20 Songs Rock’s Biggest Stars Refused to Play Live

For some artists, the fun of a success track by no means dies. But for others, that enjoyment fizzles out fully.

Fans might proceed to have a good time sure songs, however generally sufficient is sufficient for the individuals who make them. Occasionally that has do to with a track’s huge recognition weighing on them or the monotony of getting to carry out it stay over and time and again. And sometimes time simply renders songs pointless.

Whatever the case, within the under checklist of 20 Songs Rock’s Biggest Stars Refused to Play Live, we check out some widespread fan favorites which were lower from set lists over time. Sometime it is only a momentary break, however different occasions they’re lower for good.

Pink Floyd – “Echoes” 

After the dying of Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright in 2008, guitarist David Gilmour retired “Echoes.” In addition to working nearly 25 minutes, with prolonged instrumental passages that makes enjoying it stay a tough job, the track simply is not the identical with out Wright. “Yes, it would be lovely to play ‘Echoes’ here,” Gilmour instructed Rolling Stone forward of his 2016 efficiency on the Amphitheatre of Pompeii. “But I wouldn’t do that without Rick. There’s something that’s specifically so individual about the way that Rick and I play in that that you can’t get someone to learn it and do it just like that. That’s not what music’s about.”

Genesis – “Abacab” 

When Genesis reunited for a 2007 tour and mentioned set-list choices, some basic songs did not make the lower. “That happened with ‘Abacab,’ which I’m sure everyone expects us to do,” drummer Phil Collins instructed Rolling Stone on the time. “Halfway through the first verse, I said, ‘I don’t really want to sing this. I don’t know what it’s about.'” The track hasn’t carried out by the band since 1987.

AC/DC – “Long Way to the Top”

“Long Way to the Top”‘s live-performance historical past lasted solely 4 years from its debut in 1975, but it surely grew to be one in all AC/DC’s most recognizable songs over time. “In time, it became iconic and associated with the band, but oddly enough the band doesn’t play it,” former bassist Mark Evans mentioned to Noise 11. “It has become a lot bigger song in time than when it first came out.” The motive for its omission from set lists s easy: After the dying of singer Bon Scott in early 1980, his alternative, Brian Johnson, selected to by no means carry out the track out of respect for his predecessor.

Robert Plant – Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”

There’s no denying the immense affect and recognition of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.” But singer Robert Plant considers it a earlier chapter of his profession that he is not eager to revisit. The track has been carried out stay solely when the band briefly reunited for one-off reveals in 1985, 1988 and 2007; Plant refuses to sing the track at solo concert events. “I look at it and I tip my hat to it, and I think there are parts of it that are incredible,” he instructed Uncle Joe Benson on the Ultimate Classic Rock Nights radio present. “The way that Jimmy [Page] took the music through, and the way that the drums reached almost climaxed and then continued … it’s a very beautiful piece. But lyrically, now, and even vocally, I go, ‘I’m not sure about that.’”

John Fogerty – Creedence Clearwater Revival Songs

In perhaps one of the music industry’s most bitter ironies, John Fogerty doesn’t own the rights to the songs he wrote while in Creedence Clearwater Revival, thanks to a bad deal with the band’s old record company head. When CCR broke up in 1972, Fogerty, unable to get out of his contract, still owed the label songs. “I discovered myself within the horrible place of getting to give any new music, any new information, to Saul Zaentz,” he told UCR in 2019. “That was why I finished.” Fogerty quit playing CCR songs and refused to make any new music until 1985, when he released Centerfield, but he still doesn’t own the rights to the music he made a half-century ago. “Hopefully, I’m going to stay lengthy sufficient that they lastly revert to me,” he said. “It’s a interval of about 56 years, and to this point, we have been celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of ‘Proud Mary,’ so that you do the maths. It needs to be fairly quickly.”

Elton John – “Empty Garden (Hey Hey Johnny)”

Elton John rarely plays “Empty Garden (Hey Hey Johnny)” live, but it’s not because he’s grown weary of singing the song. It has to do with the subject matter and the painful memories it brings up. Written as a tribute to his late friend John Lennon – with whom he had collaborated a number of times, including Lennon’s last ever concert appearance in 1974 at Madison Square Garden – “Empty Garden” has been performed onstage only a handful of times since its debut in 1982.

