Rediscovered New Songs By Iconic Bands: The Beatles, Nirvana, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Radiohead

Earlier this year, Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen ignited rumors that new music featuring original Freddie Mercury vocals is being considered for public consumption. On the morning of October 13, Queen’s fanbase awoke to their biggest dreams becoming a reality, “Face It Alone” is the newly discovered single from the band’s 1988 studio sessions. The new single will be a part of an upcoming compilation CD from Queen which will feature 6 unreleased tracks, demos, and rough cuts set to be released on November 18 in an 8-disc box set. 

Songs get shelved or lost all the time and artists who are constantly recording have vaults so large any super fan would be overwhelmed by the amount of unreleased material. Some of these songs end up on future releases but the ones that don’t stay tucked away to the point of obscurity and they never see the light of day. Artists like Prince or Mac Miller have some of the more famously large unreleased catalogs, some of which we have seen released since each respective artist’s untimely passing, but the public truly has no clue how large these vaults can be. When a song from an iconic era of your favorite defunct band finally becomes available to you, it can transport you back to when you fell in love with their sound in the first place. 

Queen is not the first band to give a fresh face to an old recording. This practice has been recycled throughout the years, diving deep into the vaults of bands who have called it quits or has had members pass on, and releasing lost recordings from their most prolific eras. Glide has done the research and found five other resurfaced tracks from some of music’s most historic artists. 

Check out our list of outtakes below: 

The Beatles – “Free As A Bird” 

Originally Recorded: 1977 

Officially Released: 1995 

The origins of “Free As A Bird” and the story of how it came to be is a touching one. The bones of the track came from a demo John Lennon recorded at his home in 1977. It wasn’t until 1995, 25 years after The Beatles had officially called it quits and 15 years after Lennon’s tragic death, the remaining members of the famous four-piece got together to rework the original rough take. The new reworking of the demo landed on The Beatles’ compilation CD, Anthology 1, in November of 1995 and was released as its own promotional single for the compilation in December of that year. 

Nirvana – “You Know You’re Right

Originally Recorded: 1993-1994

Officially Released: 2002 

Very few songs have been shrouded in as much controversy as this particular single from the grunge forefathers, Nirvana. The story and legal battles surrounding this song are strenuous to dive into so we’ll try and keep it brief; the song was originally written in 1993 and could only be heard as a bootlegged live version from a concert that was recorded in October of the same year. A studio version was recorded during a 1994 recording session, Nirvana’s last session before Kurt Cobain’s tragic death, which occurred two months later. This original master tape of the song was held until 1998 when the remaining members of the band began to work on a compilation album for Nirvana. Due to legal issues between the band and Courtney Love the song and the box set were shelved with Love claiming the song wouldn’t reach its full potential on the compilation and that it deserved a proper release all to its own. Before these legal battles could be settled an unofficial mp3 of “You Know You’re Right” surfaced on the internet in 2002, creating a firestorm in the Nirvana fanbase and the music world as a whole. It was only after the leak that the two opposing parties released a statement that the official studio recording of the single would be featured on Nirvana’s upcoming greatest hits CD which officially hit the public on October 29, 2002. 

Radiohead – “I Promise

Originally Recorded: 1996

Officially Released: 2017

Coming out of what is arguably Radiohead’s most storied recording sessions, “I Promise” was originally recorded in 1996 during the making of their globally-praised LP, OK Computer. The hauntingly beautiful ballad was considered for the final track-listing but at the time the band didn’t think it was a good fit for the record, and it was put on the back burner, but not forgotten. The band started to perform the song live in 1997 and would continue to add it to random setlists while opening up for Alanis Morissette that same year.

In a Rolling Stone article from 1998, It’s stated that guitarist Ed O’Brien mentioned “I Promise” to the band during a recording session that year to possibly have it be on their new album, but nothing came of it. It wasn’t until 2017 that fans finally received a studio recording of the song as part of the 20th-anniversary reissue, OKNOTOK 1997 2017. The same day it premiered on BBC Radio, the music video was made available on Radiohead’s website and downloads were made available for those who pre-ordered the reissue. It was placed alongside the equally anticipated studio version of “Lift”, which was recorded during the same time period as “I Promise” and also subsequently played live with no official release until OKNOTOK

Led Zeppelin – “Travelling Riverside Blues

Originally Recorded: 1969

Officially Released: 1990

The official release of Led Zepplin’s “Travelling Riverside Blues” was one of the most satisfying moments in rock history. The song was first written by the famous bluesman Robert Johnson all the way back in 1937 but wasn’t officially released until a compilation of the storied guitar player’s music was released in 1961. Led Zeppelin put their own spin on the track and recorded their version at BBC Studios in 1969. BBC was quick to add it to rotation on their radio shows and was first played on air on June 28, the same year it was recorded. The story goes that while Jimmy Page was touring the U.S. in support of his Outrider album, fans and interviewers were asking about an official release of “Travelling Riverside Blues”. Due to the fact it was recorded at a BBC studio, the media company owned the rights to the song, so an official release was out of Zeppelin’s hands until they negotiated the rights to the song with its owner. Finally, in 1990, the song was put into the hands of fans when it appeared on the band’s compilation boxed set. It was joined by another previously unreleased track, a live recording of “White Summer/Black Mountain Side” from a 1969 performance. 

Pink Floyd – The Endless River

Originally Recorded: 1993-1994 

Officially Released: 2014 

After co-founder and keyboardist of Pink Floyd Rick Wright passed away in 2008, the remaining members of the band, guitarist David Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason set out on a mission. Heartbroken by not being able to record any new music with their fallen bandmate, they decided to make it happen in the most creative and respectable way possible. The duo of Gilmour and Mason dug deep into Floyd’s unreleased music vault to find the best way to honor Wright’s legacy. What they landed on were songs from the original recording sessions for their 1994 album The Division Bell, an album they recorded extensively for.

These mostly instrumental tracks were originally put together as an ambient album by engineer Andy Jackson and were properly titled The Big Spliff, a project that was never released. In 2013 Mason and Gilmour decided to rework, rerecord, and use modern studio equipment to bring new life to these tracks that featured Wright’s own keyboard playing. What came out of these sessions is Pink Floyd’s final album, 2014’s The Endless River, an almost full instrumental piece that was spacious in its sound with its sweeping chord progressions and ambiance. 

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