Funny that you bring this up - specifically about IaW. Because originally Surrounded, AD and especially PMU didn't exist originally. It was only because Derek Oliver encouraged them to write some new songs while things were getting sorted out...
Huh, I never knew that! Did they just think they had enough material?
According to the FAQ at MP's website: "While the band waited for the deal with Atco to be finalized in the middle of 1991, their A&R man, Derek Oliver encouraged them to continue writing songs.
This resulted in them writing Pull Me Under, Surrounded, Another Day and Wait for Sleep. Having two new 'commercial' songs (Surrounded and Another Day) they opted to use them in exchange for the older songs (To Live Forever and Don't Look Past Me). Derek Oliver expressed concern that including A Change of Seasons would take the album 'too far.' After much arguing, the band agreed to leave the song off the album, as long as they could record it later as an EP."
Swapping out TLF and DLPM for Surrounded and Another Day obviously improved the album monumentally, and not having the breakout song PMU (originally titled "Oliver's Twist") would have had a huge impact.
I knew about TLF, but did not realize ACoS was at a point where they considered it 'album ready.'
Have you heard the live version from the March 4, 1993 NYC show? If not, I highly recommend it. There are many significant differences from the version that was released two years later. I acquired a cassette copy of that show via *Prodigy sometime in late 1993 and was blown away by the song. Then, when they released it in 1995, I went back and revisited it and was quite interested to hear how much it had changed. There are a few things I wish they had left, but most of the changes improved the song (especially lyrically).
But you should pick up a copy of the biography. It's a great read and I'm sure you'll find a lot of interesting tidbits that you didn't know about, just like this.
Completely agree (and this reminds me that I still haven't read the updated version).
I'm sorry, it's the Awake *demos* liner notes.