Boston’s Tom Scholz is famous for a finicky approach to music-making. There was, after all, eight years between his band’s second and third albums, its third and fourth, and its fourth and fifth. Yet, sometimes everything comes together quickly.
Such was the case, as Scholz later told MusicRadar, with “Amanda.” Released in September 1986, Boston’s beloved chart-topping ballad was part of the long-awaited studio successor to 1978’s Don’t Look Back.
Tom Scholz had actually begun work on this Third Stage track just a couple of years later, in 1980. Sessions eventually took so long, however, that original member Fran Sheehan was gone by the time Third Stage emerged, though he did receive a writing credit for the song “Cool the Engines.” Co-founders Sib Hashian and Barry Goudreau had exited by 1986, as well.
Yet one thing remained, through all of those changes: an original Scholz solo on “Amanda,” put down on this crude demo from years before. “I think all that I had were some drums and some rhythm guitar that I played with an electric guitar instead of the acoustic, just to get through the chord changes and to see how it went,” Scholz said.
“I played that little lead electric part after the second chorus, doing it in a hurry as I was running by, and I decided that it was exactly the way I wanted it,” he added. “I then had to go back and play all of the other parts and keep everything in exactly the same place to match up with that one track that was not going to change.”
Tom Scholz records and saves every take, just in case something like “Amanda” happens. That’s how he ended up with one of his all-time favorite solos on “The Launch,” found elsewhere on Third Stage.
Third Stage was followed by 1994’s Walk On and then – after yet another eight-year wait – by 2002’s Corporate America. Frontman Brad Delp tragically killed himself in 2007, though some leftover vocal tracks found their way onto Boston’s 2013 release, Life, Love and Hope.
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