“Early Sire records promotional item targeted at American radio stations featuring the full length album version. Back then it was still the ‘3 minute single’ or you won’t get played on the radio era.
As Sanctuary was over 4 minutes it also got edited down in some places like the UK for the same reason and it happened to some tunes off Sonic Temple too.
When it came to editing the songs down we could not do it ourselves, primarily because we didn’t have the impartial objectivity to get the musical scalpel out on our ‘babies’ was easier to outsource to a 'surgeon'.
The reason why it was 33 rpm was to make the song sound better, as the grooves in the vinyl are bigger than a 45rpm single."
Billy – Oct 2026