"Lost" tracks that are actually worth hearing?

[greenman]

The promise of some unreleased treasure that turns out to be lost for good reason has been pretty common on latter day reissues/boxsets but how many truly buried classics have there been?

Personally I would start with Denis Wilson's Holy Man from the Pacific Ocean Drive reissue, only instrumental and the Taylor Hawkins vocal version isn't ideally recorded IMHO but its still got a case as his best song I would say.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwOlKKsfpSc

By far the best thing to come out of the recent Led Zep reissues was IMHO the 10 Ribs and All/Carrot Pod Pod/Lick My Love Pump piano/guitar jam from the Presense sessions based on the extended versions of No Quarter they were doing live in that era...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg3TKuTFwDs

[Avril Lavigne]

I think Brian Wilson's Smile is probably the ultimate example of this and it's definitely worth hearing, probably best served by the Smile Sessions box set.  Not all gold admittedly but the wild ambition is evident in pretty much every track.

[Epic Bisto]

Personally I would start with Denis Wilson's Holy Man from the Pacific Ocean Drive reissue, only instrumental and the Taylor Hawkins vocal version isn't ideally recorded IMHO but its still got a case as his best song I would say.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwOlKKsfpSc

Yep, the instrumental version of Holy Man is just gorgeous. Not keen on the vocal version - don't encourage any Foo Fighter. At all.

[greenman]

Yep, the instrumental version of Holy Man is just gorgeous. Not keen on the vocal version - don't encourage any Foo Fighter. At all.

To be fare his vocals aren't a million miles from Dennis, its more the way its recorded that too clean and upfront IMHO, can't find the instrumental on youtube though.

[Glyn]

The Ok Computer version of Motion Picture Soundtrack was pretty stunning. Still can't believe they recorded that and thought 'nope, can do that better' but they did (and they probably just about did).
Big Boots and Lift from the same reissue were properly lost too and well worth the wait.

[Z]

It was never "lost" but You Know You're Right was pretty good and sat on the shelf for a good 7 years or so?

[Sebastian Cobb]

Troggs tapes.

[Epic Bisto]

The Hüsker Dü "Savage Young Dü" box has a few of them. "Stick It To Me", "Won't Say A Word" and "Don't Try It" are all cracking tunes.

[Z]

Getting Up and Leaving on the Pinkerton deluxe edition was a good one. Not an amazing Weezer song or anything but it was pretty amazing to hear a full properly produced song that was so clearly 90s Rivers

[Nowhere Man]

This Marvin Gaye song wasn't released until 1995 (recorded 1968), but one listen and tell me that wouldn't have been a classic Motown single:

This Love Starved Heart (Is Killing Me)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq1HmQIzkJI

The Beach Boys are the kings of releasing incredible songs decades after they should have come out. Obviously SMiLE but some other examples include:

Still I Dream Of It (1977)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_noQOzwvAaE

Wouldn't It Be Nice (To Live Again) (1971)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdrnEPl2zzk

Can't Wait Too Long [Not properly finished, but still incredible to believe they left this behind] (1967/1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHXGvDP8iLI

Soulful Old Man Sunshine (1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjBqd3peV8Y

These two songs below are still unreleased:

Big Sur 4/4 Version (1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVamFiNw-rs

Carry Me Home (1973) [This was rejected for the Made In California Box Set, most likely because of Dennis's line "I'm afraid to die, don't take my life"]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrGk8xAHHDw

[manticore]

I think Brian Wilson's Smile is probably the ultimate example of this and it's definitely worth hearing, probably best served by the Smile Sessions box set.  Not all gold admittedly but the wild ambition is evident in pretty much every track.

I could spend all day listening to all the variations on 'Good Vibrations'. I prefer some of them to the official version because they're wilder and further out.

[Nowhere Man]

and of course, Prince was such a crazy, prolific genius that he has hundreds of unreleased tracks that were just as brilliant as his official material. As sad as his death was, we will probably get a lot more of those songs in the coming years, which is obviously kind of bittersweet now. (a few we already have, largely thanks to the recent Purple Rain deluxe edition)

Old Friends 4 Sale (1985)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J6ZFAWA0YU

All My Dreams (1986)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyDKcvkdaQo

Strange Way Of Saying I Love U (1981)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDvoDsMH2SI

Empty Room (1985)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMRehwy0S_I

Electric Intercourse (1985)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KazicLqx1jM

Make It Through The Storm (1977)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfE-5yOB2gE

Eternity (1985)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE5xcQwa8_A

[buzby]

The full 17-minute version of New Order's Elegia that was edited down for Low Life, then reappeared as a slightly wonky dubbed off an old cassette form on the bonus disc of the early copies of the Retro box set, and then was properly included on the bonus disc of Rhino's remastered version of Low Life

[a duncandisorderly]

I could spend all day listening to all the variations on 'Good Vibrations'. I prefer some of them to the official version because they're wilder and further out.

I should track these down. I had imagined any & all out-takes purged by BW, & the tapes destroyed (though probably not by fire...)

