My hey, hey my: 28 albums with distinctly different versions of the same song

1. The Stone Roses, The Stone Roses (“Waterfall” and “Don’t Stop”)

It’s not super obvious that two songs from The Stone Roses’ classic 1989 self-titled debut, “Waterfall” and “Don’t Stop,” are related. It’s tough to put a finger on it until you realize that “Don’t Stop” is actually most of “Waterfall” run backwards, with new lyrics on top—once you realize it, you can’t un-hear it. It wasn’t the only time The Stone Roses re-used a song by running it backwards and giving it a new title: “Made Of Stone” begat “Guernica.” “Where Angels Play” birthed “Simone.” “Elephant Stone” became “Full Fathom Five.” The magic of YouTube features many of the reversed songs reversed again, for comparison purposes. [Josh Modell]

2-4. Neil Young, Tonight’s The Night (“Tonight’s The Night”), Rust Never Sleeps (“My My, Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue)” and “Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)”), Freedom (“Keep On Rockin’ In The Free World”), and Sleeps With Angels (“Western Hero” and “Train Of Love”)

Neil Young wasn’t the first artist to include different versions of the same song on an album, but he’s definitely the musician who’s gotten the most mileage out of it. On three—count ’em, three—of his best records, he opens with a softer rendition of the song in question, then, much later on, closes with a sloppier, prehistoric grunge take. Of the three, Rust Never Sleeps and Freedom exhibit the biggest contrasts in tone, starting off live and acoustic (complete with cheers from the crowd) and ending like a couple of broken-down tractors—all grinding and mechanized and ready to fall apart at any moment. Young mixed things up even more on 1994’s Sleeps With Angels by giving two songs in the middle of the track listing (“Western Hero” and “Train Of Love”) nearly the same sleepy saloon arrangement, only with very different lyrics. [Dan Caffrey]

3. Suzanne Vega, Solitude Standing (“Tom’s Diner”)

Suzanne Vega’s 1987 breakout Solitude Standing opens with what became one of her signature songs. Though it came in a distant second to “Luka” (the second track), “Tom’s Diner” has still stuck with Vega throughout her career. It’s an odd track to lead off an album—a rhythmic, repetitive, whispery little a cappella story narrating her actual experience of sitting at a diner counter years earlier, reading the newspaper and watching the world go by outside. But apparently Vega liked the tune, because the album closes with a radically different version, a slowed-down instrumental packed with clanging, dinging percussion and an insinuating, clarinet-style synth version of the melody. Vega wasn’t the only one who liked her tune, either: Three years later, a British group called DNA remixed the track with a drum machine and a dance beat and turned it into a hit again, and Vega liked the version so much that she gave her blessing for a full album release called Tom’s Album, filled with songs from around the world that parodied, borrowed, or reworked her words, melody, and concept. [Tasha Robinson]

4. Yo La Tengo, Painful (“Big Day Coming”)

Yo La Tengo spent the first decade of its existence paying homage to its influences and tinkering with its sound, before becoming one of the most vital indie-rock bands in America with the 1993 LP Painful. That album perfected the model Yo La Tengo has followed ever since: a mix of long experiments and short pop tunes, eardrum-splitting feedback and pleasant drone, muscular rockers and hushed ballads. Painful’s two versions of the song “Big Day Coming”—the spacey, seven-minute album-opener, and the loud, propulsive take that’s the record’s penultimate track—come close to covering everything the band can do. In the more avant-garde spin, singer-guitarist Ira Kaplan sings the melody so slow that it’s hard to catch at first, while in the rollicking “Big Day Coming,” the hook is clear but has to withstand waves of distortion. Both songs are wonderfully complex, keeping the nature of this “big day” ambiguous. Is it something to anticipate eagerly, or does it bode ill? Yo La Tengo have continued to explore that kind of duality ever since. [Noel Murray]

