10 songs that artists refused to release
It’s usually down to the artist whether a song comes out or not. Even though a tune might be considered the crowned jewel of someone’s discography, there will always be a few that never quite matched the peaks in every musician’s mind of what they could have been. Although history has played out well enough for acts like The Beatles, there are still those few songs hiding in a vault that fans are desperate to get their hands on.
Then again, who are we to say that these songs deserve to be released? While there’s nothing wrong with having new stuff out in the world, it almost feels like the artist is baiting their audience when they say that a classic is in the can and they haven’t been bothered to release it in any capacity.
At the same time, there might be a reason some of these are behind a wall these days. Whether it’s due to legal disputes or because of some of the language that was used, some of them don’t show the artist in their best light, which normally means that someone either is making sure that they don’t get in trouble or is trying their best to act like these projects never came to fruition at all.
Still, when looking at the number of legendary names attached to some of these tunes, it will always be a shame that some got scrapped in favour of something else. We’ll probably never know what some artists had in mind when making these potential masterpieces, but sometimes, it’s better to appreciate what they’ve given us rather than what could have been.
10 songs artists refused to release:
10. ‘Mama-Son’ – Pearl Jam
Every part of Pearl Jam’s development dealt with some form of recovery. The former members of Mother Love Bone had to find a way out of the darkness somehow after Andy Wood’s passing, and getting Eddie Vedder behind the microphone may as well have been their saving grace. Although Ten was responsible for breaking down the doors for alternative music, it’s a shame that we never got the rock opera that Vedder had in mind before jamming with the group.
When he first got a demo tape from Stone Gossard, Vedder started stringing together lyrics telling a story of someone who realises that their home life is a lie before becoming a killer and awaiting his execution. Every piece of the movement got released in some capacity, but all they ended up doing was confusing the listener, with all of the themes being folded into the songs ‘Alive’, ‘Once’, and the B-side ‘Footsteps’.
While it may have been daunting for anyone to start off their career with an entire rock opera, it seems like Pearl Jam never lost that itch to make something more grandiose. I mean, their self-titled album almost turned into a concept record about a world-weary soldier, so if that was on their minds, why not flesh out the story you already worked on?
9. Songs From the Black Hole – Weezer
No one in Weezer was ready for fame. As much as Rivers Cuomo liked the idea of being in a mainstream rock band, all of the ins and outs of being on tour constantly did nothing to comfort someone who was known to be fairly introverted when he wasn’t performing live. So, when it came time for him to make his definitive rock opera, he went down a different road instead.
Even though Pinkerton is heralded as one of the best albums that Weezer ever recorded nowadays, the initial vision was for Cuomo to make a space opera entitled Songs from the Black Hole. While the actual timeline is spotty as to what the storyline entails, Cuomo was intended to be the protagonist talking about having a crush on someone aboard his spaceship before electing to stay on the ship and sacrifice himself by colliding with a star.
Yes, it does sound like the kind of project that would spring out of some stoner rockstar in English class, but considering that ‘Tired of Sex’ and ‘Getchoo’ were intended to be on that album, it at least had the potential to be something interesting. And no matter how dorky it might have sounded at the time, we can probably guarantee that an emotional trip through the stars may have been much easier to stomach than listening to ‘Across the Sea’. Pinkerton is perfectly imperfect the way it is, but considering what we have available now, it’s sad to see all the puzzle pieces suddenly abandoned.
8. Household Objects songs – Pink Floyd
Nothing that Pink Floyd has ever done can be considered ‘normal’. Every one of their albums was about opening doors that most people weren’t sure could be done by a traditional rock band, and by Dark Side of the Moon, they had turned their wild experiments into solid gold. They hadn’t lost their avant-garde side, though, but Household Objects would have been the most batshit insane move anyone could have made after a masterpiece.
Although tunes like ‘Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast’ showed the band’s interest in doing off-beat rock and roll, making an entire album out of different household objects was an idea crazy enough to work. Since Pink Floyd are one of the few groups that could get away with having half of their albums be instrumentals, having a great guitar solo replaced by clinking glasses didn’t feel like the worst thing in the world.
Considering how tired everyone was following Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here is the optimal outcome from something like this. It’s hard to capture the feeling of becoming desensitised, but by the time they saw what fame could do to a person, Floyd knew it was better to quote what was in their heart rather than try to make some offbeat production to appease their hardcore fans.
7. Eros songs- Deftones
Any album is normally supposed to be a democratic affair. Even though many people have a clear vision in their head for what their songs will be, it takes an entire band to sit with the song before it sounds ready for primetime. Although Deftones had developed a way to cover atmospheric metal in their sleep, the road to making Eros was something no one could bring themselves to continue.
Since Saturday Night Wrist already sounded like a transitionary record, this could have been the moment when they got back to making the same kind of heavy classics they had on White Pony. Once it was clear that bassist Chi Cheng wouldn’t be able to continue on with the group following a major car accident, the band knew that they were going to have to reach deep within themselves to make the kind of record their bandmate could be proud of.
And, really, what we got on Diamond Eyes is the best of both worlds. Although there are traces of what Eros might have been, tunes like ‘You’ve Seen the Butcher’ took everything that sounded dangerous about their nu-metal era and made it even heavier. While there’s no telling what Cheng would have been able to do had he survived to play with them again, there’s a good chance he would be proud seeing his musical brothers make something like this again.
6. ‘Cigarettes and Valentines’ – Green Day
For any band, a leak is the enemy of creativity. No album is truly done until every band member is fully happy with it, so having a leaked version of the tapes out there is the equivalent of showing musicians’ rough sketches instead of what they intended to make. While Green Day did go from strength to strength when their master tapes were stolen with American Idiot, ‘Cigarettes and Valentines’ is a sad reminder of what could have been.
