10 classic rock songs never released on a studio album
As rock and roll was dawning, bands started adopting the studio album as their main medium. Gone were the days of the stand-alone singles, with the focus shifting more to a concise set of songs that spoke to each other in a meaningful way. There was still room for stand-alone singles, and some of the best material from acts like The Beatles and Oasis never saw the light of day on a proper record.
Then again, there’s more than one explanation for why songs might be relegated to B-sides and singles. Since the album is designed to be a statement, the catchy tunes often clash with the themes of the record, and instead of throwing them away, it makes more sense to release them on their own.
Other times, it comes to the physical medium the band worked with. Back in the days of vinyl and the genesis of CDs, the format could only hold so many minutes of music, so some of the best songs got left off the album’s final version because the format they were working with couldn’t hold it at the time.
Regardless of how they were released into the world, each song deserves to be among the artist’s best, either experimenting with different sounds than they were used to or refining their sound to perfection over a few minutes. While every album is meant to engulf the listener from back to front, there’s nothing wrong with having one perfect song to tie everything together.
10 rock songs excluded from albums:
10. ‘Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want’ – The Smiths
It’s practically a crime that half of The Smiths’ greatest material got relegated to the B-sides. For all four albums they released during their tenure, some of their greatest material often found themselves turning up on compilations rather than any proper studio album, with ‘How Soon is Now’ forcing itself onto some copies of Meat is Murder. Underneath every song about Morrissey’s problems, ‘Please Please Please’ actually gave fans a dash of sympathy towards him.
With just an acoustic guitar and Morrissey’s achingly beautiful voice, The Smiths make the archetypal pop song in just under two minutes, as Moz talks about changing his life around and maybe actually getting what he wants. Although the song is full of hope, there’s still a tinge of regret in Morrissey’s voice, as if he knows that he’ll never be able to reach the potential that he thinks he’s capable of.
Of all The Smiths’ main singles, ‘Please’ has also been one of the most celebrated, lasting far longer than most of their album tracks and being given different renditions to soundtrack a new generation of angsty youth. For as insufferable as Morrissey has been to deal with for the past 20+ years, this is a small glimpse of what he was like all those years ago. Probably still cynical, but with a touch of glimmer behind the eyes.
9. ‘Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me’ – U2
One of the often-neglected sides of the music industry is the soundtrack genre. For all of the great songs that artists can make on their own, it’s always nice to find a way to shoehorn their material into some of the biggest blockbusters out at the time. Although most comic book fans have come to regret the Joel Schumacher iteration of Batman, they started on the right foot with the soundtrack to Batman Forever.
Fresh off their experimental period on albums like Achtung Baby, U2 delivered one of their greatest singles via ‘Hold Me Thrill Me’, embracing layers of audio distortion to give the song a bit of an industrial twist. Compared to where they had been in the past few albums, the tune sounds borderline apocalyptic, as Bono sings through distortion about his need to experience the onslaught of different emotions before his demise.
Granted, the amount of potential in this one song wasn’t going to pay off for much longer, with the band thinking that all that had to do was make meaningless electronic sounds on albums like Pop. Still, for the few minutes that the song is playing, U2 live up to their hype as one of the world’s most important groups.
8. ‘Murder By Numbers’ – The Police
The last days of The Police were practically being held together by goodwill and faith. Although the band had had their bickering in the past, the road to creating an album like Synchronicity wasn’t going to be easy, as Sting started to grow more and more as the main songwriter in the group. For all of the animosity that could have come out of the sessions, they still had the chops to back it up on ‘Murder By Numbers’.
Released as the B-side to ‘Every Breath You Take’, the tune was born from guitarist Andy Summers playing jazzy chords he had picked up on, with Sting providing the lyrics. Despite having some of the wildest chords ever to be heard in pop music, the melody is seamless coming out of Sting’s mouth as Stewart Copeland lays back into the groove with a swinging shuffle beat.
While the lyrics are actually quite sinister, it fits in perfectly with the A-side, with ‘Every Breath You Take’ being about a crazed stalker slowly keeping watch over his romantic prey. The Police have always written pop songs that were not for the faint of heart, but one of their biggest strengths was taking something complex and making it feel incredibly simple.
7. ‘Mary Jane’s Last Dance’ – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
By the time Tom Petty started working on Wildflowers, The Heartbreakers, as he knew them, were starting to crumble. Despite most of the band working on the album, Petty’s relationship with Stan Lynch and his record label MCA started to fracture. Petty may have been looking to speed up the move to Warner Bros., but the need for a greatest hits album brought him back into classic territory.
Needing one more song to fill out the tracklisting, Petty was originally hesitant to record a single for a greatest hits record, thinking that it couldn’t be a hit if he hadn’t released it yet. Taking the scrap of a tune he had lying around, Petty turned in one of his most macabre tunes, singing about a man lusting after a woman who may not know he exists before dancing with her one last time once she passes away.
The tune also marked the last time Lynch was in the studio with Petty, moving back to Florida and only playing a few shows before being replaced by Steve Ferrone. The Heartbreakers would live on until Petty’s tragic passing in 2017, but it’s hard not to see this song as the end of an era for their glory years.
6. ‘Sappy’ – Nirvana
Throughout Nirvana’s career, Kurt Cobain never budged on his feminist beliefs. While he may have had to compromise his sound now and again for his label, Cobain’s attitude towards misogynists in his audience was extreme, even encouraging anyone with a prejudice towards their fellow man not to buy their records in the liner notes to Incesticide. Although ‘Polly’ may have started the conversation about the darkness that comes from misogynists, ‘Sappy’ was a more accurate prediction of what a female prison might look like in suburbia.