5. George Harrison, All Things Must Pass (“Isn’t It A Pity”)

Brevity was not on George Harrison’s mind when he released his first solo album, a three-disc set that contains an outpouring of songs the youngest Beatle wrote in the late ’60s—only to see them rejected by his bandmates—and songs he wrote as the band was splitting up. The emotional high point of the album is the end of side one, a stately, seven-minute track centered on some of Harrison’s favorite themes—spirituality, regret, and the importance of love and kindness. Listeners assumed it was an elegy for The Beatles, as lyrics like, “Isn’t a shame / how we break each other’s hearts / and cause each other pain” seems like an apt metaphor for the discord in the band’s late years. (That, and the song ends with a na-na-na chorus with a striking similarity to “Hey Jude.”) But Harrison wrote the song in 1966, and it had been rejected by John Lennon from inclusion on Sgt. Pepper’s and The White Album. (Harrison nearly sold it to Frank Sinatra before recording it himself.) Perhaps after sitting on the song for four years, the quiet Beatle wanted to make sure he was heard, as he reprises the song on side four, replacing producer Phil Spector’s “wall of sound” from the first version with a sparser sound that builds and builds. The effect is to bring the lyrical section of the album full circle (the third disc is all instrumental), as Harrison’s masterpiece takes you on a tour of his varying strengths as a songwriter and then returns you home. [Mike Vago]

6. Heart, Dreamboat Annie (“Dreamboat Annie (Fantasy Child),” “Dreamboat Annie,” and “Dreamboat Annie (Reprise)”)

When Heart released the title track of its 1976 debut album Dreamboat Annie as a single, the band actually had three versions to choose from: the one-minute acoustic “Fantasy Child” take that bridges the gap between “Magic Man” and “Crazy On You” at the start of side one; the vibrant two-minute full-band version that ends the first side; and the slower, nearly four-minute country-rock “Reprise” that closes out the LP. The single takes the two-minute “Dreamboat Annie” and pads it out with some additional music, and that’s the right choice, because that’s the snappiest take, with bells and banjos and harmonies that that speak to the Wilson sisters’ eclecticism. Much of the album Dreamboat Annie plays like a (glorious) fusion of mid-period Led Zeppelin and the Buckingham-Nicks era of Fleetwood Mac, but in every iteration, “Dreamboat Annie” itself has a sound that’s wholly the Wilsons’. [Noel Murray]

7. Broken Social Scene, You Forgot It In People (“Anthems For A Seventeen-Year-Old Girl” and “Pitter Patter Goes My Heart”)

Like most Broken Social Scene songs, “Anthems For A Seventeen-Year-Old Girl” says more with its sonics than it does with its lyrics—it’s the finger-walking banjo, constantly building strings, and Emily Haines’ pitch-modified voice that deliver what’s promised by the title, not the actual words. As if setting out to prove this—that Kevin Drew’s abstract lyrics are just another vehicle for an emotion rather than a narrative— “Anthems” gets wordlessly revisited with “Pitter Patter Goes My Heart.” A more minimal arrangement of primarily just the strings and drums, it nonetheless conjures the same feeling of a nostalgic, if doomed, high-school romance, singing be damned. [Dan Caffrey]

8. Destroyer, Poison Season (“Times Square, Poison Season I,” “Times Square,” and “Times Square, Poison Season II”)

Idiosyncratic as he is, Destroyer mastermind Dan Bejar has always kept one foot firmly stuck in the tar pit of classic rock, whether borrowing from early David Bowie on Destroyer’s Rubies or snorting up coke-mirror arrangements reminiscent of Roxy Music and latter-day Steely Dan on 2011’s Kaputt. The new Poison Season takes a note from Neil Young, The Beatles, and many other forefathers on this list by including two different arrangements of the (almost) title track. But Bejar riffs on the practice by cutting the chamber-quintet version of “Poison Season” down the middle into two songs that bookend the album. Crying violin strings out of his eyes while wailing about Jesus, he makes “Times Square, Poison Season” sound like a seriously twisted diamond commercial, then offsets its weepy beauty with a more rocking centerpiece (“Times Square”) that bounces with saxophone and congas. [Dan Caffrey]

9. Paul Westerberg, Come Feel Me Tremble (“Crackle & Drag”)

Even before he embarked on a solo career, Paul Westerberg perfected the art of wrapping tragedy in grimy hooks with The Replacements. So it’s no surprise that “Crackle & Drag” is about a depressed mother sticking her head in the oven, despite Westerberg’s inspired bark and a bouncing mix of chime and distortion. It’s not exactly happy, but it’s enough to make you forget that the lyrics are about, you know, suicide. As if to drive the message home, Westerberg dials down the volume one track later with an acoustic version that ensures the words ring loud, clear, and sad. [Dan Caffrey]

