Long Lost Songs

This is a discussion on songs or versions we've heard maybe just once on the radio and spent years searching for. Anything you knew existed, but couldn't/can't find.

For instance, about 1972 I was lying in bed listening to the local progressive rock station (WNEW) as I was falling asleep. On come a great R&B song with a line something like "Before I Die I want to be the kind of man you want me to be". The DJ never announced the title or artist that I could hear. Never heard it again. Years later I heard "She's Gone" by Hall and Oats and figured it was them. Nope. Continued to search on and off for decades, employing new technology as it became available.

Early this year, while searching for something totally different on SecondHandSongs I came across "When I Die" by Mother Lode. Bingo! Joy, joy, joy! Found the CD on Amazon, (only format available) Love It. Most of the rest of their songs are weird but "When I Die" is almost as good as my memory had made 'Before I Die'.

Another example is versions. There are some song that I love that have very different interpretations by various artists. "Hey Joe" and "Morning Dew" are two. I like to collect those versions. Long ago I heard a version of "Morning Dew" sung by a guy with a very unique voice. It had a mesmerizing rhythm guitar line that got into my brain. I never forgot it, because the girl I was with turned out to be a nymphomaniac. What a night!

Using SecondHandSongs agin, I found Long John Baldry on his self-titled album on EMI. What a crystal clear LP! He's recorded several fine versions of the song, but this is THE one with that guitar line. Highly recommended.

I am sure many of you have similar tales and can relate to the elation I felt on finding something I'd been searching for for decades. Let's hear them.

 

Took me decades to get this version of In Your Eyes, the one I heard and enjoyed being played on local radio-

 

Another heard on Radio, decades to track
Erasure-Chains of Love (Remix Radio Edit with Intro), 1988

 

I used to have to go to Michigan a lot for work in the 90's. I'd land in Detroit and drive west with a Detroit oldies station on. I swear I heard this thing at least 5 times before I could make out the artist.
Even the wife, who doesn't like to criticize, said 'man, that guy cannot sing.' yea, but what a song...............

 

First heard on a late-night Texas radio program that played obscure rock songs.
Didn't catch the name at the time, though I was able to surmise the title of the song as 'Girl Don't Change Your Mind'. 20 years before the internet and so I didn't discover the name of the band until I got into collecting rare 45s from the mid-60s and procured a mint copy at a record fair. I wasn't even sure at the time I bought it if it was even the right song or artist but took a chance and hit the jackpot! Of course my memory of it had been idealized in my mind, but the chord changes and melody were what grabbed me...very cool.

Eddie Cunningham & The Lone Rangers

 

I've had quite a few of those lost songs...here's one I originally heard circa 1969 or 1970 on the radio at school and didn't know the title or artist. I had all but given up on finding it, but a year or two ago I stumbled across it on a radio playlist that I found on the internet. "She's Got Love" by Thomas and Richard Frost:

 

Jeff's Bolero was one I couldn't pinpoint for years ~ I'd hear it on classic rock radio and always thought it was a Yardbirds song. (Who knew it was Keith Moon on drums? : )

 

'chuck's lament' - a crosby stills & nash b-side to 'live it up'. only appeared on a vinyl 45, and on a european single for 'live it up'. it should have been included on the CSN box set.

'half your angles" CSN - internet only release and only available for about 2 days. never ever on any physical media, the song was re-done for the crosby*nash '04 album.

 

What's your longest time between hearing a song and learning who did it?

 

And yet, there it was on YouTube. How do they do it? I really feel I owe them a debt of gratitude!

 

45 years.

 

Great drum work on it.

 

Well you could have gone to my thread and bumped that

 

I used to tape some punk/hardcore shows off the radio in the '80s. One song I was never able to find again was a song with a bunch of feedback. The guy kept singing about ice cream. Weird song, I can still hear it clearly in my head.

"I’m going to tell you how it’s going to be… you’re gonna give some ice cream to me!

I don’t care what the people say…. I’m going to eat ice cream every day!”

 

The WPLJ radio edit of Another Brick In The Wall...until I found this forum. I thought I was nuts.

 

Oh yeah,there are three that come to mind for me..Alone With No Love[Contemplations-1969]I actually had this little gem but it was stolen,Please Baby Please[Realistics-1970]..Crying Won't Help You Now[Clyde McPhatter-1965].

 

Here's another one that I heard in the late sixties...the title was something I couldn't miss, since it's the main hook of the song, but I didn't get the name of the artist at the time. I was crazy about the song but never heard it after 1968. But then, lo and behold, in the mid -eighties I found a 45 in the local Salvation Army thrift store and there it was-"October Country" on the Epic label. And the artist name was the same as the song title..."October Country" by the October Country. I remember thinking "Jeez, no wonder I couldn't find it!"
When I played it at home it was as fantastic as I remembered. Some people here on the forum may remember it:

 

I bought that album fairly recently, sound unheard.

 

After watching part of Kate Bush Live At Hammersmith on Up All Night, I forgot who the artist was (I don't think I saw the credits), until Hounds of Love came out about two years later.

 

Sometime in the 90s, listening to radio I heard a psychobilly kinda cover of "The Good, the Bad & the Ugly"... it wasn't particularly revelatory but I liked how it started with some guy cackling "Blondie, you're going to die!" Anybody know who did that version?

 

This qualifies in a backwards sort of way. I heard this song on CKLW in 1974 (home of lots of great "Canadian Content" records that otherwise got no airplay in the States).

I remembered the artist name and even scored a promo copy of it several years later. But what I didn't know until fairly recently is that:

a) This is actually Terry Jacks, and that he was having his success with this at roughly the same time he hit with "Seasons in the Sun"

b) It's a cover of an old song by The Beau Marks.


I just remember being amazed that something this garage-punky could have been played on the radio in 1974!

 

Around 1994, while driving in my car, I heard a local (Tampa, Florida) radio station play a very long live track from the then-recent Woodstock '94 concert. It was Melissa Etheridge doing a medley of Janis Joplin songs [Try (Just A Little Bit Harder) / Cry Baby / Move Over / Piece of My Heart]. I was transfixed. As far as I can tell, it has not appeared on any official CD or even radio station promo CD. Anyone know where I can find this?

Note: I later found it on a Melissa Etheridge / Cranberries CD of Woodstock '94 material that I suspect is a bootleg. It is in poor audio quality on this CD compared to what I heard on the radio that day. It runs ~15 minutes in length.

 

Yes, I got the CD myself about six years ago, I'd rate it a solid B+. The song was written by Michael Lloyd who also did a version with the studio group The Smoke.

It's a WHOLE lot easier to find lost songs in the internet era...but pre-internet it was a lot of fun looking for them, though sometimes it could be really frustrating!

 

45 years.

 

45 years