SY Songs Never Played Live
 

Looking at Chris Lawrence's awesome concert chronology, I was considering why certain songs, despite appearing on LP's, were never played live or were played five times or less. For some, there seem to be obvious reasons, on which I speculate below. For others, does anyone have any ideas as to why? Did certain songs just not sound right when played live?

1. I Dreamed I Dream (If you count that record as an LP)
2. Protect Me You
3. Justice is Might
4. In the Kingdom #19 - This one might be difficult to reproduce live
5. Disappearer - Hard to understand why. Wasn't this a single?
6. Mildred Pierce
7. Wish Fulfillment - Dirty was a pretty long record, with 15 songs. Hard to play all of them live. And Genetic, a Lee song not on that LP, got a lot of play during that tour.
8. On the Strip - See #7
9. Creme Brulee - See #7
10. Winner's Blues - Not much touring for this record, after birth of Coco.
11. Screaming Skull - See #10
12. Androgynous Mind - Pearl Jam has probably played this more than Sonic Youth has.
13. Quest for the Cup - See #10
14. Doctor's Orders - See #10
15. Sweet Shine - See #10
16. Little Trouble Girl - Probably couldn't get Kim Deal to hit the tour trail just for that song.
17. Contre Le Sexisme - Sounds more like an intro than a "song," per se. Still, I always loved it.
18. Snare, Girl - I believe this song grew out of one of the tracks on SY2. Maybe they played that song live? Was it Stil?
19. StreamXSonik Subway - Can't say I missed this one.
20. The Dripping Dream - Must say I missed this one.
21. Thunderclap for Bobby Pyn

Those songs are capable of killing humans when performed live. Sonic youth are not murderers.

ok from what I recall, I Dreamed I Dream was played live without vocals

Disappearer was played live at least once, I heard the live track, it sounded good, maybe it was too intricate to do every night

Mildred Pierce was played live once during the Goo tour, infact the video Dave Markey made for it features the live footage of the song

Dripping Dream was played a few times in early 2004 during their Australian tour, but not again, my thought was again too complex a song to play every night

Thunderclap was played i think 3 times in 09, caught one during their second DC show, but didn't play it much after

Why didn't they play Wish Fulfillment? It's as good as any song I've ever heard. Drums are out of this world, as well as everything else about it.

Re-reading Goodbye 20th Century, I came across a statement saying they barely remember any songs off Experimental Jet Set. Which is a shame because I love that album.

I would imagine a lot of their much older songs would be very hard to play live if they can't remember what tunings they used or how they played them. I remember reading how Thurston basically had to re-learn and study the songs off Daydream to play in it's entirety. Also, there's probably a lot of songs that have a lot of overdubs.

http://youtu.be/D5Ld5iOv1hs

"Disappearer" live.

Thanks, Panto. The title of this thread says "never," but then I ended up including songs played less than five times. All these songs were pretty much abandoned from the live shows.

The fact that Dripping Dream was played early in 2004 seems to support your theory. Too bad! I would have love to hear it live. As for Disappearer, it appears on a live bootleg I have called Let it Run, but I'm pretty sure it's just the Goo recording with some echo added! The rest of the bootleg is pretty good, though.

Disappearer wasn't played live much because the lyrics were a little too much for Thurston to remember, I believe. Same with Dripping Dream and StreamX.

Definitely wish they played Sweet Shine/Doctors Orders.

You stole all my thunder, Greg. Actually, I hadn't heard that re: Disappearer, in fact the band expresses surprise in the Goo deluxe liners that it wasn't played live often...

But I was told exactly that re: Dripping & StreamX.

"I Dreamed I Dream" was probably played a lot, there's just not many tapes from that era and I guess they abandoned it early on (perhaps no drummer played it quite like Edson?).

"Justice is Might" was played early on when they were still sticking w/ the full on Bad Moon Rising set (up until January '85, basically). Maybe because it's in a unique tuning and not worth the hassle?

"In the Kingdom" was pieced together in the studio, I think. Same for "Creme Brulee", maybe, though obviously it would be easy to recreate. I think "Dirty" had so many songs, and they played a considerable amount of them each night. The one recording we have of "On the Strip" is the first time they played it since the studio, if Thurston's introduction is accurate.

"Wish Fulfillment" - perhaps the subject matter of the song made them reluctant to play it. Or perhaps "Genetic" and "Mote" were just more fun.

All the "Jet Set" stuff is a shame.

The Amps opened the whole west coast leg of the "Washing Machine" tour, so Kim Deal was around if they wanted to do "Trouble Girl". Odd that it never came about.

"Sexisme" - sliced out of a larger improvisation.

"Stil" was the live choice to represent the "Hush" melody shared between it and "Snare, Girl".

Some other curiosities:

"1 2 3 4" - instrumental played only 5 times on the Japan 2/03 tour

"J'Accuse Ted Hughes" - infamous 4/00 ATP set intro, now immortalized on SYR7. never played again.

"Blonde Redhead" - it's like they made a pact to only play it in February of 1999.

Wow, I forgot SY did "Isolation"! Holy shit, gotta find that asap...

Hi, everybody.