Written in the second person, Cobain is talking about the dangers that come with the archetypal nuclear family, with the woman having to give up on her dreams in order to serve what her husband wants. Aside from the poppy melody, the song is a nightmare scenario, with the woman being trapped inside a laundry room for the rest of her life, practically kept in a jar by her supposed soulmate.
Whereas most of Cobain’s songs tended to lash out in anger, there’s a certain restraint in his voice here, speaking on behalf of the woman in some respects while also trying to express the disdain that comes from the double standards between sexes. While most rock bands were more interested in the hedonistic lifestyle, Cobain asked hard questions that most of his colleagues were too afraid to ask.
5. ‘Silver Springs’ – Fleetwood Mac
The entire making of the album Rumours is among one of the most tortured in rock history. Though Fleetwood Mac was riding high off some of their best-selling singles yet, the collapse of both relationships in the band led to them lashing out at each other and making tunes that left their songwriters with raw wounds. While they often left their pain on the vinyl, Stevie Nicks dealt with one of her best songs being left off the album.
As the band went back and forth on different material, Nicks was always adamant about the song ‘Silver Springs’ being one of her final songs about making peace with her separation from Lindsey Buckingham. While Nicks writes some of her best lyrics in the song, it was too much for the rest of the engineers to handle, with the final runtime being too long to include as the closer.
While Nicks did get her song ‘I Don’t Want to Know’ onto the track list instead, the fact that it was relegated to a B-side became one of her sore spots with the rest of the band, eventually leading to her going off on a solo career a few years later. Considering all the bad blood that went into creating this one song, it makes sense why they made their double album Tusk next. Once Nicks left her musical offspring out in the cold, she knew not to let it happen again.
4. ‘Yellow Ledbetter’ – Pearl Jam
The entire story of Pearl Jam has always been marred by tragedy. Throughout the first few months, Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament were still reeling over the death of Mother Love Bone singer Andy Wood, while Eddie Vedder was coming to grips with his place in the world. Although they found their way out of the darkness through music, one of their most celebrated songs came from the flipside of the ‘Jeremy’ single.
While the main tune talked about a horrific scene involving a child taking his own life at school, ‘Yellow Ledbetter’ is a more story-driven affair, with Vedder narrating a tale about a man whose brother died overseas in the war. With Mike McCready playing flowing Jimi Hendrix leads behind him, Vedder wears his heart on his sleeve as he wonders if the world is trying to beat him down at his lowest point.
Although most people connected to the line about not knowing whether they were the boxer of the bag in some situations, this also served as a pivotal moment in how grunge rockers wrote their songs. As opposed to everyone else in Seattle writing about their feelings, no one could touch Pearl Jam when they started writing about other people.
3. ‘I Disappear’ – Metallica
Of all the movies in the Mission Impossible franchise, the second instalment has always held a weird place in history. Though the films take a surprising jump in quality around the time of Ghost Protocol, Tom Cruise’s second turn as Ethan Hunt is equal parts epic and hilarious at the same time, almost like being high on pure adrenaline. Despite some of the flimsy parts of the story, Metallica turned in one of their poppiest songs to date on the soundtrack.
Coming right after their controversial Load period, Metallica hadn’t stopped innovating, bringing a bluesy edge into their sound and containing a riff that sounds a lot more mechanical than usual. Although the band could have sounded stiff under these circumstances, the power is in James Hetfield’s melody, taking over the chorus as Kirk Hammett gives way to screeching harmonics.
Though the band believed in this song enough for a soundtrack, it would soon become the backdrop for one of their most infamous moments, as Lars Ulrich went to war against Napster after a preview of the track leaked online. While the Mission Impossible II soundtrack serves as a nice time capsule for hard rock fans, a band rarely gets the best and worst qualities of themselves in one song.
2. ‘Going Nowhere’ – Oasis
Half the reason why Oasis was half as successful as they were came down to the determination of Noel Gallagher. For all of the posturing he liked to do in front of the camera, Noel carefully choreographed every piece of his success as his brother Liam played the rock star out front blending the spirit of punk and classic rock bombast. Underneath their plan going into action, Noel was still very insecure when looking into the B-sides.
Appearing on The Masterplan compilation years later, ‘Going Nowhere’ is one of the more dreary songs that Noel would ever pen, talking about the idea of not making it one day and if all of his hard work might not be worth it. Though there’s a certain antagonist in the verses who takes everything away from him, Noel practically pleads with the world in the rest of the song, knowing that he’s worth more than the tame life he would have to spend on the dole.
Then again, the rest of the world had embraced him by the time the song was released, being a part of the rollout for their massive undertaking Be Here Now and featuring different lavish string arrangements. It’s almost ironic hearing this massive production behind such a humble song, but for a moment, all Oasis fans were given a peek into how worried Noel was at the start of his career.
1. ‘Hey Jude’ – The Beatles
Any self-respecting Beatles fan knows that almost half of their stand-alone singles are among their best material. From their early days to some of their experimental material in the late 1960s, it’s unthinkable for any other band to release a song like ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ or ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ as a stand-alone single between their proper albums. As for the best of the bunch, it all returns to one of Paul McCartney’s final Fab masterpieces.
Written as John Lennon was starting his separation from his wife Cynthia, Macca wrote this song to comfort Lennon’s son Julian. Although the whole thing might read like a song of optimism from a concerned uncle, McCartney turns ‘Hey Jude’ into one of the happiest tunes imaginable, with anyone relating to wanting to make a sad song better.
Although the main crux of the song is among one of the band’s best, the greatest section comes in the outro, hanging on just three chords as the overwhelming ‘na-na-na’ chant creates euphoria in the listeners’ heads. For all of the ugliness and pain that the world throws at people, singing along to those few minutes can make anyone feel like life is actually going to be OK.
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