Neil Young’s tonight’s the night (album) and the song too.

Physical Graffiti. its just shelved zep songs that didnt make the cut on other albums. what would this world be without kashmir?

Metallicas Nothing Else Matter as well. It was a song that James Hetfield had written for himself.

It wasn’t supposed to be a Metallica until someone in the band beside James heard the song, and said that’s great!

‘Under the Bridge’ almost missed making the Red Hot Chili Peppers classic album Blood Sugar Sex Magik. Singer Anthony Kiedis didnt want to show producer Rick Rubin the lyrics because the song was very personal and dealt with his ongoing problem with drugs.

Half of Jimi Hendrix’s Axis: Bold As Love that was lost in a taxi cab. They had to re-record the entire A-side.

Also Sunshine of Your Love by Cream almost wasn’t made because the drumming didn’t work. But then Tom Dowd suggested an “Indian beat” that pulled the song together.

Sorry this is off topic, but what do you guys think of Let It Be? I think its as good as The Beatles’ other albums, but some people think of it as a minor album, thoughts?

1979 by the smashing pumpkins

1979 by the smashing pumpkins

The Skid Row hit “I Remember You” almost didn’t happen. Seabass Bach wrote it but the band didn’t want to record it because it was a ballad. It was only when the producer of the album heard it and insisted on things that the band gave in and did the track.

(I bet the new Skid Row singer hates that song! I would hate to hear him try to sing it…)

“kurt’s #1 theme” a.k.a. “you know you’re right”, i can’t believe we waited over seven years for arguably the greatest 3 minutes and 38 seconds of nirvana history.

Black Sabbath did “Paranoid” last minute to fill out the album which would end up having the same name. At that point the record was called “War Pigs,” but they needed a potential radio single.

you mean to tell me that skid row had a producer? I thought they were shitty all by themselves.

red hot chili peppers – soul to squeeze DIDN’T make the ‘blood sugar sex magik’ album. From what I’ve heard the presence of that and ‘under the bridge’ seemed like too many ballady songs to someone, somwehere, whether that’s true I don’t really know.
Luckily they released it after Frusciante quit the band. And on the Coneheads album, of all places!

Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb! Waters didn’t want a Gilmour masterpiece on ‘his’ album.

Lovely Rita wouldn’t have made Sgt. Peppers if Paul hadn’t have gotten that speeding ticket. It wouldn’t even have been written. I suppose that counts.

Actually, The Doors were almost never signed at all. The initial set they did when the record company was listening in to see if they would be signed went horribly. The only reason they got signed is because they were given a second chance, which usually doesn’t happen.

U2’s “October” lyric book of Bono’s lost in the middle of recording sessions; he claims he was riffing the lyrics for “Gloria” in the studio

“I try to sing this song/I try to stand up…….I try to speak up”

Madonna’s “Vogue” was going to be a B-side before she released it as a single that became one of her biggest hits of her career.

The Clash’s “Train in Vain” was a last-minute addition to LONDON CALLING, and now it’s one of their most-recognized hits.

The Chili Peppers’ “Soul to Squeeze” is probably the only non-album track ever to become a massive radio hit.

Soembody asked “what would this world be without kashmir?” Umm…it would be a world where I didn’t have to reach for the pre-sets every time it came on the radio?

‘Slideaway’ by Oasis almost didn’t make ‘Definitely Maybe’….of course the song it replaced was ‘Fade Away’ which is almost as good.

Wasn’t ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ the last recorded for ‘Nevermind’ by Nirvana?

To rod:
soul to squeeze is most definately not the only non-album track to be a massive radio hit. I can name two songs by pearl jam right off the top of my head, Yellow Ledbetter and Last Kiss. I’m sure theres dozens others too that i just dont know about.

how about brian wilson’s smile??? shelved for almost 40 years because of his breakdown, the album that was supposed to be the beach boys answer to sgt. peppers ressucitated his career and gave the young audience a glance at the man’s genius

I’m pretty sure “Smoke on the Water” was a last minute addition to fill out “Machine Head”.

