Duran Duran "Save A Prayer"

The "live" version on the B-side of the 45 can, in fact, be edited from the version on Arena. It's been several years since I created my edited version, but I seem to recall that nothing needed to be borrowed from the vinyl.

Got a real answer, just eight years after the original post!

Casey Kasem answered your question in exactly 37 seconds on March 23, 1985 episode of American Top 40:

"Now we're up to Duran Duran's hit single, 'Save A Prayer'. This isn't your usual single record with a different song on each side. This one has the same song, 'Save A Prayer', on both sides - different versions of it. The hit version that the majority of stations have been playing is Duran Duran's studio recording, released on the 1982 album, Rio. The B-side, which some radio stations are playing, is Duran Duran's live concert recording of 'Save A Prayer', from their latest album, Arena. For a change this week on AT40, we're gonna play that B-side - the live version. At number 16 this week, Duran Duran's 'Save A Prayer'."

Edited by crapfromthepast

I know that an ever-growing # of old issues of Billboard are now available
to be browsed online. Which is great. And while I haven't spent a ton of
time browsing them to date, I do recall seeing many 80s weeks where
specific MTV videos and their rotations were listed.

And while I haven't confirmed this fact by browsing through old BB issues,
it is forever burned into my mind that MTV was playing the video of the
studio version of "Save A Prayer" a *ton* back in '83, despite it not being
released back then as a 45. That fact always surprised me, as I thought it
would've been a sure-fire Top 40 hit. But due to the crazy, multiple 45
releases/long road to Top 40 hit-dom for both "Hungry Like The Wolf"
and "Rio" (both stories are well documented in their own threads), the
entire marketing plan for that LP in the U.S. had to be basically scrapped
by the label, I was told.   

I remember our local Capitol rep (Merv) also saying to us around 5/83
that his label had always thought "Save A Prayer" could be a hit single,
hence them making a video for it in the first place. But the label had
already delayed the planned U.S. release of the next "D-squared" 45 (Is
There Something I Should Know, which had already been released in the
UK back in March), due to the Top 40 U.S. resurgence of "Rio", which
didn't end up peaking here until May. Merv said his label expected their
next LP ("Seven And The Ragged Tiger") to be ready after this new 45 had
peaked, so Capitol saw no remaining 1983 window to issue "Save A
Prayer" as a single.    

But the folks at the label clearly never forgot about the track, its
popularity as an MTV video, and its clear Top 40 hit potential, And, to
their credit, they did eventually find the proper time/place/situation to
finally release it as a U.S. single - the release of their live album.

To Jim & Bill:

Merv Amols (RIP) was great!

Who else would give me, an Albany club DJ, a promo 12" of Sheriff's "When I'm With You" (with tons of extra analog compression) 6 years before it peaks at #1? Hey, he told me in early 1983 "It's a hit!".

Who else would give me a promo 12" of the band Billy Satellte's "I Wanna Go Back" 2 years before Eddie Money would have the hit with it on Columbia...

Who else would give me a promo 12" of a future #1 "Abracadabra" in 'neither the 45 nor LP version'...

Andy