Many albums get their titles from a specific song in the tracklisting, but there are rare occasions when these particular songs are cut from the album, but the album title remains the same. Here are seven title tracks that were left off of their albums.
1. Led Zeppelin - "Houses of the Holy" (1975)
Led Zeppelin's 1975 double LP Physical Graffiti was made up of songs recorded over the course of four years, including outtakes from three previous albums. One of these outtakes was "Houses of the Holy," which was the title track to the band's previous album, but was left off of that album for not fitting into the sequencing.
2. Tom Waits - "Frank's Wild Years" (1983)
Tom Wait's 1983 album Swordfishtrombones features a short track titled "Frank's Wild Years," a darkly comic spoken word piece about a guy named Frank who kills his wife and burns down his house in Los Angeles. In 1986, a play based on the song was produced in Chicago, featuring new music by Waits, which was released the following year on an album also titled Frank's Wild Years, though the title song wasn't featured on the album.
3. PJ Harvey - "Dry" (1993)
PJ Harvey's 1993 album Rid of Me has its own title track, the very first song on the album, but for whatever reason, it also features the title track to her previous album, 1992's Dry, one of the most shockingly explicit songs to come out of '90s alt-rock.
4. The Mars Volta - "Frances the Mute" (2005)
Since the Mars Volta's second album Frances the Mute was already 76 minutes long, the 14-minute title song couldn't have been included without turning the album into a double CD release, though many fans consider it to be part of the album and even place it as track one. The song was officially released on the single for "The Widow," though confusingly, it's on the single's A-side, instead of its B-side.
5. Belle & Sebastian - "The Life Pursuit" (2006)
Belle & Sebastian's very first album Tigermilk was named after a song that didn't appear on the album, and was never even recorded (if I'm wrong, someone please post a link to it). The band did this again for 2006's The Life Pursuit, though the title track for that album was recorded and became a B-side, eventually included on the 2013 compilation The Third Eye Centre.
6. Elliott Smith - "Either/Or" (2007)
When Elliott Smith tragically passed away in 2003, he left behind a great deal of unfinished and unreleased recordings. The first of these posthumous releases was From a Basement on the Hill, the album Smith was working on at the time of his death, and the most recent was 2007's New Moon, a collection of rarities and unreleased tracks, including the title track to his 1997 album Either/Or, which had never been officially released.
What other artists have left the title track off of their album? Let us know in the comments section!