I came across two reels of 1/4" when some cupboards were being cleared out at Mtv once; I don't know how they got there, because 1/4" wasn't the sort of thing many Mtv types even knew what to do with, but these were pre-release excerpts of the 'smile' album, dating back to when it would originally have been just about to be released & then wasn't, meaning that these tapes went unused by whichever london-based radio station they'd been sent to.
I foolishly handed them to a chap at the BBC for investigation & never saw them again. I had, however, played a bit of the 'fire' suite into the voicemail of a beach boys nut colleague, & he said he'd never heard this version before.

[phantom_power]

Tracks and Traces went unreleased for a long time and that is a great album. I don't know if it was ever "lost"

[jake thunder]

I should track these down. I had imagined any & all out-takes purged by BW, & the tapes destroyed (though probably not by fire...)

I came across two reels of 1/4" when some cupboards were being cleared out at Mtv once; I don't know how they got there, because 1/4" wasn't the sort of thing many Mtv types even knew what to do with, but these were pre-release excerpts of the 'smile' album, dating back to when it would originally have been just about to be released & then wasn't, meaning that these tapes went unused by whichever london-based radio station they'd been sent to.
I foolishly handed them to a chap at the BBC for investigation & never saw them again. I had, however, played a bit of the 'fire' suite into the voicemail of a beach boys nut colleague, & he said he'd never heard this version before.

What the hell??? Really?

What year was this?

[greenman]

Can't Wait Too Long [Not properly finished, but still incredible to believe they left this behind] (1967/1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHXGvDP8iLI

Yeah this was always one of my favourites on that Smiley Smile/Wild Honey CD.

[Spiteface]

The Ok Computer version of Motion Picture Soundtrack was pretty stunning. Still can't believe they recorded that and thought 'nope, can do that better' but they did (and they probably just about did).
Big Boots and Lift from the same reissue were properly lost too and well worth the wait.

Yes. I'm glad Big Boots finally saw the light of day.

Also, if you can get it from somewhere, there's an early version of Nude on the cassette they put with the reissue, that sounds awesome, closer to the one that appears in Meeting People is Easy, rather than the inferior In Rainbows one.

[Golden E. Pump]

Everything Prince recorded from 1976-1994.

And a shit load of stuff afterwards.

[up_the_hampipe]

Eminem had a couple of interesting tracks leaked from an album he planned to release in 2007 called 'King Mathers'. At the time, he was in the midst of his drug addiction. The album was shelved after he overdosed, almost died then went to rehab, thus Relapse being released in 2009 instead. The last song he recorded before the overdose sounds like a retirement or even a fucking suicide note https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAKh7Bg5cxM

If he had died from that overdose, that would be a very bleak final song.

[popcorn]

Getting Up and Leaving on the Pinkerton deluxe edition was a good one. Not an amazing Weezer song or anything but it was pretty amazing to hear a full properly produced song that was so clearly 90s Rivers

The Songs From the Black Hole album, which was supposed to be Weezer's second album before they ditched it, fascinates me. Some of those demos were good:

Blast Off

You Won't Get With Me Tonight

[popcorn]

Regarding the OK Computer reissue, the one that blows my mind is I Promise. I mean, I don't think it's a great song, but it was so obviously worthy of a B-side release and they were never gonna come up with a better arrangement for it.

The other songs are a bit weird. Man of War was written 500 years ago but the version they released is at least partly a new recording, and possibly completely new. They did it for the Bond film Spectre but it was rejected, so then they did another one, which was also rejected, poor Radiohead.

Lift is just a scrappy rehearsal take or something, complete with mixing errors, and has nothing of the energy (or tempo!) of the much-circulated bootleg versions from 1996.

[PaulTMA]

Weezer's Getting Up And Leaving and I Swear It's True were supposed to be b-sides for the eventually scrapped Pink Triangle single, which never saw the light of day until the Pinkerton reissue, although fans knew of their existence for years with I Swear It's True being a lesser holy grail as an earlier Blue Album rough version was released on that album's reissue and also Rivers leaked his own demo online circa 2002.

The truly unknown lost 90s Weezer studio song was Tragic Girl, which was attempted for Pinkerton with another bassist and forgotten about, not catalogued in their website's detailed recording history so a complete surprise to fans when Pinkerton Deluxe was announced in 2009.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83TABgLvbmM

[popcorn]

I've always been suspicious of that Tragic Girl release. Rivers sounds... like Green Album Rivers.

[PaulTMA]

I've always been suspicious of that Tragic Girl release. Rivers sounds... like Green Album Rivers.

Wasn't finished so some or perhaps all of the vocals are 2009.  Adam Orth being on bass dates it from the same Pink Triangle 'remix'/remake that Matt Sharp couldn't attend.

[daf]

Andy Partridge

Written for Disney's 'James and The Giant Peach' :
All I Dream Of Is A Friend - REJECTED!

Written for Jane Birkin :
I Gave My Suitcase Away - REJECTED!

Written for Sophie Ellis Bextor :
I Defy You Gravity - REJECTED!

Written For Harry Hill's spoof 'Extreme Soap' :
Silverstar - ACCEPTED! . . . but the show never got made

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(edit - I've got this 'Lost tracks' thing wrong here, haven't I readers . . . ah well, some stuff there.)

[Porter Dimi]

The entirety of Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tapes bootleg. Several versions (Idiot Wind, Tangled Up in Blue) are as good as the album versions, if not better. https://youtu.be/fMzcwlmhfws