10. Primal Scream, Screamadelica (“Higher Than The Sun” and “Higher Than The Sun (A Dub Symphony In Two Parts)”)

Primal Scream’s 1991 electronic music masterpiece Screamadelica contained not one, but two different versions of the tripped-out psychedelic song “Higher Than The Sun.” The original is porous and driven by backmasked rhythms and bubbling-tar bass, but the abstract re-do, subtitled “A Dub Symphony In Two Parts,” is even better. Not only is the song sparser and creepier—for that, credit spooky keyboards and vocal rearrangements that excise and isolate Bobby Gillespie’s utterances of the titular phrase—but Public Image Ltd. bassist Jah Wobble also shows up to add murk. [Annie Zaleski]

11. Franz Ferdinand, Tonight (“No You Girls” and “Katherine Kiss Me”)

2009’s Tonight contains a pair of songs with similar DNA: the strutting, electrified single “No You Girls” and the subdued, acoustic closer “Katherine Kiss Me.” As with most things Franz Ferdinand, the similarities are subtle and clever. Each details a passionate first kiss from a different perspective: confident (“No You Girls” has fat grooves and a peacock strut) and weak-kneed (“Katherine Kiss Me” is acoustic and minor-key). As frontman Alex Kapranos noted in a 2009 interview, he meant the songs as two sides of the same coin. “‘No You Girls’ is sung how you’d tell an anecdote to your friends if you’re in the pub—where you’d exaggerate something and become the hero of the story. Whereas ‘Katherine Kiss Me’ is recalling the same event, but remembering how it actually was, how emotionally fragile and vulnerable you felt and maybe it wasn’t quite as rewarding as you’d hoped it would be.” Still, both songs share the lyrics “I’d love to get to know you,” “I mean I need to love,” and “flick your cigarette, then kiss me,” and mention how boys in particular “feel” due to burgeoning romance—betraying the fact that “No You Girls” was actually called “Katherine Kiss Me” when it debuted in 2007. [Annie Zaleski]

12. Wilco, Being There (“Outtasite (Outta Mind)” and “Outta Mind (Outta Sight)”)

As documented in Sam Jones’ documentary I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, by the time Jeff Tweedy started recording Wilco’s fourth album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, he’d become somewhat paralyzed by the possibilities of what he could do with his easygoing, blues-tinged country-rock. There’d been some hints of this “spoiled by choice” dilemma earlier in the band’s run, too: in the two approaches to the song “A Shot In The Arm” on 1999’s Summerteeth, and in the 1996 double-album Being There’s dueling “Outtasite (Outta Mind)” and “Outta Mind (Outta Sight).” The latter comes from Being There’s more challenging second disc, and is so spry and whimsical that it’s only a Muppet or two away from being ready for Sesame Street. The former is the standout track from the album’s powerhouse first disc, and comes across as a bold attempt to create a new rock classic, all bashing and joyful. It’s telling that Tweedy has defaulted to “Outtasite” in concert in the decade since getting Yankee Hotel Foxtrot out of his system. He seems to have settled on what he wants Wilco to be—more forceful and less winking. [Noel Murray]

13. Maritime, Heresy And The Hotel Choir (“Peril” and “Pearl”)

With one version titled “Peril” and the other titled “Pearl,” it sounds as if Maritime is using a single chord progression to explore two different outlooks on the world: one positive and one negative. But despite having different lyrics and instrumentation—the former consists of only a muddy guitar and Davey Von Bohlen’s endearing yearn, while the latter embodies the band’s full-on jangle—both songs are pretty grim. “Peril” recognizes the dog-eat-dog nature of romance and life in general, with “Pearl” noting the same traits of mankind, albeit with a dash of hope. But Von Bohlen soon discredits that hope by calling it silly, even as the guitars ring optimistically. Although somewhat depressing if you listen too closely, “Peril” and “Pearl” prove that even misery can have variation and nuance. [Dan Caffrey]

