Since it seems that questions about "What was different about what David did with this song?" seem to come up multiple times for the same songs, I've decided to archive what I've written in the All About the Music thread here, for easier reference. This blog will be updated as I have time to figure out the rest of the music, and as I have time to figure out specific dates of performances.

So, for your enjoyment...

Lie: Evolution of a Song describes the changes made to Lie from its recorded version to the initial live interpretation to the most recent version as of August, 2009, with the a cappella. It is contained in its own blog due to length.

Souvenir, as performed in Casper, WY:
WOW. Casper Souvenir.

You know, I am actually starting to fall in love with this song. Yes, me. Who has already said I couldn't ever see myself getting behind it.... and then said, OK, but only when it's acoustic.... and now, THIS.

David Cook, how in heaven's name do you DO that?

OK, well, since I don't necessarily think we can count on any further unsolicited answers to direct questions on this thread, much as I ADORE it when it happens, I'm going to try to figure it out a little. I think those who have pointed at the sound mix are spot on. I've been picking up on it, and I think on 2 separate occasions have questioned my own sanity and hearing on this thread, wondering if something had changed in that song, and suspecting that camera positioning had something to do with it. But now I do believe the sound mix is it. It feels like they basically thinned out the rhythm guitars, lowered the the mic on DC himself just a bit, and thus we can suddenly hear everything else -- lead guitar melody, drums, bass line, harmonies -- SO much more distinctly. (Add to that the fact that DC's no longer slurring into another note on "heart" in the first line of the chorus, as he used to, which I'm also loving -- it used to sound whiny to me before when he did that.) And now I can start to understand the love of this song. There's so much more going on with it that had been obscured, and it's starting to sound more melodic, more interesting, and less like a certain 80's tune from a movie starring Jennifer Grey. Which had been my initial peeve with the song.

I Did It For You, as performed on 8/14/09:
Once again, initially, the main difference is muted drumming & guitar on the recording... I'm beginning to believe this is really a quality of the whole album, not just in the few tracks I've paid close attention to. DCTR is an album that's made to showcase a singer, not a band, though, so I'm not going to kvetch overly much about this. It was made that way on purpose, and served its purpose well, and as minstrel said earlier, it's probably only those of us who've listened to the live versions so closely who even care about the difference.

And is it just me, or does Kyle's drumming come in a split second earlier on the beat? Or more accurately, the drumming is a split second too late on the recording? It sounds more heavy, less sharp to me that way. That may be part of what makes Mr. Peek such a critical member of the band.

Anyway, in a nutshell, on the verses -- sharper drumming + crunchier guitars + very fluid, melodic vocal = a different, harder sound that still stays true to the melodic bent of this song.

The chorus is sung more staccato, its harder beat makes it less poppy, and Andy's backups add texture.

And the bridge -- that's where it really starts to change. "Try to let you know" is also sung a little differently -- the final note isn't held as long, the final "ow" in "know" doesn't turn into quite as much of a diphthong as it is on the record (See, I'm learning so much on this thread! love it!), and the sharper cutoff is also reflected in the guitar line. The result is a removal of the "softness" that you get in the equivalent part in the recording.

In the final chorus -- listen to the drumming at about 4:10 -- now THAT was NOT on the recording! Amazing, amazing stuff! (Note my exclamation points!) And of course, the biggest difference of all: the guitar solo that KILLED on the song. Fantastic, superlative, add another 20 praises here. For the first time, I can say about this song -- THAT was a rock song. And for the first time, I LOVED IDIFY.

Come Back to Me, as performed on Regis & Kelly on 8/7/09
I don't think it's that they cut it. They did, in fact, take off a few measures from the intro, as well as the second verse of the song and the "ooh ooh"'s at the end (which go for a whole minute in the recording) -- but that should have no bearing on the different, harder style of the performance. (Except for the lack of "ooh ooh"'s -- cutting that does have a stylistic effect.) What otherwise differs in the live, R&K version is:
1. It contains much harder drumbeats emphasizing the rhythm, which are slightly higher pitched than the muffled ones in the recording, and which just serve to highlight Kyle's awesomeness;
2. The interlude before the 2nd half of the first chorus is mainly the string track in the recording, whereas the R&K version has 3 guitars that play over it (loudly) and also play into the bridge;
3. Andy's backup in the second half of the final repetition of the chorus is much louder (and easier to pick out because of the difference between his voice & Dave's) than Dave's voice in the backups of the recording, and thus creates a different, more interesting sound due to the contrast;
4. Finally, David ends the live performance in his trademark style -- i.e., on a high note that's a third higher than the equivalent note on the recording, and then goes up yet another third, ending a fifth higher altogether.

So, in sum -- louder (& more?) guitars, better and more staccato drumming (Kyle is *so* much better than that studio musician it's ridiculous, even to my untrained ear), Andy's backup, Dave's trademark final high note, and a more muted string backing track and lack of "oooh oooh"'s all make for a less poppy, harder song than what we've heard on the album.

Bar-Ba-Sol -- DC version vs. the Injected versions
Wow. Incipit, thank you for providing the cues I had to listen for. I just watched both BBS videos (and I should point out you accidentally duplicated the Injected link for the Soundcheck video... the correct link is actually at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJgS8LYPQFM) and now will attempt to describe more accurately the difference.

