Real Love 2025

REAL LOVE 2025 MIX: Why does it sound so different?

Guest blogger: Mike Carrera

The reason isn’t that the vocals have been cleaned up with modern technology, but rather that the 2025 Mix uses a combination of two different vocal takes of John, taken from two different demos (out of the more than ten that exist for this song), unlike the original 1995/96 version, which only uses one of them.

By comparing the two versions in real time, playing them simultaneously (or even with the vocals separated), it’s very easy to identify the changes.

John’s “new” vocal in the 2025 Mix differ not only in the pitch he sings in, or in the way he “extends” some words more than others, but also in the lyrics.

In the original version, John sings “LOST like some forgotten dreams” at the beginning, while in the 2025 Mix it’s “GONE like some forgotten dreams.”

From the opening line, we have the first change in the singing style: “All my little plans and schemes.” In the 2025 Mix, John extends the word “schemes” by a second and a half between the “m” and the “e”.

At 24 seconds, in the 2025 Mix, John extends the word “doing” within the line “Seems like all they really were doing.”

John’s intonation on the words “I know” and “will go” in the lyrics: “From this moment on I know, Exactly where my life will go” is different.

John’s vocal extends the words “before” and “more” within the lines: “Thought I’d been in love before, But in my heart, I wanted more”.

These are the minutes and seconds in the 2025 Mix that use John’s new vocal; the rest is the same as in the original version.

00:11-00:25
01:27-01:38
02:25-02:40

The 2025 Mix available on ‘Anthology 4’ on CD/LP or Streaming, is 20 seconds shorter than the original version; however, the restored 4K music video released today, November 21, 2025, does include those additional 20 seconds using the 2025 Mix, for completists of all these variants.