Since Green Day needed a career resurgence at this time, American Idiot gave them the boost to get up off their ass and make something they could be proud of. While Cigarettes and Valentines is now a fleeting memory of what they could have sounded like post-Warning, having the live cut of the title track only made many fans more antsy to hear what that lost album could have been.
Because listening to them play the tune onstage, it seems to have every element of the band’s classic era, from the pummelling guitars to the driving rhythm that made their 1990s output work so well. It might not have had the same pointed material that their rock opera did, but somewhere in the vaults lies an album that could have gone toe-to-toe with Dookie and Insomniac as one of the band’s heaviest efforts.
5. Monnow Valley Definitely Maybe – Oasis
Every band feels like they need to move the Earth to get one of their songs off the ground, let alone an entire album. Throughout the mixing process, it seems like an argument can break out over everything from the guitars not being turned up loud enough or having way too many instruments in the mix to decipher anything. Oasis needed guidance when Owen Morris was brought in to mix Definitely Maybe, but it’s a shame he never got ahold of the Monnow Valley mastertapes first.
Since the band had to record the album three different times, every single mix tended to have a little bit missing before Morris layered his brick wall technique on everything. During the Monnor Valley sessions, though, the band was at their absolute peak as a live act, with Liam Gallagher, in particular, sounding his absolute best.
And while it’s hard to quantify that, the fact that ‘Slide Away’ is the only thing that managed to survive is such a missed opportunity, considering what other songs could have been given the same treatment. History may have favoured the more aggressive take on the Britpop legends’ sound, but should another reissue be released, it would be a godsend to hear Liam performing at his peak for an entire project.
4. ‘Georgie Porgie’ – A Tribe Called Quest
No one will consider A Tribe Called Quest the most controversial group in the world. As much as rappers liked to talk themselves up as God’s gift to Earth, hearing Phife Dawg and Q-Tip bounce off each other always felt like you wwere hanging out with friends while waiting to catch the train into the city. So how did that same band known for good times end up releasing a song as problematic as ‘Georgie Porgie’?
While the tune was later reworked for the track ‘Show Business’ off of The Low-End Theory, the whole point of this song is about how being gay is wrong. Although there was always a bit of tongue-in-cheek humour to all of Tribe’s best material, their commitment to the joke, if there even is one, doesn’t paint them in the best light, especially when they talk about how any homosexual should go to Hell.
It’s easy to chalk it up to a different time and place, but if The Low-End Theory had been released with this song, we would be looking at hip-hop history much differently. Allegedly, someone had to beg the group not to put this version on the album, and whoever that is deserved a medal of honour.
3. ‘Runaway Trains’ – Stevie Nicks
Stevie Nicks never had a problem singing something that she didn’t write. Most of what she sang did come from the heart, but if she found lyrics that resonated with her, it didn’t take long for her to put her own mystical spin on it. While Nicks always saw Tom Petty as one of her partners in crime, ‘Runaway Trains’ always felt like the long-lost song that she never got to release.
It’s not like it didn’t make sense, either. Petty had been known to give Nicks a song or two during the first half of her career, but while ‘Runaway Trains’ was demoed by the Fleetwood Mac frontwoman for one of her albums, Petty insisted on taking it back because he wanted it for his album Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough).
And listening to it, it sticks out like a sore thumb in the wrong way. Considering how much of the album is about returning to Petty’s roots, hearing a tune that’s nothing but processed synth presets feels like it would work much better with Nicks’ smokey tone over top of it. Petty had already kept ‘Don’t Come Around Here No More’ for himself, so why not give her the kind of tune for her second wind?
2. ‘Victim of Love’ (Felder vocals) – Eagles
For Don Henley, there was no room in the Eagles for any filler. The whole point behind their albums was to craft the kind of projects they could still be happy with in a few years, and farting out any old material was not going to suffice. That meant having a few bruised egos in the process, but if there were fewer control freaks, maybe we could have seen more Don Felder behind the microphone.
According to the guitarist, he was promised two songs to sing at Hotel California, but ‘Victim of Love’ was stolen from under his nose. While Felder sang the song multiple times, the band eventually convinced their manager to take him out for dinner while they went back into the studio to lay down Henley’s lead vocal on the track.
It’s impossible to improve upon what Henley can do behind the microphone, but ‘Victim of Love’ never quite fit him well. It’s completely understandable to put a bulletproof vocal behind everything, but having something this heavy could have benefited from a bit more bite than what Henley was capable of.
1. ‘Carnival of Light’ – The Beatles
Anything remotely associated with The Beatles tends to have a golden halo placed around it by rock fans. The Fab Four would probably tell you that they weren’t as god-like as people think, but their ability to weave together melodies is still beyond human comprehension in some respects. They did have their outlandish side, though, and one of their wildest experiments is still shelved away from the public.
While Paul McCartney initially had the idea to make an entire album of avant-garde music years before John Lennon started making them with Yoko Ono, ‘Carnival of Light’ was their first real trip into that world. Despite it not being a song in the truest sense, the recording is known for being one of the strangest tapestries of sound that the group ever put together.
Then again, fans will have to keep waiting to see if it comes out since it only got broadcast a handful of times before going back into the vaults. But who knows? Most people didn’t think that we would be getting new Beatles music in 2023 with the release of ‘Now and Then’, so maybe it’s time for them to get back in the vaults and fine-tune this experimental freakout from the post-Sgt Pepper era.
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