The Turn of a Friendly Card


The Turn of a Friendly Card is the fifth studio album by the British progressive rock band the Alan Parsons Project, released in 1980 by Arista Records. The album was recorded in a record short time of six weeks in Paris. Usually the Alan Parsons Project would take many months to record an album. The title piece, which appears on side 2 of the LP, is a 16-minute suite broken up into five tracks.
The Turn of a Friendly Card is a concept album with its theme focused on the gambling industry and the fate of gamblers. According to Woolfson, the band made an effort to create an album that would be commercially accessible "in all the world markets." The Turn of a Friendly Card spawned the hits "Games People Play" and "Time", the latter of which was Eric Woolfson's first lead vocal appearance. An edited version of the title piece combining the opening and ending parts of the suite was also released as a single along with an official video.

Release

Up to this album, all Alan Parsons Project albums had been packaged in gatefold sleeves. Due to increasing budgetary constraints endured by record companies, The Turn of a Friendly Card was the first Alan Parsons Project album to be issued in single-sleeve packaging
For the promotional efforts surrounding Turn of a Friendly Card, Woolfson reached a deal with their record company that the band would finance television advertisements themselves and recoup these costs from the company through album sales. Record Business announced that television advertisements would be broadcast on London Weekend Television during early November 1980, which would be augmented by additional advertising through music trade magazines and a radio campaign on the Capital radio network via Our Price Records.
Two Japanese cassette players with stereo headphones were set up at the HMV Oxford Street Store for one week to provide members of the public a chance to preview the album. Woolfson mentioned that the response from this promotional effort was "excellent" and that "only one machine was stolen."

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson.
Though numbered as a single work, "The Turn of a Friendly Card" is split into five tracks on most compact disc and all digital and streaming releases. On early CD releases it was a single track with five index points.

Bonus tracks (2008 remaster)

The Turn of a Friendly Card was remastered and reissued in 2008 with the following bonus tracks:
  2. "May Be a Price to Pay" 1:32
  3. "Nothing Left to Lose" 4:36
  4. "Nothing Left to Lose" 2:02
  5. "Nothing Left to Lose" 3:11
  6. "Time" 4:42
  7. "Games People Play" 4:33
  8. "The Gold Bug" 2:50
  • On the "Early studio version" of "Nothing Left to Lose", Woolfson plays the accordion solo on a keyboard with a cheap-sounding accordion preset. His melody is vaguely similar to Alan Civil's horn solo in The Beatles's "For No One".
"The Gold Bug" was named after an Edgar Allan Poe short story. The main keyboard sound is a Hohner Clavinet with damaged strings and a repeat echo. This was also used for the final album version. The short duration of the notes made it difficult to get in tune.>

Deluxe Edition (2015)

In 2015, a "deluxe anniversary edition" was released on double CD. This featured a new remaster of the album, the bonus tracks of the 2008 edition on disc 1 and an additional disc including excerpts from Eric Woolfson's songwriting demos, rough mixes and the three single edits. On this new remaster, Parsons corrected a persisting speed mistake which was present in all earlier CD editions, from the very first up to the 2008 remaster, caused by the original master tape running slow during the CD mastering process and thus altering the pitch of the entire recording.
"Eric's Songwriting Demos"
  1. "May Be a Price to Pay" 3:26
  2. "Games People Play" 3:06
  3. "Time" 4:06
  4. "I Don't Wanna Go Home" 2:12
  5. "The Turn of a Friendly Card" 3:19
  6. "Snake Eyes" 3:13
  7. "Nothing Left to Lose" 2:46
  8. "TOFC / Snake Eyes / I Don't Wanna Go Home" 4:32
"Extra Bonus Tracks"
  2. "May Be a Price to Pay " 5:03
  3. "Games People Play " 4:32
  4. "Time " 4:19
  5. "The Gold Bug " 5:08
  6. "The Turn of a Friendly Card Part One " 2:18
  7. "Snake Eyes " 3:20
  8. "The Ace of Swords " 3:03
  9. "The Ace of Swords " 2:40
  10. "The Turn of a Friendly Card Part Two " 3:32
"Single Edits"
  2. "Games People Play" 3:35
  3. "The Turn of a Friendly Card" 3:44
  4. "Snake Eyes" 2:26

Box Set (2023)

In 2023, a four-disc box set was released featuring the material from the 2-CD plus five additional songwriting diaries of unused songs, two more studio bonus tracks and a Blu-Ray disc including a new 5.1 surround mix of the album plus four promo videos. The Blu-Ray was also made available separately.

Personnel

Produced and engineered by Alan Parsons

Executive producer: Eric Woolfson

Mastering consultant: Chris Blair

Sleeve concept: Lol Creme and Kevin Godley
;Additional instrumentation
"The Gold Bug", which references the same-titled short story by Edgar Allan Poe, includes a whistling part by Parsons and wordless vocals by Rainbow, while the main theme is played on an alto saxophone. The saxophone player, originally credited as Mel Collins, is instead credited on the liner notes for the remastered edition as "A session player in Paris whose name escapes us". Similarly, the accordion part on "Nothing Left to Lose" is credited in the liner notes to "An unidentified Parisian session player". Newer editions of the liner notes, starting with the 2008 remastered edition, credit a "Harmonized Rotating Triangle" to Stuart Elliott.

Charts

Weekly charts

Chart Peak
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