Editor's note: FSM's CD of Islands in the Stream is made possible by tapes of the original soundtrack saved by Bruce Kimmel. We thought it would be interesting if Bruce told the story in the liner notes of how he came to have these tapes. Paramount Pictures, however, upon review of the packaging, asked that this essay not be included in the booklet itself (as it is a little bit too "inside baseball") but agreed that publishing it on our website was a good way to get the information out to our listeners. So with everyone's blessing, here's Bruce Kimmel...

As soon as I heard the gates of Paramount had finally opened in terms of its soundtrack assets, the first thing I wondered was who would get to Islands in the Stream first.