The Best Ever Songs Rejected From Albums
 

This was on the NME's blog today, signifying that Fleetwood Mac might be becoming cool again.

http://www.nme.com/blog/index.php?bl...che=1&t=234234

The Best Ever Songs Rejected From Albums
By Luke Lewis
Posted on 20/11/09 at 12:15:13 pm

Tell a certain kind of serious-minded music fan that Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours' isn't perfect, and he'll give you an uppercut to the jaw. And he'd be right to. I love that album more than is probably healthy. Yet even a tragic Fleetwood Mac nerd like me would admit that it could have been better.

This morning, during a rain-lashed trudge to work, 'Oh Daddy' came on my iPod – the closest thing 'Rumours' has to a filler track – and I thought, What, you included this, yet you rejected Stevie Nicks' astonishing, hymn-like ballad 'Silver Springs', a song that positively bellows: Rousing Album-Closer?

Fortunately, that song was rescued from obscurity when it was included on the 2004 reissue. It's now a live favourite. But it makes you wonder what on earth was going through the band's coke- and heartbreak-addled minds back in 1977. It also set me thinking about other brilliant songs that, inexplicably, never made it onto albums.

On the 'Bends' tour in 1996, Radiohead regularly played a jaw-droppingly anthemic song called 'Lift', which featured some of Thom Yorke's most personal and emotive lyrics ("You've been stuck in a lift/We've been trying to reach you, Thom"). Sadly, this live version doesn't quite do it justice, and the original has disappeared from file-sharing sites.

Stirring and expansive, 'Lift' would have been Radiohead's 'Yellow': a universal, lighters-aloft arena-filler. Except they decided they hated it, and left it off 'OK Computer'. Now, 'OK Computer''s obviously a titanically great album – but is 'Climbing Up The Walls' really a better song than 'Lift'? Did they really need to include 'Fitter Happier'? (Even Thom Yorke is embarrassed by that track nowadays).

Similarly, we now think of 'Hallelujah' as being the standout track on Jeff Buckley's 'Grace'. But that wasn't the original plan. Right up until the very last moment, the album's big commercial hit single was slated to be the lush, Led Zeppelin-esque ballad, 'Forget Her', a spiteful kiss-off to a former lover (Joan Wasser, now better known as Joan As Policewoman).

Unfortunately, Buckley then got back together with Wasser, which made the song a touch ticklish. So he replaced it with the dreary, Sting-like 'So Real' - to the chagrin of his label, Columbia.

Meanwhile, Buckley's labelmate Bruce Springsteen could fill entire albums with tracks he initially rejected.

In fact he did, with the 'Tracks'/'18 Tracks' box-sets, which included such phenomenal offcuts as 'The Promise', a sort of heartbroken inverse of 'Thunder Road', using some of the same chords and lyrics as that song, but exposing the awful blankness of the open highway, rather than its thrilling possibility. A truly staggering lyric – yet, bafflingly, it was left off 'Darkness On The Edge Of Town'.

Which other amazing album rejects are there?

Kate Bush left Burning Bridge off something or other. Really bad move.

Off Hounds of Love. It's on the 1997 bonus edition. Although I think it's a great song, I'm glad she left it off. It would have been tacked on the end of The Ninth Wave and then made the story sound disjointed. I'm annoyed that EMI didn't put the bonus tracks on a separate disc for that reason!

(Sorry, I'm a complete Kate Bush obsessive. That was long-winded! :laugh:)

Hey Black Moon, in my early 20s I was obsessed with Ms Bush too, heheh. Still love her. :)

There's a song Dennis Wilson wrote called Holy Man...an instrumental that wasn't considered good enough for the album when it was first originally written...I think it's one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard and that was ever written.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caANUcreOgo

Here it is, but it's got vocals with it. I prefer the instrumental personally.

I was into her music before I was into Fleetwood Mac's. She's probably one of the main instigators as to why I looked into them, actually. :)

Hey, I like good old Kate Bush too.
This threads answer: SILVER SPRINGS!

Ahh but if you're into fate...The Dance would've been successful if no SS. But it coming back kinda became the "hit" from that reunion. It was the best "new" old song. Had they released it on Rumours, it might have been played to death like all the others and may have been played on tour for years. Wasn't it played in some 1976 shows before the album was even done? And, today, it may have become a SOTM and never have been performed again. Who knows?

