Hidden tracks

**PeterG** · 02-24-2016

I was just listening to Cathedral's Caravan Beyond Redemption, and as track 12 ended, rather than get up and put on a new album, I carried on with what I was writing, then after about 5 minutes of silence an English street scene with talking, newspaper sellers, traffic and so on blasts out of my speakers and scares the crap out of me. Little did I know that track 12 had not finished!

**bob_32_116** · 02-24-2016

There are a couple of albums in my collection that have "hidden tracks".

Coldplay - X&Y has an unlisted track at the end: "'Til Kingdom Come".
Crowded House - Woodface has a similar hidden track at the end: "I'm Still Here".

In recent years the "hidden track" gimmick has become a bit of a joke. For example Coldplay's Viva La Vida album has two "hidden tracks", but they are listed on the case, so I am not sure in what sense they are hidden.

**pb2015** · 02-24-2016

Fripp had "hidden" banter and similar stuff on The Great Deceiver and other Crimson live releases. For that matter, the tuning bit at the end of Islands was pretty much a hidden track in 1971.

**rcarlberg** · 02-24-2016

Philippe Besomes had a hidden track on a reissue CD on MIO, it was registered as "track zero" so the only way to play it was to back up from track one. They did this I guess because it was markedly different in style from the rest of the album.

**Lopez** · 02-24-2016

On the Byrds' Columbia Legacy release of The Notorious Byrd Brothers there's a hidden track for which you have to wait a minute or two, but it's worth it. It's a couple of minutes of David Crosby ranting at Michael Clarke about his drumming.

**Ground and Sky's Ghost** · 02-24-2016

Originally Posted by PeterG

I was just listening to Cathedral's Caravan Beyond Redemption, and as track 12 ended, rather than get up and put on a new album, I carried on with what I was writing, then after about 5 minutes of silence an English street scene with talking, newspaper sellers, traffic and so on blasts out of my speakers and scares the crap out of me. Little did I know that track 12 had not finished!

Weird Al did that on one of his albums. After about 10 minutes of silence following the last song you're suddenly assaulted with full-volume screams and banging and crashing.

Fripp's tendency to put hidden tracks on every Crimson-related release for a while there really annoyed the crap out of me when I converted my CDs to MP3 because it meant that I had to use a WAV editor to delete the blank parts so there wouldn't be big empty spaces between songs if I used the randomizer. He's not the only culprit, but he did it more than anyone else in my collection.

The oddest CD I've seen for hidden tracks is Cracker's Kerosene Hat. After the 12 listed songs there are two short, blank tracks and then track 15 is the sounds of construction (I think it was the band working on their recording studio), then a bunch more blank tracks, then the song "Eurotrash Girl"as track 69, more blanks, an untitled song on track 88, more blanks and finally a jokey "unplugged" version of the title song on track 99.

**PeterG** · 02-24-2016

Originally Posted by Ground and Sky's Ghost

The oddest CD I've seen for hidden tracks is Cracker's Kerosene Hat. After the 12 listed songs there are two short, blank tracks and then track 15 is the sounds of construction (I think it was the band working on their recording studio), then a bunch more blank tracks, then the song "Eurotrash Girl"as track 69, more blanks, an untitled song on track 88, more blanks and finally a jokey "unplugged" version of the title song on track 99.

Yes, I had that on CD. And the CD ended (or so I thought, same as with Cathedral) and I was busy somewhere else in the flat, so hadn't bothered to change CDs, then all of a sudden, I think "WTF is that noise?"

**Burley Wright** · 02-24-2016

I'm glad that fad is over. I'd get pissed when I'd see "wow, a 70-minute album" and then find out 20 minutes of it is dead air at the beginning of a "secret bonus" track.

**bigbassdrum** · 02-24-2016

"Horse' = the 14th track on Live's 'Throwing Copper' CD - to me, sounds like it could have the been done by the Stones in the late-70's

**frinspar** · 02-24-2016

Originally Posted by Burley Wright

I'm glad that fad is over. I'd get pissed when I'd see "wow, a 70-minute album" and then find out 20 minutes of it is dead air at the beginning of a "secret bonus" track.

Me too. Plenty of bands in the 90s used that tactic, and I could never understand why. So annoying.
There was a local band called Split - still have their CD - that filled up the remaining space on the CD with 4-second clips of flies buzzing, so they could also hit the peak of tracks a CD could display at 99. Something like 20 minutes of that crap. Dicks.

