Pointer Sisters - "Fire"

You can probably file this under "N" for No Big Deal.

The original pressing of the 45, Planet 45901, which came with a picture sleeve, has a printed time of 3:41 and an actual run time of 3:28. On the intro, the keyboard and guitar come in on the left.

When it was time to put out an Oldies-line 45, it appeared as the B-side of "He's So Shy" on yellow-label Elektra Spun Gold 45120. (Planet was distributed by WEA back in the early '80s - the 1978 picture sleeve for "Fire" says so.) Just like the original 45, it has a printed time of 3:41, an actual run time of 3:28, and the keyboard and guitar come in on the left.

When the Pointer Sisters moved to RCA in the mid-'80s, RCA put out a "Gold Standard" 45 with "Fire" on the A-side and "He's So Shy" on the B-side. The 45 is Planet 14076, with a "distributed by RCA Records" credit at the bottom. The label has the same design as the original Planet label, with the words "Gold Standard" at 3 o'clock under the record number.

This 45 has a printed time of 3:27, an actual run time of 3:28, but with the left and right channels switched from the original 45. On this rerelease 45, the keyboard and guitar come in on the right.

I wouldn't have noticed any of this if the left/right discrepancy didn't also carry over into the CD world.

The following CDs are consistent with the original Elektra-era release of the 45, where the keyboard and guitar come in on the left:

• Time-Life's Sounds Of The Seventies - 1979 (1990, runs 3:26)
• The A-List Disc 1 (1994, runs 3:27)

The following CDs are consistent with the RCA-era rerelease of the 45, where the keyboard and guitar come in on the right:

• Rhino's Billboard Top Hits - 1979 (1991, runs 3:27, stellar sound on this disc, although the above two are excellent as well)
• Time-Life's Body Talk - Magic Moments (R834-09, 1996; different EQ from above Rhino CD, runs about 3:27, superb sound as well)

EdisonLite wrote: Aren't you saying that when they switched labels, someone swapped the left and right channel outputs when pressing Oldies 45s of this?

That's exactly right. And you'll find that some CD versions of the song have left/right consistent with the original 45, and others have left/right consistent with the Oldies 45 pressed by RCA/Planet.