Waitin' For A Superman

Warner Bros. Records US, 2000
9362-44793

1. Waitin' For A Superman (radio edit) -Original version from the album The Soft Bulletin
2. Waitin' For A Superman (album version) -From the album The Soft Bulletin
3. Waitin' For A Superman (Mokran remix) -From the album The Soft Bulletin
4. Riding To Work In The Year 2025 (Your Invisible Now) -Stereo remix; original version from Zaireeka
5. Thirty-Five Thousand Feet Of Despair -Stereo remix; original 4 cd version from Zaireeka
plus Quicktime videos of Waitin' For A Superman, Race For The Prize, and Be My Head

UK CD1

1. Waitin' For A Superman (radio edit) -Original version from the album The Soft Bulletin
2. Riding To Work In The Year 2025 (Your Invisible Now) -From Zaireeka Disc 3, 1997
3. Thirty-Five Thousand Feet Of Despair -From Zaireeka Disc 3, 1997

UK CD2

1. Waitin' For A Superman (radio edit) -Original version from the album The Soft Bulletin
2. Riding To Work In The Year 2025 (Your Invisible Now) -From Zaireeka Disc 4, 1997
3. Thirty-Five Thousand Feet Of Despair -From Zaireeka Disc 4, 1997

See the videos for Waitin' For A Superman: full version and the radio version edit

Perhaps the saddest song from The Soft Bulletin, 'Waitin' For A Superman' is one of the most impressive collaborations yet of Steven's music and Wayne's lyrics. The orchestration of the song provides an awesome atmospheric backdrop to the forlorn piano melody that underpins the song. Within this powerful and sombre sonic tapestry, Wayne's lyrics convey a piquant personal sadness, pinned back by just a small element of hope.

That hope lies in the idea that, even when you can't really be helped to overcome a darkness in your life, the solid people you rely on are still there for you, even if they can't actually change the way things are going. Maybe they can't bring back the light, but they can be there for you to hold onto in the darkness...

The B-sides of the UK release complete the 4cd set for '35,000Ft Of Despair' and 'Riding to Work in 2025', thus providing the first full UK release of any of the material from Zaireeka. The first two cds for these songs comprise of the B-sides from the two UK 'Race For The Prize' singles.

The US release has something extra though, besides the shortened and speeded up edit of the main track and the two album versions, in the form of the stereo mixes of '35,000Ft' and '2025'. These mixes date from the early versions of The Soft Bulletin, and are adaptations of the 4cd versions found on Zaireeka. Both tracks are fully remixed and re-edited, with some of the 4cd elements discarded, and with some minor additions. They remain as weirdly futuristic visions of the human condition, and work out sounding almost as good as the original versions, but somewhat less expansive. They're also only otherwise available on the Japanese version of 'Race For The Prize'.

As if that wasn't enough, the US CD5 also has Quicktime4 files providing both versions of the video for 'Waitin' For A Superman' and the videos for 'Race For The Prize' and 'Be My Head' (the latter from Transmissions From The Satellite Heart). The full version of the 'Superman' video never made it onto MTV etc, as result of 'too much blood' being involved. Pretty dumb really, for such a beautiful video...