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I'm a Baby Boomer who has always been passionate about music. I started with prerecorded cassette tapes, and then switched to LPs during college because of the better sound quality and the cool liner notes and enclosed lyrics. When CDs came out, I started replacing my favorite LPs (which were full of pops and other surface noise), and eventually sold all but a few of my LPs. My CD collection grew to the hundreds, and then I started downloading digital music, too. I now own just about every song I ever loved, but there are a few that don't exist anywhere. Some were on LPs that I sold and that never became available on CD or in MP3 or AAC format. Others I used to hear on the radio, but I never bought them. Every so often, I Google these songs, but so far, I've come up empty:
"Naked City," by Seth Conner (c. 1968) -- This is one of the first 45 rpm rock singles I liked as a kid. One of my friends owned it. I still remember the first verse: "There are 8 million stories in the Naked City -- 8 million stories, they say (Wooooh!)/Oh, there are 8 million stories in the Naked City, baby/That I don't want to tell you today." This song and artist are so obscure that I've never even found an on-line reference to them, let alone met anyone else who remembers them.
"Let Go," by Glen Campbell (c. 1977) -- This classic country song was from the album that contained Glen's hit "Sunflower." I've found the lyrics on line, but not the song or the album.
Read On (entire album), by John Dawson Read (c. 1977) -- This British neo-folkie recorded a couple of beautiful albums in the 1970s, switched to a marketing career for the next three decades, and returned to music a couple years ago. Unfortunately, he signed away the rights to his early recordings when he was starting out, and whoever owns them now won't allow him to rerelease those albums, even though he wants to. On his website, he was somehow allowed to post a few of his old songs, but not some of my favorites.
"Money Changes Everything," by the Brains (c. 1978) -- Cindy Lauper had the hit, but the original version was recorded by this Atlanta band. I lived in Atlanta at the time, and it was a big deal for local music fans when Cindy recorded the song.
"The Woman in Me," by Rita Coolidge (c. 1982) -- "You can't break the woman in me, but you might break the smile/You can't hurt the woman in me, but you might hurt the child." This lovely country song was written by an Atlanta singer/songwriter who never found fame, and I preferred her live version to Rita's recorded version, but not even that is available anymore.
"Everybody Makes Mistakes," by Lacey J. Dalton (c. 1982): "Break my heart/Hearts get broken/Steal me blind/Money's just a token/And the stranger that you know is always stranger than he seems/And the king of hearts, he always gets the queen." This was standard country fare, but I liked it.
"Sweet Revenge," by David Johanssen (c. 1984) -- Yes, he was the former member of the proto-glam-rock band the New York Dolls, who later changed his name to Buster Poindexter, for unknown reasons. This was a minor (very minor) hit on college radio. It's nothing special; I just liked it.
"Rollin'," by Chris Stamey (c. 1984) -- Chris found some fame as an indie artist, and much of his music is available, but not this song about a man who lost his legs when a trailer fell on him, and then he became a preacher, rollin' everywhere in his wheelchair and spreadin' the Gospel.
That's all I remember at the moment. It's been a few months since I Googled these songs, so I need to check again. I'm not willing to pay top dollar for them, but it would be nice to find them. Does anyone else remember any of these? What are some of your favorite unavailable songs?
Great topic. One correction; David Johanssen didn't change his name to Buster Poindexter, he made some larkish appearances in the Buster Poindexter persona, and it caught on, but he never stopped being David Johanssen. To this day he makes appearances with the reformed New York Dolls, and also as David Johanssen and at other times Buster Poindexter. But he no more hanged his name to Poindexter than Christopher Guest changed his name to Nigel Tufnel.
I came here in my 20th fruitless search for a one hit wonder song where a woman sings her undying devotion to a man - or rather men, because she changes the guy's name in every line. It was clever, and on the radio, but more easy listening than rock stations. I didn't like it at the time, I'm just trying to solve this so I can move past it. I hope somebody can help me with this some day.
I always like the obscure hits, and often a song I really like dies off quickly and then I dont hear it for years but its stil in my head. I spent hours searching for certain songs back in the 90s, looking in libraries, used record stores, then on the Internet, Napster, Youtube, Last FM, Grooveshark, and every other place I could check out. Eventually I found pretty much all of them.
One that remains essentially lost is D L Byron, from the New Wave era. I had his 1980 album This Day and Age, and its one of my favorites. Lost the albums sometime in the 80s and all searches proved fruitless until a few years ago I found 3 tracks on the net. This is Listen to the Heartbeat, 1:42 of glorious power pop energy.
A lot of people don't know this but Moon Martin was the original artist that did Bad Case Of Lovin' You the better known Robert Palmer version was a cover.
After seeing the live stream of the festival this track immediately became one of my favorites, but sadly near 1.5 years later it remains unknown and there is no sign of it being officially released.
1) Ray LaMontagne's cover of "Crazy". Unlike the Cee Lo Green/Gnarls Barkley version that's very much a 'Pop" cut, LaMontagne's take consists of simply an acoustic guitar in a protest ballad strum and LaMontagne growling it out. Haunting and mesmerizing. I understand it was released only in Europe on a limited basis. (Disclaimer: I did manage to get my hands on a copy through questionable means. Still on the hunt for a legit copy).
2) Nick Lowe doing an acoustic version of his song "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding". Elvis Costello did a great job with the tune, but Lowe's acoustic guitar and vocal track comes across more as a questioning plea rather than an angry statement. Radio Paradise occasionally plays it from, I'm lead to believe, a compilation CD put together by a Toronto radio station. Zero luck snagging it.
Great idea for a thread, props OP
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