8 Songs That Were Last Minute Additions To Classic Albums: Prince, Bruce Springsteen, and more

There's no way of knowing how many classic songs we'll never get to hear. Maybe the writers don't think they're good enough to release, or maybe they never received the right publicity. These eight songs came very close to never being heard, and were only included on their albums at the last minute.

1. Prince - "When Doves Cry" (1984)

Although Prince was already a star by 1984, his Purple Rain classic "When Doves Cry" was his first number one song in the US, and ended up being the top selling single of 1984 (there was some stiff competition, too), but the album was almost released without it. After having finished the rest of the album, the director of Purple Rain asked Prince to write one more song for the film. The following day, Prince had written "When Doves Cry."

(I'd post a Youtube link to the song, but Prince's music isn't on the Internet. Sorry! Just go out and buy Purple Rain, it's worth it.)

2. Bruce Springsteen - "Dancing in the Dark" (1984)

While "When Doves Cry" sat at the top of the Hot 100, another classic was sitting right beneath it at number two: Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark," and like Prince's song, it was a last-minute addition to the album. Springsteen had finished recording Born in the U.S.A., but his manager Jon Landau urged him to write one more song that could be released as the album's lead single. Though Springsteen initially refused, he eventually delivered "Dancing in the Dark," which became his biggest hit.

3. David Bowie - "Starman" (1972)

In 1972, David Bowie was thought to be a one-hit wonder, with his only commercial success being "Space Oddity" three years earlier, but the release of "Starman" turned Bowie into a rock icon. When recording his Ziggy Stardust album, "Starman" was nothing more than a demo, but after Bowie's label heard the song, they insisted that he record it for the album and release it as a single, which he did late in the album's sessions.

4. Black Sabbath - "Paranoid" (1970)

Black Sabbath's first ever single was "Paranoid," the title track from its second album, and though the song became one of Black Sabbath's biggest hits, it was actually written as album filler. Black Sabbath had recorded seven songs for its second LP (originally titled War Pigs), but when its label asked for one more, the band quickly wrote "Paranoid" in the studio, with drummer Bill Ward estimating it took "twenty, twenty-five minutes."

5. The Smiths - "I Won't Share You" (1987)

According to the Smiths biography A Light That Never Goes Out, the band had intended on closing out its fourth and final album Strangeways, Here We Come with the orchestral pop epic "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me." However, when guitarist Johnny Marr found an old autoharp in the recording studio, he quickly wrote the chord sequence to "I Won't Share You," and recorded it immediately. The simple ballad became the last song on the Smiths' last album.

6, 7, 8. The Stooges - "Real Cool Time"/"Not Right"/"Little Doll"

Although the Stooges' eponymous debut album contains eight songs in just thirty-five minutes, the band somehow thought it could get away with recording the album with only five songs (by my calculations, it adds up to just twenty-six minutes). When the Stooges' label understandably felt that the album didn't have enough songs, the band wrote and recorded three additional songs the very next day: "Real Cool Time," "Not Right," and "Little Doll."

Tags

The Stooges, Iggy Pop, The Smiths, Morrissey, Black Sabbath, David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, Prince, Purple rain