''The Turn of a Friendly Card'' is the fifth studio album by the British

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. In ...

band

The Alan Parsons Project The Alan Parsons Project was a British rock band active between 1975 and 1990, whose core membership consisted of producer, audio engineer, musician and composer Alan Parsons and singer, songwriter and pianist Eric Woolfson. They were accompan ...

, released in 1980 by Arista Records. 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'' spawned the hits " Games People Play" and "

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

", the latter of which was

Eric Woolfson Eric Norman Woolfson (18 March 1945 – 2 December 2009) was a Scottish songwriter, lyricist, vocalist, executive producer, pianist, and co-creator of The Alan Parsons Project. Together with Parsons they sold over 50 million albums worldwide. ...

'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. As other band's albums, ''The Turn of a Friendly Card'' is a Concept album with its theme focused on the gambling industry and the fate of gamblers, with more than one reference to

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

(e.g. "there's a sign in the desert that lies to west" from the title piece). Musically it's a more melodic and accessible album than its predecessors. Up to this album, all Alan Parsons Project albums had been packaged in gatefold sleeves. Increasing budgetary constraints of record companies made ''The Turn of a Friendly Card'' the beginning of all subsequently released Alan Parsons Project albums to be single-sleeve packaged. The album was recorded in a record short time of two weeks in Paris. Usually the Alan Parsons Project would take many months to record an album.

Track listing

All songs written and composed by

Alan Parsons Alan Parsons (born 20 December 1948) is an English audio engineer, songwriter, musician and record producer. Parsons was involved with the production of several notable albums, including the Beatles' ''Abbey Road'' (1969) and '' Let It Be'' ...

and

. 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.

Bonus tracks (2008 remaster)

''The Turn of a Friendly Card'' was remastered and reissued in 2008 with the following bonus tracks: #

"May Be a Price to Pay" (Intro/demo) 1:32 #"Nothing Left to Lose" (Basic backing track) 4:36 #"Nothing Left to Lose" (Chris Rainbow overdub compilation) 2:02 #"Nothing Left to Lose" (Early studio version with Woolfson's guide vocal) 3:11 #"Time" (Early studio attempt) 4:42 #"Games People Play" (Rough mix) 4:33 #"The Gold Bug" (Demo) 2:50 * "The Gold Bug" (Demo) 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 (1987) 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" #"May Be a Price to Pay" 3:26 #"Games People Play" 3:06 #"Time" 4:06 #"I Don't Wanna Go Home" 2:12 #"The Turn of a Friendly Card" 3:19 #"Snake Eyes" 3:13 #"Nothing Left to Lose" 2:46 #"TOFC / Snake Eyes / I Don't Wanna Go Home" 4:32 "Extra Bonus Tracks" #

"May Be a Price to Pay (Early version - Eric Guide Vocal & Unused Guitar Solo)" 5:03 #"Games People Play (Early Version - Eric Guide vocal)" 4:32 #"Time (Orchestra & Chris Rainbow Backing vocals)" 4:19 #"The Gold Bug (Early Reference Version)" 5:08 #"The Turn Of A Friendly Card Part One (Early Backing Track)" 2:18 #"Snake Eyes (Early Version - Eric Guide Vocal)" 3:20 #"The Ace Of Swords (Early Version With Synth "Orchestration")" 3:03 #"The Ace Of Swords (Early Version With Piano On Melody)" 2:40 #"The Turn Of A Friendly Card Part Two (Eric Guide Vocal And Extended Guitar Solo)" 3:32 "Single Edits" #

"Games People Play" 3:35 #"The Turn of a Friendly Card" 3:44 #"Snake Eyes" 2:26

Personnel

* Stuart Elliott – drums,

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

David Paton David Paton (; born 29 October 1949) is a Scottish bassist, guitarist and singer. He first achieved success in the mid-1970s as lead vocalist and bassist of Pilot, who scored hits with " Magic", "January", "Just a Smile" and "Call Me Round" b ...

–

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

Ian Bairnson Ian Bairnson (born 3 August 1953 as ''John Bairnson'') is a Scottish musician, best known for being one of the core members of The Alan Parsons Project. He is a multi-instrumentalist, who has played saxophone and keyboards, although he is best ...

–

electric Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by ...

