Pawn Hearts

Pawn Hearts is an album by the British progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator. It was released in 1971. It is hailed as one of the masterpieces of progressive rock by many fans of the genre. The album held number 1 in Italy for 12 weeks in 1972.

Differences between the European and North American releases

The original vinyl release in the U.S. and Canada (for example on Buddah Records) contained a fourth track, squeezed between “Lemmings” and “Man-Erg”, which was the band’s arrangement of an old BBC Radio 1 closing theme. This instrumental, called “Theme One”, was originally composed by none other than George Martin. In Europe, where Pawn Hearts only contained the three tracks, “Theme One” was released as a single in February 1972, with the song “W” as its b-side.

Later North American reissues used the European version of the album, without “Theme One.” Interestingly, the 2005 remastered CD contains versions of both “W” and “Theme One” that both are different from the North American album and the European single.

Two of the released versions of “Theme One” appear to have the same backing tracks, but feature completely different overdubs and mixes. These can be found on the compilation CD “First Generation - 1968-1971” and the remastered “Pawn Hearts.” There is also a third version (entirely different studio take) of “Theme One” included on the 2003 various artists compilation CD “The Best Prog Rock Album In The World… Ever.”