Also “American Idiot” never would have been written if someone hadn’t stolen the master tapes for “Cigarettes and Valentines”.

sweet child o mine was a filler song on appetite…turned out to be the biggest hit Guns N Roses ever had

November Rain:
According to Tracii Guns, former Guns N’ Roses guitarist and founding member, Axl Rose had been working on the song since at least 1983. In an interview, he said the following about “November Rain”:

When we were doing that EP for L.A. Guns, like ‘83? He was playing “November Rain” — and it was called “November Rain” — you know, on piano. Way back then. It was the only thing he knew how to play, but it was his. He’d go, “Someday this song is gonna be really cool.” And I’d go, “It’s cool now.” “But it’s not done”, you know, he used to say. And, like, anytime we’d be at a hotel or anywhere, there’d be a piano; he’d just kinda play that music. And I’d go, “When are you gonna finish that already”, you know? And he’d go, “I don’t know what to do with it.”

REM-man on the moon was added 2days before automatic for the people was to be mastered.

Neil Young-Ragged Glory

the vast majority of that album were songs written in the mid 70s.

Country Home, White Line, Days that used to be…etc

CHICAGO has a killer album called “Stone of Sisyphus” from 1993. Just sizzling.

Bob Dylan and Oasis both have a knack for NOT knowing what their best songs are.
“Up To Me” left off of “Blood on the Tracks”???
“The Materplan” left off of “(What’s the story) Morning Glory”???
Two of the best songs ever.

“When Doves Cry” was the last track added to Purple Rain, but only after “Computer Blue” was majorly edited. I would love to see an expanded version of the Purple Rain album released in the future with the original, unedited version of “Computer Blue.” It sounded like Jimi Hendrix met Kraftwerk-really cool!

u2 just copied and ripped off negativland

Unfortunately, “Pour Some Sugar on Me (in the name of love)” was the last song to be added to whatever Def Leopard album it was on. The album took like five years to make, the one song that sold the album took about an hour.

I hate the song.

paranoid by sabbath was recorded last minute to add time to thier “war pigs” lp, i think we all know what happened there

Sunshine of Your Love

seriously, God praise Tom Dowd for suggesting that drum beat.

and, of course, praise Cream for crafting arguably the most bad-ass song ever.

what if no one had leaked the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

both “Lucky” and “The Tourist” off of Ok Computer…

Even look at the back of the album, it looks as though both songs were tacked onto the track listing. Lucky was originally released as a benefit single, and the Tourist was a last minute thing Jonny Greenwood snuck onto the album. Could anyone imagine that album ending just at “No Surprises”?
…That’s what I thought

smashing pumpkins – 1979

great song, almost didnt happen

I wish Ok Computer DID end with No Surprises, no diss on the other songs, i just think its such a good bookend

I disagree about R Waters not wanting Comfortably Numb on the Wall … Gilmour and Waters allegedly fought over the mix, but no one has ever reported Waters didn’t want the song –which they cowrote — on the album.

A better example of a near-miss Floyd classic would be Have A Cigar, which Waters almost shelved before bring Roy Harper in to do the lead vocal.

Rod’s not that smart. Soul To Squeeze by the Chili Peppers was on the soundtrack to Coneheads. I can think of uhh… quite a few songs that were featured on soundtracks and became hits.

Pinball Wizard was added to The Who’s Tommy at the last second to secure a favorable review from a pinball loving music critic.

Nirvana’s You Know You’re Right was shelved for quite some time because of Courtney Love’s overwhelming bitchiness.

Good Riddance by Green Day was actually an electrified B-side recorded in 1994. For some reason they decided to record an acoustic version and tack it on to Nimrod after which it became one of the bands biggest hits.

Rihanna’s Umbrella almost didn’t happen!! Deeply shocked! And relieved that it did!

Train In Vain

I think I heard somewhere that “Sloop John B” was added to “Pet Sounds” by Murray Wilson at the last second against Brian’s wishes. Can anyone confirm this? I know “Sloop John” isn’t exactly essential to “Pet Sounds” and seems a bit out of place, but it’s on the Oldies Stations all the time and kind of works as a “half-way point” for “PS” if you think about it.

