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 title piece, which appears on side 2 of the LP, is a 16-minute suite broken up into five tracks, with the five tracks listed as sub-sections. 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.

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.
The Turn of a Friendly Card was remastered and reissued in 2008 with the following bonus tracks:
  2. "May Be a Price to Pay"
  3. "Nothing Left to Lose"
  4. "Nothing Left to Lose"
  5. "Nothing Left to Lose"
  6. "Time"
  7. "Games People Play"
  8. "The Gold Bug"

    Personnel

Produced and engineered by Alan Parsons

Executive producer: Eric Woolfson

Mastering consultant: Chris Blair

Sleeve concept: Lol Creme and Kevin Godley
"The Gold Bug", which references the same-titled short story by Edgar Allan Poe, includes a whistling part by Parsons, who imitates the style of Ennio Morricone's legendary Spaghetti Western film themes, 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"; this refers to the fact that the saxophone part is a composite of several separate takes. 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" to drummer Stuart Elliott. This refers to the phasing sound effects heard throughout the rhythm-free introduction to the piece.

Charts

Certifications and sales

!scope="row"|Worldwide

Covers

The album's title track was covered by German funeral doom metal band Ahab for their album The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" in 2015.