LOST VERSES

Like any other kind of artist, songwriters have to go through an artistic process to get their work just right. Sometimes they write a whole verse, and decide to chuck it before they record the tune.

Song: “Daniel” (1973)

Artist: Elton John

Story: It’s one of John’s most memorable—and most cryptic—songs, about someone named Daniel, who runs away to Spain to escape “the pain of the scars that won’t heal.” But who is Daniel, and what is the nature of his relationship to the song’s narrator? John sings “Daniel, my brother,” so he could be a sibling, a friend, or a lover. And what event has so shaken him that he has to move far, far away? Years after the song was released, lyricist Bernie Taupin explained that Daniel is, in fact, the narrator’s older brother, and that he’s blind (hint: “your eyes have died”), due to an injury he received in the Vietnam War. There’s another, unpublished verse, in which Daniel goes home to Texas, where he is treated like a hero for his wartime service, but he soon tires of the hero worship and decides to leave the country.

Song: “Glory Days” (1984)

Artist: Bruce Springsteen

Story: One of many hits off the Born in the USA album, “Glory Days” is about living in the past, when who you were was more satisfying than who you are today. In the first verse, the narrator meets an old high school friend who was a star baseball player back in the day, but now all he has are his “glory days.” In the second verse, he remembers the prettiest girl from high school, who’s now a divorced, lonely mother. Springsteen wrote another verse—about the narrator’s father, who got fired after working for 20 years on a Ford factory assembly line. He, too, likes to remember his glory days…even though he never really had any. Springsteen thought it was too bleak and didn’t fit the rest of the song, so he edited it out.

Song: “Hallelujah” (1984)

Artist: Leonard Cohen

Story: This haunting ballad is one of the most-covered songs in pop music. Hit versions recorded by John Cale, Jeff Buckley, Rufus Wainwright, k. d. lang, and several American Idol contestants, to name just a few. (It even popped up in Shrek in 2001.) It was originally written and performed by Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen for his 1984 album Various Positions, and quickly became one of his signature tunes. Music critics still struggle to figure out what the song means, apart from being about mental and emotional anguish, and Cohen himself (who died in 2016) never made it clear. In fact, he reportedly wrote as many as 80 different verses for the song. When performing the song live, he’d often switch out one of the verses for a new one that nobody had ever heard before. Has anyone ever seen the “full” version of “Hallelujah”? Probably only John Cale. When he covered the song in 1991, he persuaded Cohen to fax him all of the verses, from which he chose the ones he wanted to use.

…a Hollywood film (506), beating out Spike Lee’s 1999 film Summer of Sam (435).

Song: “The Big Rock Candy Mountain” (1928)

Artist: Harry McClintock (and Pete Seeger, Burl Ives, Bing Crosby, and many others)

Story: This classic children’s song, revived and made famous (again) by the 2000 movie O Brother, Where Art Thou?, didn’t just have a lost verse—it got an entire makeover. The version we know today tells of a magical place, a mountain made of candy, and where “little streams of lemonade come a-tricklin’ down the rocks.” What a wonderful place! Sure, if you’re hearing the cleaned-up version of the song. The original, adapted from older folk songs by Harry McClintock, was a “hobo’s fantasy”…and very much a product of the Great Depression. There are no “peppermint trees” the way McClintock sang it; there are “cigarette trees.” And the “lakes of gold and silver” were originally “stew and whiskey.” Years later, when McClintock tried to prove in a copyright lawsuit that he was the true writer, he revealed the lyrics of the lost last verse… which are too disturbing to print here. (A young boy follows a hobo to the Big Rock Candy Mountain, where the other hoboes want to do bad things to him.) The judge didn’t buy it. Result: McClintock lost his copyright, and the song became public domain.

A TIP FROM UNCLE JOHN

Writing song lyrics is really about editing. Few songwriters come up with entire songs, with perfect rhymes and rhythms that say exactly what they want to say, on the first draft. Best way to start: get all your ideas on paper. What do you want the song to be about, what story do you want to tell? Then, organize those concepts. Here’s a classic technique: First, introduce the listener to the story or the “world” of your song. Second, add perspective by telling them how you feel about it. Third, how do you want to leave the listener—hopeful, sad, desolate? What you’ve just done has given you a rough outline of your song’s first, second, and third verses.

Eggplants contain nicotine…but you’d have to eat 20 pounds to get one cigarette’s worth.