**jkelman** · 02-24-2016

Originally Posted by pb2015

Fripp had "hidden" banter and similar stuff on The Great Deceiver and other Crimson live releases. For that matter, the tuning bit at the end of Islands was pretty much a hidden track in 1971.

Not to mention Gentle Giant at the end of In A Glass House's title track and Interview's "I Lost My Head," and at the end of Yes' Fragile, a reprise of "We Have Heaven."

**GuitarGeek** · 02-24-2016

There's some people who regard Her Majesty on Abbey Road as a hidden track, because it wasn't listed on the original album (it wasn't even supposed to be there, it got spliced onto the master by accident).

**rcarlberg** · 02-25-2016

Originally Posted by GuitarGeek

There's some people who regard Her Majesty on Abbey Road as a hidden track, because it wasn't listed on the original album (it wasn't even supposed to be there, it got spliced onto the master by accident).

It's a little more complicated than that.

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

The song was originally placed between "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Polythene Pam"; McCartney decided that the sequence did not work and the song was edited out of the medley by Abbey Road Studios tape operator John Kurlander. He was instructed by McCartney to destroy the tape, but EMI policy stated that no Beatles recording was ever to be destroyed. The fourteen seconds of silence between "The End" and "Her Majesty" are the result of Kurlander's lead-out tape added to separate the song from the rest of the recording.

The loud chord that occurs at the beginning of the song is the ending, as recorded, of "Mean Mr. Mustard".[4] "Her Majesty" ends abruptly because its own final note was left at the beginning of "Polythene Pam". Paul applauded Kurlander's "surprise effect" and the track became the unintended closer to the LP. The crudely edited beginning and end of "Her Majesty" shows that it was not meant to be included in the final mix of the album; as McCartney says in The Beatles Anthology, "Typical Beatles – an accident." The song was not listed on the original vinyl record's sleeve as the sleeves had already been printed; on reprinted sleeves, however, it is listed. The CD edition corrects this.

**bob_32_116** · 02-25-2016

^^ Ah yes, I can see how it would have fitted after "Always takes him to see the Queen".

**pb2015** · 02-25-2016

Originally Posted by jkelman

Not to mention Gentle Giant at the end of In A Glass House's title track and Interview's "I Lost My Head," and at the end of Yes' Fragile, a reprise of "We Have Heaven."

An Al Kooper album from around that time titled Easy Does It had an outtake hidden at the end of side four where he misses a note and drops a four-letter word or two. I saw a radio copy of that LP once where the program director wrote all over the cover not to play that bit and even drew in black marker over that section of the vinyl.

**happytheman** · 02-25-2016

One of many pleasant surprises from the Tormato release was Onward sans vocals..

**Progbear** · 02-25-2016

Originally Posted by GuitarGeek

There's some people who regard Her Majesty on Abbey Road as a hidden track, because it wasn't listed on the original album (it wasn't even supposed to be there, it got spliced onto the master by accident).

Also “Don’t Sit Down” off of David Bowie’s Space Oddity LP.

**Mister Triscuits** · 02-25-2016

I was going to suggest "Train in Vain" by the Clash as a pre-CD era hidden track, but on looking into it, I see that the band never intended for it to be hidden. It was just a last-minute addition to the album, recorded after the album cover had already gone to the printer.

**spacefreak** · 02-26-2016

Nirvana’s Endless, Nameless at the end of Nevermind is the first CD hidden track I've listened to, back in 1991.

**spacefreak** · 02-26-2016

Originally Posted by GuitarGeek

There's some people who regard Her Majesty on Abbey Road as a hidden track, because it wasn't listed on the original album (it wasn't even supposed to be there, it got spliced onto the master by accident).

How do you have a hidden track on vinyl? You mean, it just isn't listed on the jacket.

**pb2015** · 02-26-2016

Originally Posted by spacefreak

How do you have a hidden track on vinyl?

Unless you're standing there looking at the vinyl while the record plays, the long silence makes it qualify as a hidden track, I think.

**Rune Blackwings** · 02-26-2016

On Ulver's "Themes on William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell", there is a hidden track after "Song of Liberty" (the final track)

On the compilation "Twisted Willie", if you hold the back button on the first track, there is a hidden track of Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings talking

On Arcturus's "La Masquerade Infernale", there is an untitled hidden track

I think Jars of Clay had a hidden track on their first album-a version of "Fragile" or "Frail"?