Laid Back ‎– White Horse

This has to be one of the best-ever B sides of any 7" single. The A side was "Sunshine Reggae", a monster hit in Europe, but...

Seymour Stein of Sire Rec's liked it but soon found out that his crew liked the B side - "White Horse". Thus, the A side became "White Horse" in the US! Besides having been used as a sample countless times by now by other artists, "White Horse" is a textbook example of less-is-more when using synths - and, synth guitar (the very first Roland ones)!

This was done way before the introduction of sequencers, MIDI, etc.

Tech buffs note: TR-808, Rolands & Prophet V synths, GR synth and a lot of knob-twiddling, done live while recording but also in the mix.

The fact that "White Horse" became a US hit didn't reflect back on Europe, though. Only hardcore Laid Back buffs in Europe are aware of this track while "Sunshine Reggae" routinely gets compilation requests whenever a Summer songs multi-artist CD release is due.

But let's get to the climax of this: Laid Back were signed to Medley Records in Denmark, had the usual A&R clashes about "what to release" and there had to be a compromise. Thus 2 "hated tracks" were sent off on a first single to the tune of "after those have flopped, we'll be calling the shots from then on"!