14. Tool, Lateralus (“Parabol” and “Parabola”)

Proggy dread-mongers Tool pull off a neat trick at the end of the dirge-like “Parabol” by segueing directly into its faster, blown-out version, “Parabola.” As the mystic chants and faint drums drop out, Maynard James Keenan draws out his last two syllables (“ill-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-sion”), the amplifiers rise in volume, and Danny Carey’s drums accelerate the funeral march to a funeral gallop. The best way to experience the transition is the characteristically freaky music video, which links the two songs by giving them each their own separate nightmarish environments (one claymation, of course). [Dan Caffrey]

15. David Bowie, Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) (“It’s No Game, Pt. 1” and “It’s No Game, Pt. 2”)

Conventional wisdom posits the perfect rock album as consisting of 10 original songs in a more or less consistent style, and part of what identifies David Bowie as a true album artist is the fact that none of his most highly regarded LPs fit this description. 1980’s Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)—widely seen as his last consistently great album, and the endpoint of his decade-long creative peak—opens and closes with the same song, “It’s No Game.” In true Bowie fashion, the version that opens the album is weirder than the one that closes it; a woman’s voice recites the lyrics in Japanese while Bowie screams and Robert Fripp skronks away on lead guitar. The second “It’s No Game” is tighter and more melancholy, as though Bowie had tamed himself—or at least come to terms with two or three things—over the course of the album. [Ignatiy Vishnevetsky]

16. Sun Kil Moon, Ghosts Of The Great Highway (“Salvador Sanchez” and “Pancho Villa”)

When boxing obsessive Mark Kozelek eulogizes three real-life prizefighters on “Salvador Sanchez,” he does so in words that convey both power and grace: “sweet warrior,” “pure magic matador,” “fell by leather.” His band’s triumphant distortion (reminiscent of Crazy Horse in its most optimistic moments) conveys that first trait—power—but it takes a softer reprise at the album’s end to nail the second. Woven with gentle Spanish guitar and mournful strings, “Pancho Villa” escorts the listener out of the ring with elegance, and when coupled with “Salvador Sanchez,” delivers a tribute that’s as walloping and stirring as the sport it immortalizes. [Dan Caffrey]

17. PJ Harvey, Rid Of Me (“Man-Size” and “Man-Size Sextet”)

“Man-Size Sextet” has all the makings of a B-side from an import CD single. It’s a recording of PJ Harvey’s rollicking, gender-bending single with a classical string sextet in place of the standard guitar-bass-drums setup. Harvey’s unsettling lyrics (“Douse hair with gasoline / Set it light and set it free”) are even more ominous atop what sounds like a gothic horror film score. It’s surprising enough that Harvey included “Sextet” on Rid Of Me at all. But in an added twist, she places it ahead of the single version in the sequence, calling into question which is the song’s definitive version. [Joshua Alston]

18. The Breeders, Last Splash (“Roi”)

Last Splash is one of the finest rock records of the ’90s, but it’s also one of the least cohesive. Grunge sing-alongs bump up against surf-rock instrumentals and country homage, and while the variety of sounds and styles are a selling point, Splash risks sounding more like a collection of songs than an album. It avoids that fate thanks to “Roi (Reprise),” a 42-second, album-closing callback to the song that best represents Splash’s sonics. “Roi (Reprise)“ ties a bow around the album, and that it ends with a satisfying, manic blast of guitar is merely a bonus. [Joshua Alston]

19. Tom Waits, Frank’s Wild Years (“Straight To The Top” and “Innocent When You Dream”)

Over the course of 16 studio albums, Tom Waits has written dozens of songs, but he’s less a legend because of the songs themselves than how he sings them. So perhaps it’s no surprise that he tries multiple deliveries on two songs from 1987’s Frank’s Wild Years. “Straight To The Top (Rhumba)” is the quick, jazzy number the parenthetical implies, while “Straight To The Top (Vegas)” is meandering, piano-backed schmaltz not far removed from Bill Murray’s cheeseball lounge singer. Likewise, “Innocent When You Dream (Barroom)” has dueling vocal tracks slurring through the song, and it’s not hard to imagine Waits with his arm around the accordion player who backs him up, staggering through one last number before last call. The album closes with “Innocent When You Dream (78),” a steadier version that puts both vocals and music through a muffled filter that makes the song sound like a recording from decades earlier. The dual approaches give both songs the air of old standards, songs that might be sung through the ages, by singers as disparate as the personas Waits puts on for each. [Mike Vago]