Oh Daddy is not filler material. :distress:

The song they substituted for Silver Springs is clearly filler material by definition.

Tsk.

Oh Daddy is the worst song on Rumours, Silver Springs is beautiful.

Silver Springs is beautiful, but that was hardly my point.

Anyone with half a brain can see that I Don't Want to Know is a last-minute stop-gap song they threw in. Oh Daddy is - like Songbird - a little glimpse into Christine's soul, I think, and it is beautiful.

For the album IDWTK is totally fitting, and certainly no filler. There is no filler on that album. And everytime I play the reissue, Silver Springs is bugging me. Not because I don't like it, I adore it. But it just doesn't belong there.

I love I Don't Want To Know! My third favourite on Rumours, fourth including Silver Springs which would be second. Never been a fan of Oh Daddy at all.

I don't like Gold Dust Woman either.

Sacrilege, I know :eek:

I think "Under the Ivy" would have fit perfectly within the "Ninth Wave"- perhaps right before "Hello Earth." Now that was a missed opportunity! But still... HoL is perhaps the most brilliant piece of music ever made. And I happen to think Aerial is woefully underrated- perhaps the second best thing she's ever done.

So here's a question- as a Kate Bush obsessive, what do you think about Tori Amos? I have to admit that I despise everything about Tori Amos with a passion; she is such a blatant, shameless rip-off of Kate. And I get so pissed off when I see them lumped into the same category. Kate is the real deal. Tori is just a bad Kate Bush drag queen.

[QUOTE=WarmSir3;855583]
I don't like Gold Dust Woman either.[QUOTE]

What? ho could you! GDW is the mental and anger piece of Rumours, it showcases everything that Ms. Nicks had to offer in those days, before her 'new' solo era.

I would agree. The tight harmonies on IDWTK are perfect -- perfected. Polished. The song had already been tried and tested by the time it got on the album and I just don't know how it could be considered some last minute toss away. I'm not saying SS isn't a better song, but judged on its own merit, and not by comparison, IDWTK is a gem, I think. Michele

I definitely don't like GDW as much on the album as I do live. Strangely though, when the reissue extras came out, I loved the GDW stuff. Michele

More brilliant than the Beethoven violin sonatas?

I'm not sure it's the second-best thing she's ever done, but Side 2 is a captivating, cinematic flight fantasy that riffs on images & sensations in George Meredith's poetry.

People who lump Tori Amos with Kate Bush have cauliflower eyes & ears -- & probably minds. Amos needs to get a sense of humor, for one thing. Nowhere in her crybaby music does one find the exotic, sophisticated irony & wit that suffuses "Kashka from Baghdad," "Violin," "Babooshka," "There Goes a Tenner," "Suspended in Gaffa," & on & on.

"Leave It Open" alone is about the best response imaginable to the dissembling politicos & their plebs in our hallowed halls of Congress.

Unfortunately, Kate's more recent work -- from, say, The Sensual World to the present -- mostly avoids British humor & scatology in favor of traditional feminist themes & music that's too precious & wispy & lush (though still often very gorgeous). It's probably Kate's more recent music from 1989 till now that makes silly girls think she's in any way equivalent to Tori Amos.

I think so too.

Oh, I disagree completely.

I think I agree with you. Under The Ivy fits with the reflective, introspective themes of The Ninth Wave. It's a beautiful song. Have you ever seen the live performance of it? It's divine.

My favourite Kate Bush album is The Dreaming, then Hounds of Love. Both of which I find to be flawless. I think the concept of the latter is more realised though, and it's absolutely magnificent.


I love Tori Amos, she's my third favourite artist. I hated her for ages though, for the reasons you said. I also heard she denied knowing who Kate Bush was in an early interview. :eek: The irony in that is too much for my tiny mind to take in. Then, eventually, I thought that I'd listen to her on a blank slate, without the Kate Bush comparisons, and I loved what I heard. There are some definite Kate things she does though; the themes of her work, the nuances in her voice, the Little Earthquakes cover - blatantly influenced by The Kick Inside American LP cover.

