The Petra Zone

I was looking at the lyrics to Petra, Come and Join Us, and Washes Whiter Than albums because I've been listening to those CDs in my car lately and I don't know all of the words. But I noticed that the 2 songs that they left of of the Washes Whiter Than CD were both written by Rob Frazier. Is this just a coincedence or was there a reason behind that? I don't want to start any goofy controversy or anything. I just found it interesting.

The only controversy might be if I'm on my rocker or not right now. I looked again and noticed also that two other songs that were included on the CD, Mary's Song and Morning Star (a good song), were also written by Rob Frazier. So never mind to my previous post.

I have wondered the same thing at times, as to why those songs were left off. I think it had to do with combining WWT with Never Say Die on the cassette/CD... like they had to leave something off in order to fit everything else on.

On a side note, I seem to remember (without researching it at the moment) that Rob Frazier sang several songs from WWT, including "Mary's Song". For the longest time, I had trouble distinguishing Rob's voice from Greg's, since they both carry that "trained" sound. I'm pretty sure that Rob sang all the songs he wrote on the album. Can anyone verify that?

LexingtonPethead wrote:I have wondered the same thing at times, as to why those songs were left off. I think it had to do with combining WWT with Never Say Die on the cassette/CD... like they had to leave something off in order to fit everything else on.

Yeah, a CD can only hold 80 minutes worth of material, so there was no way they could squeeze two complete albums onto one CD. I still think that is one of the most lame-brained things Starsong did.

I'm pretty sure that Rob sang all the songs he wrote on the album. Can anyone verify that?

Yes, I believe that's right. My recollection is that he sang the majority of the songs on the album.

--Josh

I've always wished there were a compete accounting of exactly who sang what on that album, but one thing I can tell is that Rob and Greg sang together on a lot of it. Even on many of the leads which I think were being sung by Rob, Greg was doing harmonies. The blending on their voices made it often sound more like Greg than Rob as I think Greg's voice is has a stronger presence.

So I wonder if at any point during that time if Rob was actually considered to be Petra's "lead" singer and Greg as the fill-in?

I've always wondered what Rob's role was during that time and why it was so short-lived. He had a great voice and made excellent contributions to the band music-wise.

Well, I've e-mailed Rob with about a half a dozen questions. Hopefully, he'll be kind enough to answer them. If you want to hear something he's done more recently follow the link below.

http://www.robfrazier.net/things-song.html

I knew the reason they left 2 songs (any 2 songs) off was because of the time factor. I agree too that it was quite lamebrained. Or perhaps they could have offered each album as one CD. When first looking at the lyrics on the other site, I thought that maybe they had left those 2 particular songs off for a specific reason. But after seeing that Rob Frazier had other songs that were included, there seemed to be no reasoning behind why those two particular songs were deleted as compared to two other songs.

I was pretty disappointed when I found that those two songs were never released on CD. I did my best to get clean versions from the cassette digitized for my own pleasure though.

If anyone needs digital copies of those two songs, they can be had HERE.

Preacherman777 wrote:Well, I've e-mailed Rob with about a half a dozen questions. Hopefully, he'll be kind enough to answer them.

Let us know if you hear back?

Kirkman wrote:Yeah, a CD can only hold 80 minutes worth of material, so there was no way they could squeeze two complete albums onto one CD. I still think that is one of the most lame-brained things Starsong did.

That's not entirely accurate. Depending on compression rates and recording processes more than 80 minutes can be and often are put on CDs.

Consumer CD-Rs are for the most part limited to approximately 80 minutes to serve the best combination of stability in the format and recording process with durability of a recordable disc.

But yes, I believe the two songs were cut for time, which is too bad, but I have been able to find mp3 versions online a couple times.