The article I read was in “Reader’s Digest” back in the late 80s/early 90s. In it, he includes background information on the unknown verses.
But that’s not all:
Part of the article he mentions how he occasionally brings up the other verses and the background when he is called to speak at public functions. He said that he sings the “Star Spangled Banner.” All verses.
Having heard Asimov speak, I can only imagine what the dulcet tones of a singing Isaac must have been like. :eek: Wonder if any of them were recorded for posterity.
A verse not recorded on the studio take of this song is:
Now the years are rolling by me, they are rocking even me,
I am older than I once was, and younger than I’ll be, that’s not unusual.
No it isn’t strange, after changes upon changes, we are more or less the same,
After changes we are more or less the same.
I still remember a few little-known verses I saw in my mom’s high school yearbook from the 1930s (and that would make me how old? never mind) - don’t know how legitimate these are:
[sung to I’ve Been Working On the Railroad]
Someone’s making love to Dinah,
Someone’s making love, I know.
Someone’s making love to Dinah,
'cause I don’t hear the old banjo.
//
[sung to Bicycle Built for Two]
John, John, here is your answer true.
I’m not crazy over the likes of you.
If you can’t afford a carriage, call off your goddam marriage
'Cause I’ll be damned if I’ll be jammed on a bicycle built for two.
//
[sung to My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean]
My breakfast lies over the ocean,
My supper lies over the rail.
My dinner lies in great commotion -
Won’t somebody bring me a pail?
{chorus}…
Last night as I lay on my pillow,
Last night as I lay on my bed
I stuck both my feet out the window;
next morning my neighbors were dead.
The Australian National Anthem has a similarly amusing if less bloodthirsty second verse, rarely sung:
When gallant Cook from Albion sail’d,
To trace wide oceans o’er,
True British courage bore him on,
Till he landed on our shore.
Then here he raised Old England’s flag,
The standard of the brave;
With all her faults we love her still,
“Britannia rules the wave!”
In joyful strains then let us sing
“Advance Australia fair!”
If I recall correctly it’s rarely sung because verses one and three are technically the anthem, the rest just hangs around. But you know, with all jolly old England’s faults, we love her still. Even if she is off crushing Scots.
Dire Straits’ Money for Nothing has a verse that rarely gets played. According to Wikipedia, the verse was cut from the radio edit, video edit, single, and Best Of album, so many people probably don’t know it exists.
Most people don’t know anything beyond the first verse of Dirty Old Town by Ewan MacColl.
For example,
Clouds are drifting across the moon
Cats are prowling on their beat
Springs a girl in the street at night Dirty Old Town, Dirty Old Town!
Most people don’t know beyond the first verse of various popular Irish ballads including,
I’ve Been a Wild Rover, The Black Velvet Band and countless others.
Just sing the chorus a few times and you’ll be all right.
When it was new, I heard it all the time on the radio & the TV. There was controversy but it was shrugged off with the defense “That’s the POV of the working men in this song, not the POV of the band.”
Yes, let’s put a little reminder of Christ’s violent death into this lovely song celebrating His birth! I’ve only heard this verse sung once, and that was at a private Catholic school holiday mass. It fit right in with the ambient guilt quotient, IMHO.
I love that verse actually- it puts Christmas in context. Many hymnals just follow
“The silent Word is pleading” with “This, this is Christ the King…”- even the one
we use in my Assembly of God, and we are not at all squeamish about “Blood” hymns.
I thought that was “rocking evenly.” It’s Simon & Garfunkel, “The Boxer.” Reminds me of this one, which is found in the sheet music (and some live performances), but not the record:
She said I’m home on shore leave
Though in truth we were at sea
So I took her by the looking glass
And forced her to agree
Saying you must be the mermaid
Who took Neptune for a ride
But she smiled at me so sadly
That my anger straight’way died
And so it was that later
As the miller told his tale
That her face at first just ghostly
Turned a whiter shade of pale.
(There is also another, even more obscure, “lost” verse to this song.)
How about a tune that most people would recognize, but very few people know that it even has words.
I give you the Star Trek theme (TOS):
Beyond the rim of the starlight,
my love is wandring in star flight.
I know he’ll find
In star clustered reaches
Love, strange love
A star woman teaches.
I know his journey ends never.
His Star Trek will go on forever.
But tell him while
He wanders his starry sea,
Remember,
Remember me.
These lyrics were written by Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, allegedly for the sole purpose of getting royalties every time the theme song was performed. AFAIK it has never been recorded or publicly performed with the lyrics.
ETA: I know we’re not supposed to post complete lyrics, but this one is so short I couldn’t really excerpt it in any meaningful fashion.
Generations of children have passed on the chorus “He flew the air with the greatest of ease, The daring young man on the flying trapeze” to their younger friends and siblings, but one hardly ever hears the entire song. Unless, that is, they’ve just been watching the 1934 classic, It Happened One Night, where the song is performed in full, in the back of a Greyhound bus, by a guitarist and violinist, with vocals.
I’m just a good ol’ boy
You know my momma loves me
but she can’t understand
why they’re showing my hands
and not my face on tv
Good Ol’ Boys (theme from the Dukes of Hazzard), by Wayon Jennings
I quote this one, because I’m wondering (slightly off-topic) if anyone knows where the heck I can -find- the full version of the song? A friend of mine has been looking for it -forever-.
The song I was going to add, though, was ‘The Thunder Rolls’ by Garth Brooks. The radio edit stops at the discovery of the infidelity. The live version goes into the… Reprocussions of it. And the thunder rolls. Last verse is positively chilling…
She runs back down the hallway
To the bedroom door
She reaches for the pistol
Kept in the dresser drawer
Tells the lady in the mirror
He won’t do this again
Cause tonight will be the last time
She’ll wonder where he’s been
All releases worldwide of the studio recording are the two-verse version. The three-verse version can be heard on the Live at the Union Chapel DVD. The four-verse version has never been recorded AFAIK.
It’s part of L.A. County.
Here’s the last verse to Little Rabbit Fru Fru (which I suspect my kindergarten teacher just made up). It tells the story of what happened to Fru Fru after the good fairy turned him into a “goo” for the crime of bopping field mice on the head over three successive days:
**
And the next day …
Little Gooey Fru Fru
Hopping through the forest
Picking up the field mice
And bopping them on the head
The good fairy came down, and she said:
“I give up!”
**