20. Simon & Garfunkel, Bookends (“Bookends Theme”)

Folk-pop hitmakers Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel became part of the burgeoning late-1960s trend toward arty concept albums almost by accident, when they cobbled 1968’s Bookends together partly from singles and outtakes, then forced those songs into a framework that made the collection seem more purposeful. It’s hard to complain about any contrivance when it inspires a song as pretty as Bookends’ title track, which appears twice on side one—appropriately, at the start and at the finish. The first “Bookends Theme” is just a 30-second guitar instrumental, serving as an overture to a suite of songs about growing up and acquiring perspective in a chaotic world. The second version runs just over a minute, coming just after the experimental sound-collage “Voices Of Old People” and the lushly orchestrated vignette “Old Friends,” and puts a melancholy cast over everything that came before, completing the instrumental’s tentative thought with the stark advice, “Preserve your memories / They’re all that’s left you.” The two songs may have been Simon’s belated attempt to establish a frame for Bookends, but they’re incredibly effective, dispensing with his usual verbosity and cutting to the heart of what he meant to say. [Noel Murray]

21-22. Bob Dylan, Self Portrait (“In Search Of Little Sadie” and “Little Sadie”) and Planet Waves (“Forever Young”)

Perhaps the least album-y non-compilation album of Bob Dylan’s career, Self Portrait features two Dylan rewrites of the old folk tune “Little Sadie.” The first, “In Search Of Little Sadie,” seems to shift keys repeatedly, and slows to a trot for the final stretch of its murder-ballad story. The second version, called just “Little Sadie,” has a jauntier rhythm and finds Dylan affecting something closer to his Nashville Skyline croon, though that, too, slides in and out as the song progresses. The second one is a more enjoyable listen; both are indicative of Self Portrait’s grab bag of treats and tricks. Dylan pulled a similar trick a few years later on Planet Waves, to better effect: “Forever Young” receives two run-throughs in a row, with a slower and more reflective version chased by a more rollicking one. By placing them together, the second “Forever Young” feels like a raucous encore, and the two versions feel, together, like one long song. [Jesse Hassenger]

23. Titus Andronicus, The Monitor (“Titus Andronicus Forever” and “…And Ever”)

New Jersey punk heroes Titus Andronicus are no strangers to reprisals and references, with a series of (distinct) songs that begin with “No Future” and several songs on The Most Lamentable Tragedy that refer to other past works by name. “Titus Andronicus Forever,” the second track on their epic The Monitor, is itself something of a callback to their self-titled song “Titus Andronicus” from the band’s debut. The first “Titus” song includes the memorable refrain “Your life is over!” while its follow-up, “Forever,” consists almost entirely of chanting “The enemy is everywhere!” over surf guitar. This song is then reprised in a different key later on the same album as “…And Ever,” with additional lyrics about being “worthless and weak, sick and scared” and a sax solo that still roots the tune in ’50s- and ’60s-style rock. The songs are sometimes blended in a live setting, confirming their status as parts of a greater whole. [Jesse Hassenger]

24. The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”)

After a punishing few years of tours and media attention, The Beatles were anxious to get away from the pressures of Beatlemania, which they did on their next album by trying to become someone else. As originally conceived by Paul McCartney, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was an alter ego experience where the group would adopt the guise of a new band, free to play anything without fear of judgment. The original concept was largely abandoned, but survived in the album’s title track and its reprise. These brackets to Sgt. Pepper, incorporating orchestral tuning and audience din—as well as a shout-out to lead singer and Ringo Starr alter ego Billy Shears—give the album the impression of a concert in progress, and a personality different than any other Beatles record. Although the rest of the songs ignore this conceit, both versions of “Sgt. Pepper” help ground the album and anchor the listener through the kaleidoscope of influences and styles that make it a touchstone of pop music. (No matter what Keith Richards says.) [Les Chappell]