, acoustic and classical guitars; pedal steel guitar on "Time" *

–

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

, harpsichord, lead vocals *

– Projectron on "Games People Play",

whistling Whistling without the use of an artificial whistle is achieved by creating a small opening with one's lips, usually after applying moisture (licking one's lips or placing water upon them) and then blowing or sucking air through the space. The a ...

and finger snaps on "The Gold Bug", Clavinet on "The Gold Bug" and "The Ace of Swords", harpsichord on "The Ace of Swords",

additional vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are used ...

on "Time" *

Chris Rainbow Christopher James Harley, known by the stage name Chris Rainbow (18 November 1946 – 22 February 2015), was a Scottish pop rock singer and musician whose songs "Give Me What I Cry For" and "Solid State Brain" were often played by British radio ...

– lead and backing vocals * Elmer Gantry (Dave Terry) – lead vocal *

Lenny Zakatek Lenny Zakatek (born Lenny du Platel, 1947) is a British singer and musician who has lived in London since the age of thirteen. Zakatek was born just prior to Karachi becoming part of Pakistan and is best known for his work with the British band ...

– lead and backing vocals * The Philharmonia Orchestra, arranged and conducted by Andrew Powell Produced and engineered by

Executive producer:

Mastering consultant: Chris Blair
Sleeve concept: Lol Creme and Kevin Godley *

Ted Jensen Ted Jensen (born September 19, 1954) is an American mastering engineer, known for having mastered many recordings, including the Eagles' ''Hotel California'', Green Day's '' American Idiot'' and Norah Jones' ''Come Away with Me''. Biography T ...

Original LP UK & US Pressings.

Additional instrumentation

"The Gold Bug", which references the same-titled short story by

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wid ...

, includes a

part by Parsons (in the style of Ennio Morricone's early themes for Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Western films, such as ''

A Fistful of Dollars ''A Fistful of Dollars'' ( it, Per un pugno di dollari, lit=For a Fistful of Dollars titled on-screen as ''Fistful of Dollars'') is a 1964 Spaghetti Western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood in his first leading role, ...

'') and wordless vocals by Rainbow, while the main theme is played on an alto saxophone. The

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...

player, originally credited as

Mel Collins Melvyn Desmond Collins (born 5 September 1947, Isle of Man) is a British saxophonist, flautist and session musician. Collins has played in several progressive rock groups, having been a member of King Crimson on two occasions (the first from ...

, is instead credited on the liner notes for the remastered edition as "A session player in Paris whose name escapes us"; this refers to the fact that the saxophone part is a composite of several separate takes.Liner notes on ''The Turn of a Friendly Card'' remastered CD booklet Similarly, the accordion part on "Nothing Left to Lose" is credited in the liner notes to "An unidentified Parisian session player". Also on "The Gold Bug", the newer liner notes credit a "Harmonized Rotating

Triangle A triangle is a polygon with three edges and three vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC. In Euclidean geometry, any three points, when non- colline ...

" to drummer Stuart Elliott. This refers to the

phasing A phaser is an electronic sound processor used to filter a signal, and it has a series of troughs in its frequency-attenutation graph. The position (in Hz) of the peaks and troughs are typically modulated by an internal low-frequency oscil ...

sound effects heard throughout the rhythm-free introduction to the piece.

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications and sales

Covers

The album's title track was covered by German

funeral doom metal Doom metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music that typically uses slower tempos, low-tuned guitars and a much "thicker" or "heavier" sound than other heavy metal genres.K. Kahn-Harris, ''Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge'' ...

band

Ahab Ahab (; akk, 𒀀𒄩𒀊𒁍 ''Aḫâbbu'' 'a-ḫa-ab-bu'' grc-koi, Ἀχαάβ ''Achaáb''; la, Achab) was the seventh king of Israel, the son and successor of King Omri and the husband of Jezebel of Sidon, according to the Hebrew Bib ...

for their album ''

The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" ''The Boats of the "Glen Carrig"'' is a horror novel by English writer William Hope Hodgson, first published in 1907.Keith Neilson, in Frank N. Magill (ed.), ''Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature'', Volume One. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Salem Pres ...

'' in 2015.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Turn of a Friendly Card, The The Alan Parsons Project albums 1980 albums Albums produced by Alan Parsons Arista Records albums