Ulysses your bang on, the only issue with Comfortably Numb was the mixing, Waters and Gilmour argued about most thinks at that time.

Read once that Pearl Jam lost a book containing what would have been some of the songs to the Vs. album. I would have liked to hear these original tracks and compare them to what was released.

“axis:bold as love” by jimi hendrix, the orignal recordings of side one were forgotten by hendrix in a cab. many fights were fought wether to record it again or to relese only side b’ at the time, since the incident was real close to the aleged relese date. finally hendrix recorded evreything within a week.
almost gone, but stayed and changed rock.

‘For Tomorrow’ and ‘Chemical World’ on Blur’s second album ‘Modern Life is Rubbish’ were only added because the record lable wanted some tracks that could be released as singles.Damon Albarn write two really great songs and they’re now seen as two of the main highlights on that album…

‘Whose Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses?’ almost didn’t make it onto Achtung Baby because U2 were struggling to get the vibes right…

Modern Life is Rubbish by Blur only has ‘For Tomorrow’ and ‘Chemical World’ on it because the record lable bullied the band into writing some singles.In fact all of ‘Modern Life…’ only exists because the first draft of Blur’s second album was turned down.

The whole Disintegration album was regarded as a potential comercial-failure by The Cure’s record label. Thanks God they had the guts to put it out!

Warrant’s second album was ready for release and was to be called “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. The record company, thankfully, said “no, we need a single.” So, Jani Lane went back and quickly wrote “Cherry Pie”. God bless major labels.

From A Basement On The Hill by Elliot Smith never really did happen in that he didn’t get to oversee final production on the album….either way, it may be my favorite of his…..

Good News For People Who Love Bad News….Modest Mouse recorded about half the album and then Isaac went through a rough time where all they did was work on “Dance Hall” for six months….Thank god they found a way out of it

The Flaming Lips….everything since The Soft Bulletin….”When he got that spiderbite on his hand, Wayne thought they would have to break up the band…” Those guys have been through a lot…struggling with loss and drugs…check out Fearless Freaks

As much as Phil SPector’s work on Let It Be infuriated Paul McCartney and made Geoff Emerick want to puke (his words not mine), anyone who has listened to the unreleased raw tapes on bootleg has to admit that the album never would have worked as it stood. It was too sloppy (they did a lot of digital touch-ups on “Let It Be… Naked”

And Lovely Rita was about a Meter Maid, he didn’t get any “speeding ticket”

If you’re missing some GNR in your life, there is a track called “Shadow of Your Love” on various bootlegs that I can only imagine was cut from Appetite. I could be wrong, but the song rocks to high hell anyway – get it.

What about “Silver Springs” by Fleetwood Mac? Left off of “Rumours”, and not surfacing on an album until “The Dance” 20 years later. I think it was a B-Side though.

Here is a miss that did happen. Michael Jackson was going to record “State of Shock” with Freddie Mercury and put it on “Thriller” but it never happened. Jackson did however record it later with Mick Jagger.

I AM JIMI!!! I LOVE YOU ALL!!!

Let it Be is one of the prettiest songs ever written, let alone one of the Beatles’ best….and U2 gets their picture put up for the story.

God I hate them.

The entire “SMiLE” album by the Beach Boys/Brain Wilson. It would be such a shame!

“Ana’s Song” off of Silverchair’s Neon Ballroom album almost didn’t make it either. The song is about lead singer Daniel John’s battle with anorexia, and because it was so personal, he was reluctant to record it or put it on the album. The rest of the band and producer urged him to do it. And because of that song, they actually had some moderate success with that album outside of Australia. That song saved them somewhat of the “one hit wonder” curse from 1995’s “Tomorrow”

Placebo’s Pure Morning was added to the album when it was already being mastered

Actually, Silverchair was already pretty successful in Europe…you should know that the USA isn’t the “world”

lenny kravitz wasnt feeling “Fly Away” but got talked into including it on the album.