25. Queens Of The Stone Age, Rated R (“Feel Good Hit Of The Summer”)

“Feel Good Hit Of The Summer,” the opening track on Queens Of The Stone Age’s Rated R, is an invigorating blast of rock swagger with energetic qualities not unlike its de facto chorus, “c-c-c-c-c-cocaine.” It’s also a cheeky nod to bandleader Josh Homme’s previous band, Kyuss—whose “stoner rock” label Homme always rejected—as well as the Queens’ own party-hearty reputation. In declaring the band’s love of mind-altering substances, “Feel Good Hit Of The Summer” serves as a sort of manifesto of excess, a statement of intent so crucial that it must be repeated. Garnished with amphetamine-enhanced piano, the second round of “Feel Good Hit” fades out after 35 rowdy seconds, an all-night rager briefly heard through a passing car window. [Katie Rife]

26. The Decemberists, The Hazards Of Love (“The Wanting Comes In Waves/Repaid” and “The Wanting Comes In Waves (Reprise)”)

A rock opera that dwells on doomed romance—a Decemberists specialty—The Hazards Of Love often sounds like an incomplete soundtrack to a play that was never staged. A motif is that of water: like the forest around our two heroes, it’s a sentient force capable of helping, hindering, and even killing. “The Wanting Comes In Waves / Repaid” foreshadows the role of the water and the debts that will be collected by the time the song is repeated. As Colin Meloy’s fawn character William proposes to his jealous Forest Queen mother that he get one more night with his lady love Margaret (later characterized as “a river’s daughter”), he describes how “the wanting comes in waves / And I want this night.” It’s a distinct melody, preceded by stirring drums and including Becky Stark’s rolling voice, crashing like waves in the background. In a staging of this musical, “The Wanting Comes In Waves / Repaid” is the big number before intermission. We don’t hear it again until the second-to-last song, after the Rake’s ghost children save Margaret by killing their father. William has made another deal that he probably shouldn’t have, promising the river his bones if it will let him cross. “The Wanting Comes In Waves (Reprise)” starts off as a blend between the pervious racing-to-save-Margaret frenzied beat and the melody of “The Wanting Comes In Waves” (I visualize the play in my head as the Rake dying and the hero finding Margaret during this part), leadings us to the lovers’ reunion and more waves, a triumphant reprise of the heroes finding each other. Of course, they are indebted to the river, so the waves now signify the cost of their love, their wanting coming in waves that will drown them. [Caitlin PenzeyMoog]

27. The Rolling Stones, Their Satanic Majesties Request (“Sing This All Together” and “Sing This All Together (See What Happens)”)

It’s hard to find a more bitterly divisive record in the Rolling Stones catalog than 1967’s Their Satanic Majesties Request. While largely seen as a slapdash response to The Beatles’ landmark Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (a suspicion Keith Richards himself recently confirmed), the album also has some beautifully rendered songs. “Sing This All Together,” the album opener, is a ramshackle but charming number, the title aptly referencing the rollicking sing-along that constitutes the vocals. But the reprise at the end of the first side turns the tune inside out, a six-minute-plus psychedelic jam session preceding Mick Jagger’s solo croon of the original melody. Depending on your patience for the band, it’s either a darkly engrossing experiment or a messy slog through nonsense. (Hint: It’s closer to the latter.) [Alex McCown]

28. Pink Floyd, The Wall (“In The Flesh?”/ “In The Flesh” and “Another Brick In The Wall” Parts 1-3)

Pink Floyd’s 1979 double-album rock opera The Wall preceded the film adaptation by three years, but even in its original form, it plays like a musical, with running themes and reprises tracking the protagonist’s development throughout the story. The three parts of “Another Brick In The Wall” each return to the same ending lines, about the wall, but the tracks play more like verses in a single song than like reprises. The two versions of “In The Flesh” (with its title taken from the band’s troubled 1977 tour, which inspired the album and its ideas of an alienated musician disconnecting from his audience and his mind) contribute much more, in terms of following how disintegrating rock star Pink is coming apart at the seams. The album-opening version, with its skeptical question mark, suggests that listeners will have to work to understand Pink and penetrate his deliberate disguise. As the musical nears its climax, a second version of the song drops the question mark and the idea that fans have any chance of getting to know their idol at all. By that time, Pink has morphed into a fascist monster, and the original gentle sarcasm of the song’s opening line—“So you thought you might like to go to the show…” has become withering contempt. “In The Flesh?” suggests fans don’t know the man they’re watching. “In The Flesh” tells them he doesn’t care about being understood anymore. He’s only interested in isolating and punishing them, to avenge his own isolation and perpetual punishment. [Tasha Robinson]