Albums That You'd Love To Hear Drafts of Songs From

[Screwtape2]

By drafts of songs, I mean songs that the band would look at late in the recording process when deciding what to continue to work on or put on the album. Stuff like Rise Up and Be There that didn't make the album or early versions of songs like Desert of Our Love (Still Haven't Found), Native Son (Vertigo) and Always (Beautiful Day).

Rank the albums in order of which you'd love to hear these songs from and why. I'd love to hear the different reasonings.

1. The Joshua Tree
It is really those 30 second clips that has most intrigued me especially after hearing the Rise Up clip and then not be disappointed by the rest of the song. I'd love to see if there were any early drafts of Bullet, Red Hill Mining Town or With Or Without You.

2. Zooropa
Early HMTMKMKM, Wake Up Dead Man and others would be great to hear. The list in Until The End of The World has so many wonderfully interesting titles. Plus I'd love to hear Sinatra (early Stay).

3. The Unforgettable Fire
I'm not sure there would be much but there must be some unreleased songs that came out of Eno experiments. Plus I'd love to hear more lyrics from that time.

4. Pop
More than anything I'd love to hear the versions of 2000's songs that began in the Pop sessions.

5. Achtung Baby
I'd love to hear what happened to Heaven and Hell and She's Gonna Blow Your House Down. I'd love to see early versions of songs take a leap into an actual song and less of a jam. Achtung Baby is like a story that is missing its climax.

6. ATYCLB
How could you resist hearing the transition from Pop to pop.

7. Bomb
I'd love to hear these songs before they were destroyed in production. I'd also like to see if they did anything else in the vein of Mercy.

8. War
I wouldn't expect much in terms of number of songs but Be There and The Drowning Man make me wonder what we never heard.

The rest of the albums probably have little to nothing in terms of songs.

 

[mandrake]

I really want to hear the Zooropa and Pop demos if anything (yea OK go ahead and make the joke that Pop is just a bunch of demos). It doesnt seem any of these really exsist anywhere, unless someone else knows more (on the scale the Achtung Baby Hansa Ton studios outtakes are).

 

[quietguy]

I'd want to hear drafts of songs from the upcoming album even before it gets released. Something like the Hansa tapes.

...qg

 

[LemonMelon]

Zooropa and Pop, definitely.

 

[Acrobat51829]

Pop, definitely.

 

[LMP]

Call me a buzzkill, but I prefer hearing the finished product over any in-development tracks any day. If the artist wanted to release that version, they would have, and 9 times out of 10, the finished material outweighs the demos, in my opinion. If there was studio/record company interference or something and they were forced to put something out that didn't fit, Pop, for example, then that's a different circumstance.

 

[LemonMelon]

Call me a buzzkill, but I prefer hearing the finished product over any in-development tracks any day.

Well, duh. This isn't about which album's demos could be crafted into something better than the finished album, just which album you think would have the most interesting demos. It's a fair question.

And the answer is definitely Pop.

 

[LMP]

Well, duh. This isn't about which album's demos could be crafted into something better than the finished album, just which album you think would have the most interesting demos. It's a fair question.

And the answer is definitely Pop.

Hah, true on both points.

I'm just saying I'm not too interested in demos to begin with.

 

[namkcuR]

There's got to be a version of The Wanderer with Bono's vocal track instead of Cash's somewhere in the U2 vault, and I think it would be very interesting to hear.

 

[MrPryck2U]

All of them.

 

[Sleep Over Jack]

2. Zooropa
Early HMTMKMKM, Wake Up Dead Man and others would be great to hear. The list in Until The End of The World has so many wonderfully interesting titles. Plus I'd love to hear Sinatra (early Stay).

What were those titles? I don't think I've heard of them.

As for me, I'd choose Zooropa ( for the Pop tracks and HMTMKMKM) and ATYCLB (mainly because they recorded so many songs for it).

 

[digitize]

All of them.

You beat me to it.

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

POP.

 

[alanah]

All of them.

Ditto.

 

[Screwtape2]

What were those titles? I don't think I've heard of them.

SONGS:
Babyface
Wandering
Sinatra
Zooropa
Wake Up Dead Man
First Time
Kiss Me Kill Me
Velvet Dress
Wandering I.

VIBES:
Numb
If God Will
Crashed Car
Jesus Drove Me
Cry Baby
Indian Jam
Sponge
Lose Control
Nose Job

SOUNDTRACK:
Piano: Poem
Landscape
Lemon
Sinatra

 

[phillyfan26]

I don't know why someone would want to hear demos from Pop. The album is the demos. The tour has the finished products.

 

[U2girl]

Joshua Tree. With those B-sides, that's a given.

 

[Sleep Over Jack]

SONGS:
Babyface
Wandering
Sinatra
Zooropa
Wake Up Dead Man
First Time
Kiss Me Kill Me
Velvet Dress
Wandering I.

VIBES:
Numb
If God Will
Crashed Car
Jesus Drove Me
Cry Baby
Indian Jam
Sponge
Lose Control
Nose Job

SOUNDTRACK:
Piano: Poem
Landscape
Lemon
Sinatra

Thanks. It's really fascinating to see how many songs we still haven't heard from the various albums. I remember an interview from the 1990s somewhere with a writer who said the band had about 6 (?) rock songs that were amazing tracks. I always wonder what those tunes are like.

 

[kkaider]

Personally I'd be much more interested in hearing how the band discussed the songs and made decisions about which to pursue and what things to add or drop, than in hearing the early demos. And I mean literally hearing - not just the band's filtered memories - I want to be The Fly on the wall while they are discussing it.

I think the context of how the songs came to be and how the band worked things out would be fascinating. For me the glimpses we got of that in Until the End of the World were the best parts of the book.

 

[The Disciple]

Zooropa & Pop.... plus the new album, which may now sound radically different when finally released next year.

 

[The Disciple]

I don't know why someone would want to hear demos from Pop. The album is the demos. The tour has the finished products.

Wow... that's actually a VERY good point.

 

[Bottle Bono]

It's about the Process.

Wouldn't you love to know the process.

 

[Moser]

Pop.