Jimmy Cliff: Hanging Fire 12" single

 Jimmy Cliff: Hanging Fire 12" single

1987

Columbia Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Hanging Fire (Edit)  2. Hanging Fire (12" Mix)  3. Hanging Fire (Dub)


I should of just tacked this to the end of the last post I did. I doubt I'm going to have much to say about it...Three versions of the title track to an album I've never heard...Come to think of it, I still haven't heard the regular version of "Hanging Fire"...There's an edited version, an extended 12" mix and a dub version but no album version...

I guess I'll start with the edited version. This is pretty much what you'd expect a 1987 Jimmy Cliff song to sound like...Pleasant island-party vibes, lots of synths and a hair metal guitar solo tossed just cos it's the 80's...This might have sailed right past me if I hadn't just listened to the song for 20 minutes straight but after awhile the falsetto "FII-YAHH!!!" starts to burn itself into your memory banks...While there's no arguing that this 80's stuff is nowhere near his 70's heyday, I personally can't help but love this era...This actually sounds even a bit more "adult" than the "Cliff Hanger" stuff...Like the 80's pop it's drawing from is a bit more adult contemporary...Less Latoya Jackson...A little more "Cocktails: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack," if that makes any sense whatsoever...

Oh yea! Look at all those bottles in the background! That reminds me! It's Friday...I'll make the rest of this quick so we can get to escaping the unrelenting drudgery of daily existence...

The extended 12" mix is...well...longer...There's some funny splattery sounds at the end...BTW, does anyone know where the "Keyyy Ohhh-oh!" vocals at the end of this song originate? It's a vocal I've heard on songs by XTC and the Police prior to this, so that makes me think it's some old melody or something that I don't know about...Unless just a lot of artists rip off the vocal line from the end of "Making Plans for Nigel"...That seems unlikely, but...

There's a "Dub" version tossed in too but don't seek it out expecting some deep, earth-shaking, Lee Perry-style dub...A better description would be "extended disco mix with a bit more echo"...Nothing too exciting...Honestly, probably the best version on here is the plain ol' "radio edit"...Which means  it's very likely the best version of all would be the ever plain-er and ol'-er regular version I've never heard...

So let's hear it...(Besides, the radio edit, the extended mix and the dub version aren't on youtube) Here's "Hanging Fire" by Jimmy Cliff...Happy Fry-your-brains-on-cheap-beer-day...