I think besides the comparisons listed though, Kate and Tori are completely different. Kate uses more literary references, and is more of a "story-teller", in that she has the ability to write a novel with a song. She does write personal songs, but I think she writes through other characters. Tori is intensely forthright with how personal her songs are. She's more of a political writer than Kate (not disregarding Army Dreamers or Breathing). She also comes across to me as less polished than Kate generally.

Back on topic!

I Don't Want To Know to me is as deserved of a place on Rumours as any other song. I've been mulling over which song I think is the weakest on the album, and then realised that the reason it's considered one of the greatest records of all time is because there's not a weak track on there. I find there are songs I like less than others, but not songs that I don't think should have made the cut.

By the way, I think Oh Daddy is beautiful!

Wasn't Blue Lamp left off Bella Donna?

Agreed, Gerald. There is no filler on Rumours. Even "Don't Stop," which I can hardly tolerate, is not filler -- it's a good, pop shuffle. Just sick of it. And yes, it's too odd to hear "Silver Springs" on the Rumours issue.

Yes, and I think that's a mistake right there. I know it was probably because of timing issues on vinyl, but if that song was placed between Outside The Rain and The Highwayman, it would make a brilliant album even moreso.

Blue Lamp is better than ANYTHING on Bella Donna.

This article/blog? is totally inane and shows no understanding for that album or music. Besides, the Dance version of SS is definitive. The 2004 reissue and re-writing of history is offensive (imagine: side one not ending with Songbird, side 2 not beginning with The Chain -- ridic). And IDWTK is the Go Your Own Way of side 2. And Oh Daddy is better than SS.

Blue Lamp kinda sounds Roxy Music-ish to me, right? LOVE it. Also think it's better than anything on BD other than EO17.

And, yes, though I officially choose Hounds of Love as KB's best album, The Dreaming is its equal.

I agree.

Your attempt to account for the cauliflower is valiant. You are a better person than I.

You're right. Forgot about that gem.

My favorite studio version is on The Chain box set. I don't think it appears anywhere else.

From having extensive knowledge on both of their back catologues, I don't think they're as alike as people make them out to be. Mainly illiterate music journalists that only got their jobs because they're failed record executives. They feel the need to compare all women that write their own songs and play piano.

Leave It Open... what a song! I love the end bit, 'we let the weirdness in'. I think she's a fantastic political commentator, on the rare occasion when she does it, which isn't that much considering she talks about a lot of other things. Or should I say, the few times she does it blatantly.

I agree to an extent about your assessment of her later work. It did become a lot more feminist, and softer. But, people mellow with age. She'd hit her thirties by then, she couldn't keep on dancing in silver space suits and making donkey noises forever. :laugh: I love The Sensual World though.

I like those albums, too. Plenty of moments of pop brilliance, like the title track.

Her main strength, in my opinion, is essentially Lindsey Buckingham's main strength: a real talent for orchestrating using multitrack technology. You can study a Kate Bush track score in much the same way you can study the score of a Halvorsen or a Barber symphonic work. Her orchestrations don't have that level of complexity, but they would certainly reward textual analysis -- & you can't say that about most pop record-makers.

That sort of rococo orchestrative texture is something that Stevie Nicks's music outside Fleetwood Mac completely lacks. She hires a bunch of guys & they just wail away. There isn't anything innovative or texturally interesting going on in the music tracks on her albums. For example, I doubt that anyone has ever had to make horn charts or string charts for any of her songs, the way Tom Scott & Rickie Lee Jones charted the intricate horns for "Traces of the Western Slopes" -- Paul Buckmaster arranged the strings for "Beauty & the Beast," but that old pro (who used to work on Elton John albums) probably did "Beauty" in his sleep. There isn't anything complex about it at all. It's child's play for anyone who knows string writing.

All you can hope for on a Stevie Nicks solo album is that the support doesn't get in her way (as vocalist or songwriter), & that it is at least engineered with a pleasant clarity (which it sometimes is not).

Oh Daddy is, to my way of thinking, the best song on Rumours....

I'm not sure if Kate ever resorted to using scatological humor in her lyrics. If she has, please let me know about them! I (and Howard Stern) would be interested!

I do have to disagree that she has lost her sense of humor. For example, don't you love how she does her own Elvis impersonation in the verses of "King of the Mountain?" Or the absurdity of singing nothing but the first 150-ish decimals of pi in "(Pi)"? But I agree that shallow hacks like Tori Amos, et al. tend to grasp onto just one facet of the Kate oeuvre- what would appear to be precious girl-angst to some.