Heart – “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You”

The original version of “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You” sung by Dobie Gray was relatively straightforward and harmless. Heart’s version, which weaves a tale of a woman who seduces a hitchhiker with the intention of getting pregnant, was less so … and proved more and more controversial as the years went on. “Like, you are a hitchhiker, I do not know you, so let’s get within the automobile and alternate fluids, and now, get out,” Ann Wilson said in a 2015 interview with Dan Rather. “I imply, that is hideous.” Needless to say, the band won’t perform the song anymore.

Billy Joel – “Just the Way You Are”

Written for his first wife (and former business manager) Elizabeth Weber, “Just the Way You Are” lost much of its luster after the couple divorced in 1982. Occasionally, Joel’s drummer, Liberty DeVitto, would jokingly substitute lyrics: “She bought the home, she bought the automobile.” Joel rarely performed the song from the late ’80s onward. “Every time I wrote a track for an individual I used to be in a relationship with, it did not final,” Joel said. “It was sort of just like the curse. Here’s your track – we’d as properly say goodbye now.”

King Crimson – “twenty first Century Schizoid Man”

King Crimson went 22 years without playing the classic “twenty first Century Schizoid Man,” the opening track from their 1969 debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King. The last time they played it before taking a break was in New York City’s Central Park in 1974. After that, the song came to represent an older version of the band that had little in common with the reimagined Crimson lineups of the ’80s and ’90s. “From the very get-go, wherever we went in the world, there would be someone shouting, ‘Play ‘Schizoid Man!’ Play ‘Schizoid Man!’” guitarist Adrian Belew told Rolling Stone in 2019. “It got to be almost frustrating to us, because we didn’t want to do that, and I remember in particular [leader] Robert [Fripp] would not do that at that point. So it got be a joke in the band: ‘If you don’t play ’21st Century Schizoid Man,’ how can you call yourself King Crimson?’” The band finally returned to playing the song live in 1996.

Nirvana – “Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was so prevalent after its surprise success, it even got under Kurt Cobain’s skin. “Everyone has centered on that track a lot,” he told Rolling Stone in 1994. “The motive it will get a giant response is individuals have seen it on MTV one million occasions. It’s been pounded into their brains.” The band turned much less and fewer inclined to play the track stay; issues lastly got here to a head at a 1992 live performance in Buenos Aires when Nirvana’s opening band, Calamity Jane, bought booed off the stage. When Nirvana appeared, they determined to educate the viewers a bit of lesson. “Before every song, I’d play the intro to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and then stop,” Cobain was quoted as saying within the 2004 e book, Nirvana: The Chosen Rejects. “They didn’t realize that we were protesting against what they’d done. We played for about [40] minutes, and most of the songs were off [the odds-and-ends compilation record] Incesticide, so they didn’t recognize anything. We wound up playing the secret noise song [‘Endless, Nameless’] that’s at the end of Nevermind, and because we were so in a rage and were just so pissed off about this whole situation, that song and whole set were one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had.”

Foo Fighters – “Big Me”

The music video for Foo Fighters’ “Big Me” famously featured parodies of Mentos commercials. Apparently the idea resonated a lot with followers that they picked up the behavior of throwing the disc-shaped mints on the band when it was performing. “We did stop playing that song for a while because, honestly, it’s like being stoned,” frontman Dave Grohl recalled in 2006. “Those little … things are like pebbles — they hurt.” But when Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo approached Grohl about protecting the track throughout a joint tour, Grohl had a change of coronary heart. “[Weezer] played it every … night,” mentioned Grohl. “And we actually started to miss it. So, once that tour ended and we went back out on our own, we kinda threw it back into the set list.”

Styx – “Mr. Roboto”

“Mr. Roboto” was just about singer Dennis DeYoung’s track. So, when he left Styx in 1984, the remainder of the members did not really feel snug performing it stay with out him. But after three a long time of prodding from followers, the band lastly began performing the track at reveals. “For the most part, it gets a huge response,” guitarist James Young told AZ Central in 2019. “I mean, we’ve had a few people giving us the finger in the first row but not many.”

U2 – “Exit”

It isn’t exactly clear why “Exit,” a song from U2’s 1987 breakthrough album The Joshua Tree, disappeared from the band’s set lists, but there’s one stark possibility: It was cited in the trial of Robert John Bardo, who was convicted of the 1989 murder of actress Rebecca Schaeffer. A psychiatrist testifying for the defense said that Bardo told him in interviews about the song’s influence on him and his actions. Perhaps to calm the waters, “Exit” didn’t return to U2’s sets until their 2017 tour, where they played The Joshua Tree in its entirety.

