Big Stir Records has released a special three-sided single spotlighting the new album Last Chance To Learn The Twist from Rock artist Graham Parker, pairing one of the album’s most loved tracks with two new live cuts recorded during Parker’s UK tour with his backing band The Goldtops only a few months ago.

The album version of “Sun Valley” serves as the A-side, and it’s joined by previously unreleased live readings of the album closer “Since You Left Me Baby” and the tour staple “That’s Life,” best known as a Frank Sinatra tune.

Parker comments:

As a song, ‘Sun Valley’ has been in the making for at least a decade. It needed that long to unlock it, taking various arrangement directions until I find a way to not let it get ponderous, which was holding me back all along. I’ve still never been to Sun Valley!

The two live tracks were recorded by Robert Cooper on the tour’s penultimate date at the Brook in Southampton on September 30th, 2023. The rendition of “Since You Left Me Baby” from Last Chance To Learn The Twist captures Parker’s current creative mood.

Of the song’s origins, the songwriter says:

‘No, no!’ I heard myself saying, as the words ‘Since You Left Me Baby’ popped out of my mouth as soon as I hit that opening riff on an acoustic guitar. Too obvious, not me at all! But when something comes as naturally as that, it cannot be replaced. I wish I’d got The Lady Bugs to sing it on the album, but we made up for that live anyway, as the world at large can now hear.

As for the second track from the live gigs, it has become a Goldtops live favorite, and Parker explains why it’s important to him:

I remember playing ‘That’s Life’ by Frank Sinatra repeatedly on a jukebox in a pub in Guilford, Surrey, England one night when I was not even of legal drinking age. ‘I’ll play that song one day,’ I thought to myself, rashly, having no idea I’d ever be in a position to do just that. Job done!