Entertainment For Lively Minds
Disowned Songs
OK, we've done "Best Songs by Bad Bands", "Worst Songs by Great Bands", and several other permutations, but what about those songs which crawl out into the light of day but are subsequently disowned by their creators? These unloved, mutant bastard offspring return to haunt their progenitors long into their careers, mere mention enough to send them storming out of interviews.
The classic example was Bowie's "Laughing Gnome". In 1990, his bright idea was that each country included in his tour would have a phone poll, in which fans would vote for their favourite Bowie songs, and he would base his setlist around the results. This notion was swiftly abandoned in the UK when, at the NME's instigation, "Laughing Gnome" topped the poll by a landslide. No way was The Dame willing to revisit that particular old favourite.
More recently, Michael Stipe has gone on record many times expressing regret that "Shiny Happy People" ever saw daylight. Myself, I love it - but as a B-52s song, not an REM song.
Those are the only two I can think of. Anyone know of any others?
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Macca hasn't given
"Give Ireland back to the Irish" an airing of late, has he? Would have been a good choice for the Brit awards set methinks...
Best Ever Disowned Song
It's been disowned by the people who made it. Airbrushed out of the band's history. But I'd say it was one of their finest moments. (And Blur based a career on it). It boasts both one of the best ever singalong chorus refrains - "there was nothing in my life bigger than beer" - and the greatest pay-off line in the history of the pop single: "lovely form, lovely buttocks".
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you ...
Tremendous topic, PV.
A fine example
Mind you, I'd never heard of this particular Who single, until you posted it. So they obviously made a good job of burying it, which gives it a low *actual* Embarrassment Factor, though an enormous *potential* EF. Maybe me learned friends at Word would care to mention it next time they interview messrs. Daltrey and/or Townshend?
Dogs...
...is included on the Maximum R&B box set.
Cat Stevens doesn't like to talk about this one:
Cats...
... I know how he feels. And it's not looking good for Russell Brand.
(It must be said, the Cat is Where It's At. First Cut Is The Deepest for a kick-off.)
Creep
Was disowned very early on by Radiohead.
Shame really.
Best thing they ever did.
Resent that!I think even
Resent that with every fibre of my wardrobe!
I think even you know thats rubbish.
Father, pass me the landing net...
Caught me a biggun!
:-D
["even me"? You been reading my other posts??]
Without Creep...
... Radiohead would not have had a career. End of. Ungrateful revisionists they might be now, but they were a Nirvana tribute band back in the day.
Call me mental, but I
Call me mental, but I thought David Bowie's Deram Period was one of his best.
The encore.
Most bands go thru a phase of loathing the song that made them what they are, sometimes refusing to play the song that the average punter yearns to hear most. I'm thinking of Whiter Shade of Pale, Nights in white Satin, that sort of song. And I guess it can pall, churning it out for ever and ever. But ultimately the penny drops and it returns to the repertoire. It's the fan wot pays the bills. Bucking that trend, I don't think I have ever seen Richard Thompson, from 1980 to the present day, not play a "medley of his greatest hit", I want to see the bright lights tonight
I'd love to see Bowie bang
I'd love to see Bowie bang out 'Rubber Band'' pr 'The London Boys'' again. Doesn't really correlate with his image change though.
What about
"Party Party" by Elvis Costello? Didn't he disown this somewhere along the way? OK, it's no "Alison" but it's snappy enough - I particularly liked the lines:
"You think you've aged 10 years tonight and still never been kissed
So you overdose on aftershave and try to slash your wrist"
Does Nick Lowe frown upon his "Little Village" days? And, speaking of Ry Cooder, doesn't he pretend that "Bop Till You Drop" never happened? I like 'em both.
Hi Ho
Silver Lining must be the ultimate example of this.
Echo & the Bunnymen
Did Ian McCulloch and pals disown "The Puppet"? It was a single that didn't appear on an album; was included on Songs to Learn & Sing compilation; but hasn't been anthologised since, not even on the 25th anniversary editions of the early albums that collected together stacks of stuff that had previously been unavailable. All seems to suggest a certain lack of pride in the track.
Party Party
was disowned quite publicly by EC but was that for the actual song which I thought was okay or for the dreadful film it appeared in?
No, it's the song...
...note its conspicuous absence from every single EC reissue programme (and there've been more than a few of those in recent years)!
I always thought that Bowie
I always thought that Bowie should have embraced the Laughing Gnome poll vote and delivered a dark, Scary Monsters style reimagining, complete with screaming Adrian Belew guitar and 'Up yours'-styled overloud drum-thumpery. He may even had the last laugh.
Chrissie Hynde
has disowned Brass In Pocket on a number of occasions. However, trouper that she is, still performs it live. Give the people what they want.
Didn't Bowie refuse to play Laughing Gnome on one of his tours when he'd invited fans to vote on-line for the songs for his set-list? I read mischievous people co-ordinated a campaign that resulted in the gnome coming top of the poll.
Tori Amos
Tori pretty much disowned her debut "Y Kant Tori Read", though I hear she will perform a song from it now and then.
Kylie
superbly subverted the embarassing early hit problem by reinterpreting "I should be so lucky" as a supper club ballad, complete with cocktail piano, and dropping two "Lucky"s. Clever. She read it as a poem once too didn't she? Mind you, Kylie is sooo much cooler than David Bowie (heads for hills)
too dizzy
Diamond Dave took this off the cd reissue of Never Let Me Down .
Whilst not completely disowning....
The Manics seemingly steadfastly refuse to play REVOL live anymore...Bradfield sneeringly answering one heckler at Wembley on the Lifeblood tour (the album now disowned in its entirety by Wire) "that he wasn't going to project those sexual peccadilloes on anyone" !!Shame....one of their better moments.
The Long And Winding Road
McCartney famously disowned the Spector version of TLAWR because it's essentially an outtake with added strings & choir. John Lennon's bass playing is woeful, incredibly so considering he'd been in a band for 12 years with one of the the best pop bassists - you'd think he'd have picked up the rudiments by then. I still love it though.
Just Say Gnome? He nearly did...
Regarding the Laughing Gnome fiasco, "Dame David Bowie, Chameleon of Rock" to give him his full title, *did* consider playing Laughing Gnome on his phone-vote led Sound & Vision Tour.
He told Q magazine that when he saw the high number of votes to perform Laughing Gnome on the UK leg of his tour, he planned to perform a Velvets-esque reworking. Then he twigged it was all a big NME hype and recanted; "when you start listening to what the music press tell you to do, you're stuffed" he said (or something similar to this, anyway).
Big shame. Double shame he didn't add a Nine-Inch-Nails treatment to the repertoire of his subsequent hit-free 1.Outside tour - it would have added some much needed levity.
I voted for the effortlessly superior Uncle Arthur since you ask.