Prince – “1999”

As Prince himself notes in “1999,” parties aren’t meant to last. Also, there’s the little problem with the song’s built-in expiration date. “This is going to be the last time we play it,” he said on CBS’ The Early Show in 1999. “We’re going to retire it after this, and there won’t be [a] need to play it in the ’00s.” That wasn’t entirely true: Prince performed the classic song at his 2007 Super Bowl halftime show and eventually included it in concerts until his death in 2016.

R.E.M. – “Shiny Happy People”

“Shiny Happy People” was a hit song for R.E.M., but it really wasn’t a creatively fulfilling one. “It’s a fruity pop track written for kids,” singer Michael Stipe said in 2016. “If there was one track that was despatched into outer house to characterize R.E.M. for the remainder of time, I’d not need it to be ‘Shiny Happy People.'(*20*)Tears in Heaven”

The death of Eric Clapton’s four-and-a-half-year-old son, who fell from a New York apartment in 1991, inspired “Tears in Heaven,” but by the early ’00s, he no longer wanted to relive those painful memories onstage night after night. “I didn’t feel the loss anymore, which is so much a part of performing those songs,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I really have to connect with the feelings that were there when I wrote them. They’re kind of gone, and I really don’t want them to come back, particularly. My life is a different life now.”

Sinead O’Connor – “Nothing Compares 2 U”

Sinead O’Connor’s second album, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got, was a blockbuster, reaching No. 1 and earning four Grammy nominations. The 1990 LP contained her most famous song, a hit cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U.” But she retired the song after decades of performance, saying she had lost the emotional connection to it she once had. “I don’t want audiences to be disappointed coming along to a show and then not hearing it, so I am letting you know here that you won’t,” O’Connor wrote on Facebook in 2015. “If I were to sing it just to please people, I wouldn’t be doing my job right, because my job is to be emotionally available. I’d be lying. You’d be getting a lie. My job is to give you honesty. I’m trained in honesty. I can’t act. It just isn’t in my training. I have ceased singing other songs over the years for the same reason.” She did, however, offer one more performance of the song in the wake of Prince’s 2016 death on The Late Late Show.

Radiohead – “Creep”

Radiohead stormed out of the gate strong. “Creep,” the band’s most successful single, appeared on its debut LP, 1993’s Pablo Honey, and while it certainly launched Radiohead, it also became a chore to play live. “We seemed to be living out the same four and a half minutes of our lives over and over again,” guitarist Jonny Greenwood instructed The Times in 1995 (through Rolling Stone). “It was incredibly stultifying.” “Creep” was so widespread that followers would sometimes request the track at reveals after which promptly depart as soon as it was over. At one specific live performance in Montreal, singer Thom Yorke reportedly yelled again on the viewers: “Fuck off, we’re tired of it.” The track did not seem on set lists once more till the 2009 Reading Festival after which once more on the 2017 Glastonbury Festival.

Korn – “Daddy”

According to singer Jonathan Davis, “Daddy,” the closing observe from Korn’s 1994 self-titled debut album, was written about his expertise being molested as a toddler – a heinous act not believed by his mother and father. Given that heavy theme, Davis selected not to carry out the track stay. “He’s already emotionally drained when he leaves the stage after our set,” guitarist James “Munk” Shaffer mentioned. “So, I couldn’t imagine him leaving the stage after playing that song.” It wasn’t till 2015 that Davis felt snug sufficient to carry out “Daddy” stay.

Megadeth – “The Conjuring”

After dabbling in black magic as a young person, Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine later dedicated to Christianity. So, that meant “The Conjuring” – which incorporates references to the occult, hexes and the satan – was now not going to be within the band’s units. Beginning in 2001, Mustaine refused to carry out the track. “When I was 15, I got into witchcraft and black magic, so I’ve known for over 30 years the power of the dark side, and it took me forever to break those chains,” he mentioned to Decibel in 2007. “There’s no cool way to sing about Satan — you look like a punk.” Years later, although, he reconsidered. “When I first did the whole, ‘You know what? I’m not gonna be a heathen anymore. I’m gonna clean up my life’ thing, I kind of put some brakes on things I would and wouldn’t do,” he instructed The Morning Blaze With Gus & Izzy in 2016. “And as I grow, I evolve in my outlook and my personal journey here, being a positive person and being a positive influence on other people’s lives. So, as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody, I wouldn’t mind doing the song again, ’cause it is a good song.” The band reintroduced “The Conjuring” to its set lists for the primary time in 17 years in 2018.