12 Great British Deep Cuts

Hey, Meh writer @JasonToon here. When @dave and I were discussing this weekend’s playlist, and what would make sense with a set of full-tang carbon-steel triple-riveted knives by Lucinda Scala Quinn, a former Martha Stewart lieutenant with her own cookbook empire, various topics suggested themselves. Hyphens. Cooking. Insider trading. But then Dave had the best idea of all: deep cuts.

I took that to mean non-famous songs by famous bands, neither hit singles nor tracks on regular LPs but b-sides, soundtrack contributions, unreleased demos, the cuts that slipped through the cracks of an otherwise familiar career. Then the problem became, there’s just too much good stuff to fit into one manageable playlist. So this time I’ll stick with my favorite music, British rock from the Beatles through the Futureheads, because I’m running this show. If this playlist (also compiled on YouTube as well) works, I’ll do other genres and themes later. For now, though, enjoy some of my very favorite music on Earth.

The Who - "Early Morning Cold Taxi"
The first cut in our list is the deepest, a 1967 outtake from the recording of the The Who Sell Out album. It’s got everything I love about the Who: slashing guitar, unexpected chord changes, and wild Keith Moon fills, with all this chaos compressed into a pop song as tidy as a tailored London suit. For lesser '60s bands, it would have been their finest moment; the Who didn’t even bother releasing it until the 1990s.

The Kinks - "Come On Now"
I love the Kinks from their raw riff-rocking early days through Ray Davies’ melancholic sketches of faded Victoriana. But they never built up a head of steam more energetic than this raver, stuck on the b-side of their 1965 single “Tired of Waiting for You”.

The Rolling Stones - "We Were Falling in Love"
By 1964, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were starting to sell songs to other artists, which is probably why they recorded a demo version of this midtempo pop tune, so they could shop it around. But no matter how commercial they were trying to be, they still couldn’t help swinging like the Stones.

Elvis Costello - "Radio Sweetheart"
Elvis Costello’s dalliances with classic country surprised his New Wave audience, but it was evident right from the b-side of his debut single in 1977. Don’t worry, punks: with its bleak intro about “goose-step dancing”, you’ll never hear this one at any line dances.

The Clash - "1-2 Crush on You"
For the slip side of one of their most full-throated political screeds, 1978’s “Tommy Gun”, the Clash reached back to guitarist Mick Jones’s glam-rock roots for this catchy exercise in camp. It’s no fun to be serious all the time.

Stiff Little Fingers - "Bloody Sunday"
Speaking of serious, here’s one of the finest moments from Belfast’s finest '70s punks, a bloodcurdling scream of protest with a hint of reggae four years before U2’s hit with a similar title. Tucked onto the back of their far less fiery single “Gotta Getaway”, it’s amazing it didn’t melt the 45.

The Specials - "Friday Night, Saturday Morning"
The Specials’ brilliant 1981 single “Ghost Town” captured the horror of English urban nightlife gone terribly wrong. The flipside captures the more prosaic nightly reality of evenings that start with high hopes and end up, with predictable monotony, with piss stains on your shoes.

The Damned - "Thanks for the Night"
The Damned were the first British class-of-1977 punk band to release a record, and they were certainly the wildest. By 1984, they’d mellowed into melodic and moody (but still funny) psychedelia - which made this propulsively punky non-LP single a pleasant surprise, bringing all the volume and speed of their early days together with the atmospheric popcraft of their later ones.

Supergrass - "Melanie Davis"
Supergrass was too charming for their own good; nobody seemed to believe that any band seemed to be having so much fun could also be marvelous songwriters and musicians. In true Supergrass style, this b-side to a 1996 single whirls the best bits of the '60s, '70s, '80s, and '90s into an epic that seems too effortless to be this great.

Oasis - "Round Are Way"
For a few years there, every piece of nonsense Oasis tossed off turned to gold. I’ll take the glorious, horn-driven b-side of the inescapable 1995 smash “Wonderwall” over the (let’s face it, tiresome) a-side any day.

The Futureheads - "I Wouldn’t Be Like This If You Were Here"
In the mid-2000s, a new, um, wave of British guitar bands raided their aunts’ and uncles’ record collections for the angular, twitchy sounds of the old New Wave. The ones who could write great songs stuck around even after the trend passed. Here’s one of the best, the Futureheads, with a fantastically jumpy 2008 download-only single.

Franz Ferdinand - "L. Wells"
Glasgow’s Franz Ferdinand started with the aim of playing “music for girls to dance to”, and hit it big on both sides of the Atlantic by putting irresistible indie-pop melodies over irresistible indie-dance rhythms. “L. Wells” is the kind of song that makes you feel cooler than before you heard it.

Imagine having so many great songs that you could afford to stow gems like these away in little-heard corners of your discography. I know the digital age has flattened out the obstacles and eliminated true obscurity, and that’s mostly a good thing - after all, I didn’t have to dig through any crates to compile this list, just do a little cutting and pasting. But I hope it’s still possible for bands to hide little surprises like these for fans who want to go beyond the hits into the deep cuts.

Go deeper with our past weekend playlists:

• The Shoe’s on the Other Beat: Songs About Footwear
• Rock of Myth: Songs of Ancient Legends
• Christmas Songs You Haven’t Had Your Fill Of Yet
• Our weekend playlist archive