"I Want To Hold Your Hand", "She Loves You", "This Boy", "I'll Get You"...left off The Beatles' With The Beatles album

"I Feel Fine" & "She's A Woman"...left off The Beatles' Beatles For Sale album

"Day Tripper" & "We Can Work It Out"...left off of The Beatles' Rubber Soul album

"Paperback Writer" & "Rain"...left off of The Beatles' Revovler album

"Hey Jude"...left off The Beatles' white album

"Don't Let Me Down"...left off The Beatles' Let It Be album

"Oh Well"...left off the ORIGINAL pressings of Fleetwood Mac's Then Play On album

"Dragonfly" & "Purple Dancer"...left off of Fleetwood Mac's Kiln House album.

"You & I, Part 1"...left off of Fleetwood Mac's Tango In The Night album

"Got No Home"...left off Fleetwood Mac's Behind The Mask album

"Statesboro Blues"...left off the Allman Brothers Band's debut album

"Wild Horses"...left off of Leon Russell's Stop All That Jazz album

You lumped this piece of crap in all that classic music. You should be ashamed.:sorry:

I too loved Kate first, then Fleetwood Mac (Stevie in particular), and then Grace Slick (and Jefferson Airplane). But I'm still into Stevie and FM completely even though now Grace is there too. :)

And as far as Tori Amos goes, I have nothing against her. I don't actually see her as that similar to Kate. She's got her own style. Even if she's been greatly inspired by Kate, so what? I am comfortable and confident enough in Kate's complete and utter originality and unique-ness, that I have no problem with Tori doing her (somewhat similar at times) thing.

The Best Ever Songs Rejected From Albums
 

Wasn't 'Gypsy' left over from Bella Donna? It's far better than anything on that album -in my opinion.

I prefer the outtake 'Joan of Arc' to Stevie's ropey contributions to Tango - except for Seven Wonders which is cute.

Under The Ivy is one of Kate's greatest songs but it doesn't seem to fit on Hounds Of Love. Maybe it could have blended into introspective The Sensual World better?

Why Kate versus Tori? - they both have their charms.

Compared to some of the Stevie Nicks penned tripe on the album, "You & I, Part 1" is phenomenal.


Nope...I'm never ashamed. :angel:

Yeah, I don't know, I guess maybe because when I was about 11 years old, I had heard "Silver Springs" so many times on the radio (like from December 1976 until about April of 1977, in Connecticut, they played it a lot) and plus played the 45 (yes, the little 45 that you had to put the little yellow plastic thing in the middle of in order to play it on a turntable) so much that I was really shocked when I got the Rumours album and "Go Your Own Way" was on it but "Silver Springs" was not. So maybe I'm the only one on The Ledge who always thought of "Silver Springs" as belonging on Rumours, so maybe I'm the only one who was happy that it was included on the re-release. In fact, all the cassette tapes that I made for myself and for friends back then always included "Silver Springs", and the funny part is, I didn't know where to put it, so I always put it between Side 1 and Side 2, just where they put it on the re-release!!!!

The only disappointing thing about the re-release for me was that they used a remix, and not the mix that was on the 45. Oh, and also, the version of Gold Dust Woman has a "fade-in", but the version on my old album does not. This use of alternate mixes to me is "rewriting history", to use a phrase I've seen in this thread.

I have to say, I agree with someone's post that "Joan Of Arc" would have been great on "Tango In The Night", although I do love Stevie's two songs on that album ("Seven Wonders" is not a Stevie Nicks song; it's a Sandy Stewart song on which Stevie screwed up the words.)

Mick said in his book that Stevie kept this song for the next Fleetwood Mac album. That's different from being left, but of course is Mick's opinion, though it makes sense to me.

my answer:
Silver Springs
You and I, part I

Mick didn't say that. Stephen Davis said that, paraphrasing (out of context) a comment made in a Fleetwood Mac magazine article by David Gans.

Stevie recorded Gypsy a bunch of times with a bunch of musicians -- including numerous sessions with the Heartbreakers -- before tracking it with Fleetwood Mac for Mirage. I don't think that there's anything more than circumstantial evidence that she intended to include it on Bella Donna, but that circumstantial evidence is nonetheless strong.