1979 by Smashing Pumpkins. During the last recording phase of Mellon Collie, Corgan had an idea that he had been messing around with on guitar and wanted to try and record it before he forgot it, but producer Flood told Corgan either finalize a full song in a few hours or forget it. (Basically no time left for him to be fooling around unless for album purposes). Within hours, Corgan made 1979 and it became an alt-rock classic.

1979 by Smashing Pumpkins. During the last recording phase of Mellon Collie, Corgan had been messing around with a riff on his guitar and wanted to record it b/f he forgot it, but producer Flood told him that only if he finalizes a full song within hours would he have the time to record it. (Basically no time remaining except for album purposes). Corgan trusted his instincts and within a few hours came back with a tape of the full song of 1979 and it became an alt-rock classic.

Ryan wrote:

“Half of Jimi Hendrix’s Axis: Bold As Love that was lost in a taxi cab. They had to re-record the entire A-side.”

Actually, Jimi only forgot the two-track mix master, not the raw tracks on the 2-inch reel-to-reel, so they just had to remix it, not re-record it. But they had to do it THAT NIGHT in order to meet the deadline that Reprise Records had set. But, good call. I was gonna mention that instance, but I wanted to see if someone else knew that fun little tid-bit about that record. That’s my favorite Hendrix record by far.

Ryan wrote:

“Half of Jimi Hendrix’s Axis: Bold As Love that was lost in a taxi cab. They had to re-record the entire A-side.”

Actually, Jimi only forgot the two-track mix master, not the raw tracks on the 2-inch reel-to-reel, so they just had to remix it, not re-record it. But they had to do it THAT NIGHT in order to meet the deadline that Reprise Records had set. But, good call. I was gonna mention that instance, but I wanted to see if someone else knew that fun little tid-bit about that record. That’s my favorite Hendrix record by far.

“Let Down” was almost left off of OKComputer because it was too personal. My favorite song on that album.

UMMMM Umbrella is NOT a Great song…..in fact it’s horrible

Umbrella is not a great song….in fact it’s horrible

Can you envision a world without Rihanna’s “Umbrella”? a much better place than today.

This may not be the hippest thing in the world to say, but the guy who wrote “Rhinestone” cowboy was turned away countless times until Glenn Campbell finally gave it a shot.

I AM JIMI!!

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!

Yes, it is true that “Sloop John B” was a late addition to Pet Sounds, much to the dismay of Brian Wilson. However, it was not Murray Wilson’s doing. Capitol records didn’t hear a “hit” single on the album, so they insisted it be included. Also, Al Jardin was big into folk music, so he was also an influence on adding it to the album.

Kurt needed two more songs for Nevermind (after it was deemed that Aneurysm and Dive were too similiar to other songs on the record). “On A Plain” was written at the last minte (in 10 minutes in the car ride over to the studio). “Something In The Way” was also recorded on the final day that Butch Vig was in the studio.

I remember reading in RS ago Trent Reznor was going to leave “Hurt” off of the Downward Spiral album because it was to personal- then he first heard it in public at a strip club.

waterloo sunset-
davies was hesitent to share the lyrics because they were so personal

davies was hesitent to share his lyrics for WATERLOO SUNSET with the band due to thier personal nature

The Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up” is something like take 26 of about 28 different takes of the song, most of the rest of which were reggae-based. This was the one straight-up rock version, recorded in like 1977 and left to collect dust until they started sifting through old outtakes to put together a “new” album for a 1981 tour. That album was “Tattoo You”, perhaps the best odds-n’-sods-presented-as-new- material album in history.

the Happy Cynics “Weekender Bender” It almost didn’t make the album because Axl left the master tape on a train to Brussels. Oddly enough, it was a big hit in Belguim.

Eruption by V.H.

Mo or Ted heard it and demanded it
was put on the 1st lp. solo’s were never the same….

The would would be a better place without Umbrella-ella-ella-ella-ella-e lla-ella-ey-ey-ey-ey-ey…the single most annoying song ever right next to The Sweet Escape by Gwen Stefani.

