I'm a friend of Tom's, from ages back, but where is this website? Do you have a link? Or is the information at his Ken Hill's Phantom page?
Evidence of the different lyrics is from the single releases from Phantom of the Opera. The title song, from the video we just saw, is a lot more weird than the eventual lyrics chosen. The sleeve of the record gives no credit to Hart, assumingly because he wasn't involved. Who is Mike Batt? and how did he get involved with the work? Did he help with any other lyrics?
The Music of the Night is also very strange. The opening verse doesn't have the brief instrumental: it's filled in with the lyrics "helpless to resist the notes I write / for I compose the music of the night". Besides subtle changes in the lyrics, as we now know them, there are whole sets of verses that are completely different: i.e. "Close your eyes, for your eyes will only tell the truth / And the truth isn't what you want to see / In the dark it is easy to be pretend / That the truth is what it ought to be" and a nice metaphor about music being "hard a lightning, soft as candlelight." In some ways, I prefer these lyrics... but it's more about the Phantom and his love for music, in general, compaired to romancing Christine. Also, which makes it more interesting, Hart gets credit on these for the Crawford single. I wonder why they changed the lyrics? What's wrong with the ones they had?
I know this changes the topic but I've always been (slightly) interested in the lyrical revisions for Phantom. If you're familiar with the current show, listen to the Original London Cast: some of the first lyrics are really interesting. Compair that version of "Think of Me" to the one on the TER Release with Graham Bickley. The lyrics have been radically altered. I'll make specific examples like i.e. "We never said our love was evergreen / Or as unchanging as the sea" becoming "On that day, that not so distant day, when you are far away and free." Or "flowers fade / the fruits of summer fade / they have their seasons, so do we" which is not to be heard on the OLC. The new ones are a vast improvement, and a hybrid was used for the movie. In Angel of Music, Meg's lines become "I hear a voice in the darkness / Distant through all the applause / I hear a voice in the... (can't remember the line).. and the words weren't yours." The "passing bells and sculpted angels" bit became "three long years..." a more direct comment on the memory of her father. Little gramatical errors in songs have been corrected, as one would expect, but over-time the lyrics have been gradually re-written - almost entirely insome songs - altering, many times, the complete meaning of the song. I find this process fascinating, and I don't recall any discussion on it in any message-forum I've attended...
Also, where can I find a copy of the song that escaped hte movie? "No One Would Listen". I'm curious to see what the lyrics are like. And I've been looking for a copy, on CD, of Kiri Te Kanawa's "Heart is Slow to Learn" which was written for the sequel to Phantom. How I yeaaaarrrn to hear that song again
I appreciate any info...
Who can explain it, who can tell you why?
Fools give you reasons, wise men never try
-South Pacific
o well. 
