wikipedia.org is sometimes a great source of information. Sometimes, however, the problem of having a reference site that anyone can contribute to rears its ugly head. The following are excerpts from their articles on several Queen albums detailing unreleased tracks from each session. To say I'm taking this information with a grain of salt would be a rather extreme exaggeration (how many times have we heard that there is NO fast WWRY, for instance), but I thought I'd throw it out here in any event.
Again (in the interest of avoiding confusion and rumors)-I DON'T believe the following to be true, and won't unless some substantial evidence comes forward.
Queen II:
Unreleased songs from these sessions include John Deacon's first song, titled 'Fly By Night', as well as two songs called 'Deep Ridge' (by Brian) and 'Surrender To The City' (by Freddie). Initial ideas for 'Brighton Rock' and 'The Prophets Song' were laid down during these sessions
Sheer Heart Attack:
Along with 'Sheer Heart Attack', several further songs were recorded during these sessions: 'Psycho Legs', an early version of 'Death On Two Legs', was recorded, along with a track by John Deacon called 'Young And Crazy' (not related to 'Tenement Funster'). Other titles of songs include 'Rollin' On', 'Between The Punches', 'Several Saturday Nights', 'The Man In The Mirror', and a lengthy jam called 'Brian's Boogie
A Night At the Opera:
A song written by Brian and Freddie called 'And Baby Will Fall' was originally slated to end the album until it was decided that 'God Save The Queen' be the conclusion. Further, songs titled 'Woe' (written by Brian and Freddie), 'All For Nothing' (written by John), and 'Any Given Day' (written and sung by Brian) were also recorded
A Day At the Races:
Unreleased songs include an early version of 'We Are The Champions' (simply titled 'Champions' at this stage), a re-recording of 'Woe' by Brian and Freddie, a Brian song called 'The Night Draws In', and a Freddie song called 'Lap Of Luxury'.
News Of The World:
A Freddie vocal version of 'Fight From The Inside' was recorded, as was a fast version of 'We Will Rock You', a guitar version of 'My Melancholy Blues', and two versions - one standard rock and one reggae - of 'Who Needs You'. The only true outtakes include a Brian composition titled 'Batteries Not Included' and a Freddie composition titled 'Where Did You Go Now?'
Jazz:
'Coming Soon' was originally recorded during these sessions, and a song called 'Circles' (authorship unknown) was also recorded. These are the only true outtakes, though a Freddie vocal version of 'Leaving Home Ain't Easy' was also recorded. 'Jealousy' and 'In Only Seven Days' were heavily edited; the former ran over five minutes, while the latter edited out a piano solo that brought the song over four minutes
The Game:
Additional songs recorded in 1979:
* early versions of 'Rock It' and 'Don't Try Suicide'
* Roger Taylor's solo songs 'No Violins' and 'Let's Get Crazy'
* Brian May's songs: 'Lost Opportunity' (titled 'No Opportunity Wasted' at this point), 'I Go Crazy' (titled 'Go Crazy' at this point), and an initial idea for 'Dancer'
* Freddie Mercury's song: 'Sunshine'
Additional songs recorded in 1980:
* Roger Taylor's songs: 'Magic Is Loose', 'Harper County', 'Secrets Out', 'How's It Gonna End?', and 'A Human Body'
* Freddie Mercury's songs: 'Beautiful Day' (later released as 'It's A Beautiful Day' in 1995), 'Soul Brother', 'Mother Father', 'Living In The Heart Of Love', 'You've Got A Nice Way', and 'Chase A Star'
* Brian May's songs: a more fully-fledged version of 'Dancer', 'Back On The Streets', and songs called 'My Boy', 'The Dark', and 'I'm Scared' (titled 'Scared' at this point)
* John Deacon's songs: 'What Dreams Become' (rejected for being too melodic) and 'Sweet Lady Mine'
This illustrates why wikipedia is functionally useless and should be labeled "for entertainment purposes only" - like a psychic reading or a political debate.
Some of that has been confirmed in articles in Record Collector (Psycho Legs springs to mind). No idea about the rest. Surrender To The City is probably just the ending to MOTBQ as a seperate song or something.
Wikipedia can be edited by anyone so who knows maybe Greg edited it. I never heard of over half of the stuff, the only reasonable conclusion is that Greg made the edits lol.
Wikipedia can be edited by anyone so who knows maybe Greg edited it. I never heard of over half of the stuff, the only reasonable conclusion is that Greg made the edits lol.
Greg would never edit a page in Wikipedia, that's too much work for him. He would send a mass email to all collectors, asking them to do it.
'Deep Ridge' as an unreleased track from Queen II, has its origins in a post made here, many moons ago, by some Wind Up Merchant.
This mendacious WUM professed to have come across some QII outtakes, and named about 3 tracks that were supposedly amongst these outtakes. Come to think of it, the other two QII songs listed in Wikipedia are probably the very same tracks this deceitful little rogue mentioned too.
I suspect that a fair few of the other tracks there on Wikipedia have a similar provenance to Deep Ridge et al. But as Pim said, some of the other stuff has been confirmed in places like Record Collector and JSS's Ultimate Collections here.
this is like wow! i'm missing so many demos, i thought it's a joke but it has even song called My Boy (brian vocals) and i have it so i bellive other ones could be real too... i'dd live to hear freddie singing fight from the inside
I find it strange that whoever did the edit didnt mentin the oft available "Feels like" under NOTW. That hurts the credibility a lot. Though I still look at every item name individually and won't disbelieve or believe without proof.
I would love to hear "Surrender to the City" if a complete version of the ending diddy at the end of March of the Black Queen exists. Talk about Queen euphoria. Just thinking about it is pure joy. Have anyone else heard of a complete track existing?