“Visible Songs” - Genesis have written more than thirteen album’s worth of studio tracks as Iain Buckle explains…
As if often the case when a band sets about making a studio album, that in the end there is too much recorded to fit within the available time for the LP. The result of this is the final album will result in the strongest tracks while the other weaker ones, perhaps half a dozen are either permanently discarded, filed for future use or turn up as B Sides of singles, or sometimes as a separate EP release. Abacab notably appears to have had many out-takes.
In a two decade career, many of the Genesis so-called non-album tracks have appeared thankfully on the B Sides of singles. In many cases it could be argued that the B Side is more favourable than the A Side and occasionally, one begins to wonder how such a track could possibly fail to be included on an album, it is such a creditable piece of music.
Genesis have denied album slots to some superb (in my opinion) tracks, a list of which appears here. I have listed chronologically those that have been released in the UK which did not appear on the official LP releases at the time. There is also the matrix number for the UK releases on 7” and a date of release where known. In more recent years, 12” and lately CD and cassette single editions have also been released at the same time. Equally some of these tracks may appear on different singles and even L Ps outside of the UK and on some unofficial releases too.
Availabilty varies. The early Decca singles are extremely hard to find and expensive. All but the most recent releases are deleted and may take some dedicated searching for but should you succeed, you will not be disappointed.
Non Album Track |
B/W |
UK Cat No |
Release Date |
| That’s Me (1) | (*) The Silent Sun | F12735 |
2.2.68 |
| A Winter’s Tale (1) | (*) One-Eyed Hound | F12775 |
10.5.69 |
| Happy The Man (2) | Seven Stones | CB181 |
12.5.72 |
| Twilight Alehouse | I Know What I Like | CB224 |
?.10.73 |
| It’s Yourself (3) | Your Own Special Way | CB300 |
?.2.76 |
| Match Of The Day/Pigeons Inside & Out (4) | GEN001 |
?.5.77 |
|
| The Day The light Went Out/ Vancouver | Many Too Many | CB315 |
?.6.78 |
| Open Door (*) | Duchess | CB363 |
?.5.80 |
| Evidence Of Autumn | (*) Misunderstanding | CB369 |
?.8.80 |
| Naminanu | Keep It Dark | CB391 |
?.8.81 |
| Submarine | Man On The Corner | CB393 |
?.3.82 |
| Paperlate/You Might Recall Me & Virgil (5) | (*) GEN1 |
?.5.82 |
|
| Do The Neurotic | In Too Deep | GENS2-7 |
?.8.86 |
| Feeding The Fire | Land Of Confusion | GENS3-7 |
?.10.86 |
| I’d Rather Be | You Throwing It All Away | GENS5-7 |
The figures in ( ) indicate the following: 1 available on several versions
of the From Genesis To Revelation LP (Decca SKL4990) (*) also on newly released
CD versions of the above.
(2) Happy The Man is the A Side. (3) Reworked bits from Los Endos. (4) Spot
the Pigeon EP. (5) 3 x 3 EP (These tracks as well as Open Door and Evidence
of Autumn are also available on the CD version of Three Sides Live although
please note; they are the studio versions and NOT live ones.
Well, we hope that the above may help any of you would be record hunters in your search for some of the more unusual Genesis recordings. Thanks Iain for putting the article together, hopefully in future issues similar ones will appear detailing the solo releases by Genesis members past and present.