Bear Melt - Studio Version

[CookOfTheHouse]

Does anyone know if there's any version or rehearsal of Bear Melt other than the one on Bless Its Pointed Little Head? I read about Jorma stating that wasn't improvised at all, which means they rehearsed it and probably recorded it sometime... Are there any roughs or demos other than the ones of Bathing At Baxter's (Which are basically roguth versions of Saturday Afternoon and a thousand different versions of martha and nothing else)??

[PrayForPlagues]

The band often it played it as an instrumental, called 'Thing'. It's on Live at the Fillmore East 1968, and probably several other 68-69 bootleg live recordings.
I've never heard of a studio recording or rehearsal. Craig Fenton's book does not list one, either.

[FirstBassman]

Yeah, correct.
It was a live jam theme that they had played before (and later).
There were other jams too where Grace would just improvise a bunch of lyrics.

But a studio version of Bear Melt? I don't think so.

[Jefferson RiverRaft]

It's a very cool song. Creepy and obviously somewhat complicated.

[CookOfTheHouse]

Thanks everybody! I never noticed Thing was the same song! I used to just skip that one (not really a great fan of instrumentals, I love Marty and Grace's vocals too much!)

[42wenty]

Man, I would love for there to be a studio version of Bear Melt! One of my fave tunes.

[PrayForPlagues]

Yeah, I always thought a studio version or at least rehearsal would be cool. I also thought the lyrics to the BIPLH version were really great. I always wondered what was with Grace and the 'nipping' lyric that is (to a degree) in both Bear Melt and Hey Fredrick.