Hey Bayliss !
So what about “Jump” ?
The song was written in 1982 but DLR refused to sing it…

RHCP give it away and californication

Tonights the Night is an awesome call

Let’s not forget “Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel. They recorded an acoustic version that went nowhere, then their producer made an electric remix that became a hit.

Why does umberella sound just like zombie from the cranberries… what a rip off…

CBS complained that Springsteen’s first album didn’t have any potential hit singles, so Bruce wrote and recorded “Spirit in the Night” and “Blinded by the Light” after he turned in what he thought was the full album.

bullshit. the world would be a better place without that idiotic umbrella song.

Luckily, Kurt Cobain recorded a demo version of “You Know You’re Right” before his untimely death. Who knew it would become one of Nirvana’s best songs EVER!?

has anyone mentioned “summer babe” by Pavement.
steven malkmus didnt want it on the album but the other guys convinced him, so now we have summer babe.

Physical by Olivia Newton John

-Train in Vain was originally gonna be left off London Calling, which it wasn’t in the tracklisting of the original record.
-American Idiot never would have been made if someone didn’t steal the demos Green Day was using for it’s follow-up to Warning

I heard that the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life” was originally supposed to be two separate songs.

Here, take all my money. fuckin’ Micks

Tears For Fears’ Everybody Wants To Rule The World.

Roland didn’t want to include it in the album before the producer persuaded him to

The entire Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album. Their label rejected it completely, basically calling it a commercial disaster. hahaha!
Thank goodness they were on the internet bandwagon.
But I guess if you want ta song… poor places, reservations, I’m trying to break your heart.

Sleep’s Dopesmoker was shelved for 8 years (not counting the Jerusalem bootleg) becuase London Records didn’t think a single 63-minute song was commercially viable.

“Sabotage” was an instrumental for the longest time before Adrock ever tracked the vocals for it.

Don’t Do Me Like That by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. It was originally recorded by Tom Petty’s old band Mudcrutch. Their producer heard this version and insisted they record it.

Ahh, Hey Jude…what would global charity concerts be without Paul and fifty or so orphans singing it for a full hour!

The whole premise of this discussions is “songs that would never have been recorded,” but the Rhianna story only says SHE would have missed out on recording it. Some other anonymous R&B kitten would have purred their way through the song.

‘Rivers of babylon’ by BoneyM. Can you appreciate the gravity on the overall effect on modern music if this masterpiece had been left out as originally planned. Tears fill my eyes as I type. The sonnet ringing in my ears.

Elvis’s Don’t Be Cruel” was pulled out of a pile of demos to be the “B” side of Hound Dog.

word on the streets is that MIMS seminal work “this is why i’m hot” took several interesting turns in the studio, from drummer gaffes to the occasional writers block… the song that we all know and love took months of work to produce and we’re lucky it even made it out of the studio

smashing pumpkins’ 1979 almost never happened. bill corgan says so on their behind the music. it was getting down to the wire and they had no lyrics, and the producer said unless he came up with something by the next day, no dice. so he put it together in the next 24 hours or so. booya!

Bono was interviewed for “Born Into This” and spoke at length about how he was moved by the work of CHARLES BUKOWSKI!–rkbtrfly

“MIMS’ seminal work”? thats a bit excessive don’t you think?

Freebird almost never happened cause Skynerd thought Free beer
would encourage beer vomit at their concerts.The rest is history.

“Pour Some Sugar On Me” was the last track recorded for “Hysteria,” I think. Def Leppard did it as an afterthought, and it became — arguably — their signature song.

Axis Bold As Love didn’t have to be rerecorded. They just had to mix one of the sides again and they never felt they got it as good the second time round (notably If 6 Was 9)

The White Stripes almost only made one album because they got divorced but Meg wanted to do another one anyway so they did De Stijl. I heard Jack talk about it to the crowd on a bootleg. I guess they decided to be brother and sister after that.

“Wishing For War” from the Cynics was almost shelved after producer Jim and songwriter Michael went to blows over the wisdom of Operation Iraqi Freedom