Mirage

[Alexbt]

If I'm not mistaken, I only like 3 songs on Mirage, and two of them are Stevie songs. The production of each is different though.

Gypsy seems like it had a lot of work done on it. I have summized from different studio boots I have heard that she was originally going to do this on a solo album, which by the timeframe would have been Bella Donna and/or with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers (I believe one boot says they're the band playing). The arrangement is quite different than the one we all know today. I also have some boots where Lindsay is playing chords and singing possible lead guitar parts.

I'm wondering if they just did some of these demos in France.

I have some boots of Hold Me with Chris, Lindsey, and Stevie singing together. They went through a couple different versions of the song.

Straight Back sounds like it's a demo to me--that being the final product sounding like a demo. I think it's a great song but not enough production was available to put into it. I have some studio boots marked "Early" of this song which are not too far off from what was released. I'm guessing that they did this in France in a few takes and never really changed much. (Which would also explain why nobody really remembered how to play it in the Mirage Tour Rehearsal boot--John plays a completely different bass part, and Chris fumbles through the keyboard part)