If that's what they cut out, what they left in must be pure gold!

Or, "tracks that you can't believe they left off an album." Let's try to limit this to original albums, not compilations or live sets.

I'll start:

Bob Dylan, "Up To Me", left off Blood on the Tracks: this is an incredible song, and probably fits better thematically with the rest of Blood on the Tracks than "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" (although "Lily..." has grown on me lately).

The Beatles, "Not Guilty", left off the "White Album": After 100 takes it was still a pretty rough song, but the oft-bootlegged mono mix ROCKS, and it would have been better than [insert your least-favorite "White Album" song here].

George Harrison, "I Live For You", left off All Things Must Pass: really nice country song, that would have been more worthy of being on the album than the second version of "Isn't it a Pity" (the song so nice they played it twice).

The Band, "Katie's Been Gone", left off Music From Big Pink: much as I think the addition of the Band's songs messes up the flow of the "official" Basement Tapes, this song is still one of my favorites off that album.

Your choices?

 

Fabs- "Leave My Kitten Alone"

 

The Beatles, Hey Jude, left off the White Album!

 

Bob Dylan : Series of Dreams

Left off of "Oh Mercy". Oh Mercy, what were they thinking? This is so much better than anything on that album!

Kwad

 

This all too mobile home left off steely dan's pretzel logic lp[i've heard a live version that rocks btw]

 

IMHO, they should have finished the remake of "The Second Arrangement" and put it on Gaucho.

 

Pure and Easy - which the Who left off of Who's Next when paring Lifehouse down to a single album. The version on the Lifehouse to Leeds "boot" is awesome.

I guess I should include Let's See Action, Join Together and Too Much Of Anything as well!

 

Bob Dylan - "Blind Willie McTell" from INFIDELS

Led Zeppelin - "Hey Hey What Can I Do" from III

Bruce Springsteen - "Pink Cadillac" and "Shut Out The Light" from BORN IN THE U.S.A.

 

Yeah, those were two other Dylan songs I had in mind.

 

Procol Harum, A Whiter Shade Of Pale (left off the UK version of their first album for some insane reason.)

 

The "insane reason" was that in the 1960s, it was considered almost insulting to put the hit single on the new album in the U.K. People bought both singles and albums in England; they weren't considered separate markets as they were in the U.S.

 

The most obvious one to me is "Silver Springs," left off Fleetwood Mac's Rumours ... it's a better track than, for one, "I Don't Want to Know" ...

 

"Leave My Kitten Alone", left off Beatles For Sale.

"Let Me Die In My Footsteps", left off The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.

"Winterlong", left off Neil Young's On The Beach (I think).

 

Must have been the same brilliant UK reasoning for not recording the first Procol album in stereo...

 

Dignity - left off Dylan's Oh Mercy

 

Bob Dylan- "The Groom's Still Waiting At The Altar" kept from "Shot Of Love"---what were they thinking?

 

The orginal UK version of the Stranglers' "Feline" album left off the track "Golden Brown". I bought a Canadian pressing of the LP in 1982 and it was the opening track, yet it still had all of the UK tracks. In fact the Canadian album had 11 tracks and the UK only had 9! To me it made the album twice as good as it would have been without it. It still sounded pretty good, even at the 22 minutes a side which it totalled with the bonus tracks.

 

The Beach Boys have many examples of leaving some of their best songs unfinished or unreleased. These are just some of them.

Can't Wait Too Long, Cool Cool Water - left off Wild Honey (the latter was finished for Sunflower)
Lady (Falling In Love), Sound Of Free - left off Sunflower (released only on an obscure Dennis Wilson/Rumbo single)
Big Sur (original 4/4 version) - left off Surf's Up (probably Mike Love's best original song; an inferior re-recording was released on Holland)
Carry Me Home - left off Carl & The Passions (great Dennis Wilson song, with a partial Blondie Chaplion lead)
We Got Love - left off Holland (except for some early German LP pressings)
California Feeling - left off L.A. Light Album (great Carl Wilson/Bruce Johnston lead vocals; a new Brian WIlson recording of this song was released two years ago)

 

"I Can Dream of You" by James Taylor, left off of "In the Pocket", but the B side of the "Shower The People" 45. Written by his brother Livingston, and excellent tune.

 

Tracks that Bob Dylan should have have kept on his albums could provide the basis for an entire thread. (in fact, there was a recent thread which extensively discussed the much contested contents of the official BASEMENT TAPES collection)!

And it starts with his first album and the dropping of "House Carpenter." But his judgement on these matters doesn't become utterly tragic until THE TIMES THEY ARE A'CHANGING when he fails to use "Lay Down Your Weary Tune", "Percy's Song", and "Seven Curses" (among others) on the final album. Then it becomes a enough of a recurring theme in his career that it provided the basis for an entire book (Clinton Heylin's book on his recording sessions).

Personally, I most regret the loss of "She's Your Lover Now" on BLONDE ON BLONDE. Granted the take on THE BOOTLEG SERIES starts tentatively then breaks down during the final verse, but it sounds like the band is only one take away from nailing the song perfectly. So of course that's when Dylan pulls the plug on a track that could have provided another masterpiece to sit alongside "Visions of Johanna", "Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again", and "Sad Eyed Lady of The Lowlands" on the album. (there is a stunning solo piano run through of the song that is complete and deserves to be released, but it would not have been a good fit on the album itself.)

Later in his career, I find the loss of "Abandoned Love" on DESIRE to be rather disappointing.

As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, INFIDELS suffered some disappointing track choices, chief among them the loss of "Blind Willie McTell". But "Foot of Pride" is almost as good (and also left unreleased until THE BOOTLEG SERIES) and the early takes of "Jokerman" and "Sweetheart like You" originally slated for the album smoke the offical versions.

Incidentally, even "Series of Dreams", as good as it is on THE BOOTLEG SERIES, is SO much better before they started monkeying around (with additional keyboard overdubs and the like) with it for inclusion on the set. Additionally, I feel the tracks "Dignity", "Born in Time" (a much better recording that it's eventual UNDER THE RED SUN take), and "Broken Days" (an early, and more lyrically compelling draft of "Everything is Broken) all should have made the album, while a couple of OH MERCY's weaker tracks ("When Teardrops Fall" and "Disease of Conceit") could easily have been discarded.

 

Even better than Political world??

 

Some great stuff seems to have been left of the "synchronicity" album by the Police.

"Someone to talk to" ended up as B side of "Wrapped around your finger" and the brilliant "Once upon a daydream" had to settle for a B side of "Syncronicity II". A shame as both tracks being better than many cuts (not just "Mother"!) that made the album. Sadly these songs didn´t end up on the remaster/SACD either.

But, perhaps this was only logical considering the politics in the band at the time - both songs were written by Andy Summers...

 

You're right about this song. Amazingly beautiful and a simple song at the same time. How could it be left out?

 

Was the song actually finished in 1970 or did George finish it for the reissue?

I've never agreed that "Not Guilty" should be on the White Album. To me it's obvious that the song just doesn't work; it's too convoluted.

 

"Golden Brown" was originally recorded for the 1981 album La Folie, which was The Stranglers' last proper album for EMI. After the band signed worldwide with Epic and "Golden Brown" became a huge European hit, Epic tacked "Golden Brown" onto international and U.S. copies of Feline, released in 1982.

Thus, "Golden Brown" doesn't actually belong on Feline.

Question: what was the 11th track on the Canadian album, Drifter?