Daily Dose for July 26, 2007
Do you have a most memorable hidden track?
Either left off the track listing or buried minutes after the “final” song on a CD, some bands have included hidden tracks as a thank you to their fans. Many of these hidden tracks are proper songs; other audio has often been weird noises or loops or even messages: Ben Folds Five left a message at the end of the Whatever And Ever, Amen album 5:28 seconds after the last song, and Beck has included both real hidden songs and noise at the end of some of albums including “Analogue Odyssey” from Mellow Gold, and 7 minutes after the song “Debra” from Midnite Vultures, he included a 1:07 seven second burst of untitled electronic noise.
Some of the classics? “Train In Vain” by The Clash; “Her Majesty” by The Beatles; “Breathe Easy” from Jay-Z’s The Blueprint; “Endless, Nameless” by Nirvana, “Look At Your Game, Girl” from Guns ‘N’ Roses’ The Spaghetti Incident ( a cover of a Charles Manson song); “Eurotrash Girl” by Cracker from Kerosene Hat and “Subway Ride” from Sheryl Crow’s Globe Sessions. Nirvana’s “Endless, Nameless” was significant because it was the first time a band buried a hidden track at the end of the album after a ten minutes of silence.
Livenirvana.com tells the story of this song. Kurt Cobain wanted to hide the track at the end of the Nevermind CD because he liked the way “Her Majesty” was hidden on the Beatles’ album Abbey Road. Due to a technical error, the first 50,000 CDs of Nevermind did not contain the song. After the mistake was realized, the song was added. After a period of time [their label] DGC stopped including the song on American pressings of the CD. It is believed to still be in print on UK versions, though.
For a fairly extensive list of hidden tracks you can check out this wiki link and HiddenSongs.com is the most comprehensive list of hidden tracks on the web. Let us know if you have a memorable hidden track.
One of Greg Brown’s best albums, Covenant (Red House, 2000) has a great hidden bonus track, “Marriage Chant”.
July 26th, 2007 at 9:17 amThe most hidden track I’ve ever found was Lucy Kaplansky’s version of “I’ve Just Seen A Face” which is located BEFORE the first cut on her album “Flesh And Bone”– to play it, you have to start playing track 1 and then back up the player using “rewind” and skim back through it to the beginning– and it doesn’t work on most professional and high-end players!
July 26th, 2007 at 10:14 amAlanis Morissette’s “Your House” from Jagged Little Pill. Humming that tune is number one on my own personal “How to Lose A Guy in Ten Days” list.
July 26th, 2007 at 10:53 amJohn Flynn’s 9/11 song “I Will Not Fear” is a hidden track on his “To the Point” live album. http://www.johnflynnmusic.com/lyrics/i_will_not_fear.htm Otherwise, it’s a pretty light-hearted album (recorded at The Point).
I still get chills when he sings the chorus. It’s inspiring.
My other favorite hidden track still has to be “Her Majesty” because it was such a surprise.
July 26th, 2007 at 5:41 pmThough it’s not music, strickly speaking, the original vinyl release of the Monty Python’s Flying Circus album Matching Tie and Handkerchief has an entire hidden 3rd side! On the B side (and they didn’t label A and B in an obvious manner) there is a second grove that parallels the main grove. It starts close enough to the main grove that it often takes a number of needle drops to find it.
July 27th, 2007 at 9:15 am