The Missing Track On Renaissance's First Album

 

The self-titled debut album by Renaissance has 5 tracks. Two on side A: 'Kings and Queens', and 'Innocence'. Three on side B: 'Island', 'Wanderer', and 'Bullet'. When the album came to CD, it was often released with two bonus tracks: an edit of Island meant for the radio as a single, and the B-side of that single; a song called 'The Sea'. It's a pretty song, and I decided to try an experiment with it. I listened to the album, but with The Sea between Innocence and Island. The results? It fits very well. So well in fact, that I now believe it may have originally been intended to be on the album. 

The Evidence

Ok, hear me out. I have a few reasons why The Sea being included in that spot makes sense purely based on listening.

• Makes both sides have three tracks.
• Makes both sides nearly equal in length, whereas before side B was longer by a few minutes. 
• The Sea fades out. That means that side A now fades out, and Island, the beginning of side B *fades in*. Innocence does not fade out, so when The Sea is included, the transition from side A to B is much smoother. 
• Thematically, The Sea fits right before Island. Get it? An island surrounded by the sea? Ok, I admit that's a stretch, but what are the opening lyrics of Island? "There is Island where it should never be, surrounded by suburban SEA." 

Now you may be thinking: "Hmm that's very interesting, but isn't this all just post-hoc rationalization? The Sea was never on any original releases of the album." Well, you would be correct...if it weren't for this last piece of evidence. I would not have even made this blog post was I not aware of this, so prepare to be utterly blown away:

What is this? This is a cover of a rare cassette version of the album released in the U.K. in 1969 or 1970. And if you look closely, you can see that on side one of this cassette is The Sea right where I said it would be. So we can confirm, The Sea was on a release of the album in 1970. 

Why leave The Sea off the album?

So if The Sea was on this cassette version of the album, and it fits so well, why did the band decide to exclude it at all from the main release? I think the answer has something to do with The Sea sounding a lot more poppy than any of the other songs on the album and perhaps the band thought it would be out of place. Another possibility is that the song was only recorded at the behest of the record company to make something more commercial. I've seen no evidence the song was ever performed live, which may indicate that The Sea was no more than a studio project that the band themselves never took seriously. 

Regardless of the reason, I think it was a mistake not to include it on the album, if the only reason being that it deprived the world of another Jane Relf vocal performance.