In a nutshell, I think what David added to the song was finesse. He took what was, in truth, an amazing song to begin with, but added a whole new dimension to it musically, and with a few critical changes to the lyrics, I agree, he made the song simultaneously more subtle and poetic. And I admit I didn't really understand why David's name came first in the songwriting credits before now, but I will now state unequivocally that he absolutely deserves that much credit for what he did with this song.

The main thing -- the thing that drives David's version -- basically comes down to this: Neal.

There is really no lead guitar part in the original version. I mean, I'm sure Injected had a lead guitarist, but not someone with close to the same abilities, or if they did, they just didn't provide him with much material. David basically wrote in a whole new harmonic line for Neal. Oddly enough for a song that's so rhythmic, there's actually not all that much rhythm guitar in David's version, unlike the original. In David's version, the drum beats drive the song, but instead of rhythm guitar, you get rhythmic melodies and countermelodies -- the best way to explain that, I think, is if you listen to Baroque music -- it's extremely rhythmic, but based on melody instead of percussion.

So there's a more melodic baseline, and it seems Andy switches between a countermelody to what Neal's playing and to actual rhythm guitar in some places, and Neal's got this whole other countermelody going on, and David comes in and out of yet another one as well. And of course there's the vocal. I think it was a very wise decision to replace the bridge with the guitar duet. The bridge added some tension by repetition, but didn't really go anywhere, not like the duet. The guitar duet just takes the music to somewhere otherworldly, building on all the melodies that run through the whole song, and actually does resolve the tension it creates more satisfactorily, at least for me. The word you used, Incipit -- "intricate" -- I think is a wonderfully accurate description. This is also kind of reflected in the introduction -- I think in the live versions of this song, Kyle has a much more intricate drum solo, and when the actual song introduction begins, it doesn't stagnate like the Injected version. The harmonies build up on top of each other pretty quickly, only a few measures at a time. Perhaps this is part of what we're discovering, that David has a very strong talent for hearing harmony? It's obviously not just something that affects the backup vocals -- it's something he's able to do with all of his instrumentation.

I still don't quite hear any other differences in the percussion, but that's probably due to my ear being more trained to listen for melodies. I'll try giving the versions another listen later -- or someone else can take a crack at it, perhaps?

ETA: OK, I just found the recorded Injected version -- and that and the BBS version on DCTR are MUCH more similar than the respective live performances. In fact, this is what I had originally been listening to when I mentioned that I didn't hear much difference between the two versions. Incipit, calling on your ear again ... or anyone else's... to puzzle this out. The harmonic line is still there in parts, there's no bridge, there is a guitar solo, but nothing quite as melodic in the Injected version as in DCTR:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnqyclnBjGM

(I Just) Died in Your Arms Tonight -- DC version vs. Cutting Crew
YaminaC was pretty accurate when it came to the change in the rhythm. The original version's beat is a quick "da da DA da / da da Da da" with a baseline providing a counter-rhythm of "dum DA da-dum DA" throughout most of the song. And there's that synthesized cello melody in the beginning, and the other rhythmic synth playing. David's version has that "1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8" low pitch guitar rhythm at the beginning, and it's hard to tell for me, but I think YaminaC is right that the drumbeats are more of a "4 to the floor" kind of style (hard drumbeats on all 4 beats in the measure) rather than the more syncopated version in the original.

There are 2 other major differences in David's version vs. the original DIYA, though, and these are critical. The first is David's melodic choices and phrasing. The original singer starts the song with an "Oh - I! I just..." -- it's a melodic sweep up. David changes the phrasing to a simple, almost grunted "I! I just" -- he leaves out the "Oh" and it changes the tone completely. In keeping with that, in the original, each verse starts low in pitch and only hits the high notes on the chorus and the end of the bridge (but I'll get to that shortly). David has pretty much taken a harmonic countermelody to the original and sings that as the melody instead, starting at an interval of a 5th above the original's first note on the verse, and dropping down gradually. This has the immediate effect of jacking up the intensity of the song exponentially. High notes tend to have that kind of effect on a song -- that's why glory notes work the way they do -- and note how many times David sings part of the song higher than the original ever goes. He doesn't do it everywhere -- usually the beginning of a line is enough until the pitch can descend naturally back to the original melody -- but this use of a higher harmony as melody in key places, along with critical decisions to make the song less melodic (which is why I actually didn't like it when it debuted, as I thought it was too shouty -- I've since changed my tune as they've tweaked their performances) and thus more angry, are what make the song so different, and so successful at the same time.

The second major difference is the decision to extend the guitar solo and take out the bridge of the song altogether. There may be a few reasons for this. Some may be lyrical -- I do wonder about this, because while we fans can analyze the song lyrics ad nauseum, and discuss why the song works when infused with a completely different meaning via the music, I wonder how much thought DC puts into that when making some decisions; I have the feeling it's more of an instinctive thing, but obviously that's just my speculation. But it could be that the bridge lyrics don't quite work with the vibe that the cover needs. On a musical level, though, in the original, the bridge serves to increase the intensity of the song through those high notes -- that's where the song is at its most intense. But the cover doesn't need that -- we're already at the high point, possibly from note one. If anything we need to calm the song down a bit, and that's when the guitar solo does its job, as it should, for a moment -- and then goes back to amping everything up (like the original) until the repetition of the chorus.