a Joke, I once edited Billy Joel's “The Entertainer” down to 32 seconds.) :-)

Another one was to speed the turntables up 5 to 10% so the records would play slightly faster.

Yet another came from record companies who sent you a choice of edits you could play, depending on whatever criteria your station wanted to follow.

That happened with today's “Great Song of the '70s!”

In 1970, Liberty Records released “Green Eyed Lady” by Sugarloaf with four choices of length: 6:53, 5:58, 3:33 and 2:58.

Needless to say, the first 2 versions almost never saw the light of day on AM radio. At WOHO, we played the shortest version...but many other stations played the 3:33 version—which in my opinion-- is the best of the 4.

But whatever version got played, the SONG ITSELF was a hit: #1 in Canada and #3 in the US.

From 1970 (the 3:33 version):

Just for comparison, here is the long, uncut version: