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