I never cared much for “The Way We Were” as Barbra Streisand sings it, but if you’re going to put on Larry “Wild Man” Fischer’s version when I’m around, you’d better bring a whole box of tissues. There are going to be all kinds of bodily fluids happening.

As Fischer is il miglior fabbro, his is the superior version in every way. In just over one minute—less than a third of the original’s length—Fischer delivers three times the emotion of Streisand’s rendition. He chooses an arrangement that is simple and direct, not smeared over with goopy strings and petroleum jelly wah guitar. And with Babs singing, that opening line about “mem’ries” illuminating “the corners of my mind” never rang true. Wild Man Fischer, now there was a guy whose mind had corners: pointy, dark, unswept intersections where peeled scabs and fingernail clippings fought cobwebs for space. I can picture a Sub-Zero refrigerator, a Christmas painting by Thomas Kinkade and a Bosendorfer in Streisand’s head, maybe even a few alcoves—but corners? Don’t shit a shitter, lady.

According to WFMU, Fischer and Mark Mothersbaugh recorded this tearjerker for the last episode of Pee-wee’s Playhouse (“Playhouse for Sale,” aired in November 1990), but the show’s producers decided not to use it. The song belatedly came out on the 2001 promo CD Mutato Meatballs Smorgasbord, a collection of tracks recorded at Mothersbaugh’s Sunset Boulevard studio. That’s Mothersbaugh playing the keys, and it sounds to me like he’s singing harmony, too, though I have only the testimony of my half-ruined ears.

(If you need more Wild Man Fischer, the worthy documentary dErailRoaDed is now quite cheap on DVD.)