The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
The specific clip is about two old women reminiscing about their husbands, both of whom died during the battle of Britain decades ago, ending with both in tears and "you never quite let go, do you?" I felt it was a very powerful statement about the long-lasting effects of war that go well beyond the immediate casualties and victims, at the time probably directed towards the Iraq war, but it really applies to all wars.
There is almost zero information about this, including at the BBC Archives as far as I can determine, probably because the clip itself wasn't actually produced by the BBC. I suspect I will never find it again, and that it was seen by relatively few people in the first place since the programme aired at 2am (I found some other clips they aired, such as Toothpaste[1] and a few others, but not this one).
To this day, in spite of being very short, it's still one of the best and most impactful things I've seen on TV.
One can't help but wonder how much fantastic material is out there, seen by only a small audience, only to be lost and never seen again.
I hate plugging Reddit right now, but there's a reason we like(d) going there.
A lot of BBC content like that is just gone because they used to reuse tapes to save on costs. I don't know if they were still doing it into the 2000s but entire chunks of iconic TV shows like a third of the first six Doctor Who seasons are just straight up gone [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_missing_episodes
Some friends had some songs almost 20 years ago that was actually played in the radio by a DJ friend of ours. It wasn't any good, but I reached out to the four of them and asked if they still have it. Nope, the four of them have no idea where the songs are.
Despite the reach of global communication, there's a good chance those people never find out that others are searching for this info. They may not even be alive anymore.
A year or two ago, some friends and I had the theme of "rare or weird songs" for a monthly "bring your own music" listening party. Since the previous theme was "songs from your childhood/youth" and I like to throw in a bridge to the previous theme when possible, I brought in the recording of a practice session I did with a band back in college around 2000.
I'd since digitized the cassette tape and probably have the only copy of this recording in existence. The band played one show and it was generally just a fun project among friends. We never recorded a proper album, only set up a tape recorder during one practice session as we ran through the whole set.
There must be hundreds of thousands of similar recordings out there from bedroom projects and bands-that-never-were.
One of those tracks was "Cry Little Sister", which was drawn from the Lost Boys soundtrack, and definitely was never performed by the Sisters of Mercy, despite what all the ID3 tags said. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cry_Little_Sister
I remember (a friend) downloading Box Car Racer's new album on p2p only to find an indie band had uploaded their own songs under the legitimate BCR track listing. While immediately clear they weren't BCR, friend was intrigued and continued to listen to them for years without having any idea who they really were.
They've put in a significant amount of effort. Most of the guesses in this HN thread have been debunked already.
And so we started searching for all the songs. There was one we couldn't find anywhere (this was pre-Napster days btw and back then lyrics weren't sufficient to find a song).
The hand-written text on the cassette's sleeves read:
"Zap Four - This is is reggae music".
Impossible to find.
Turns out, one day I found it. It was not "Zap Four" but "Zap Pow". For all these years I had misread the handwritten text.
Reggae fans, enjoy, because that's one heck of a good one (and not a very famous song):
Example: I played (along with a few others) a tune once on BBC Radio 3 for a program about the blues. Since I just gave the lead sheet to my fellow musicians before the recording and none of us (or the song) were ever credited, there's absolutely no way that anyone could track down what that song was, who wrote it, who the musicians on it were etc.
I mean: I literally couldn't do it myself and it was my song and I played on it.
I've been amazed at how obscure recordings are often identified because someone kept a notebook or other recordings. It's not going to be 100%, but it's enough that it surprises/ intrigues folks when something can't be identified.
For some reason, my BS detector is telling me that someone recorded a fake song a decade and a half ago, the long troll turned out far better than they ever could have imagined, and there’s no way they ever come clean about this.
There were some major differences in song structures. All other songs on their album were all synth and drum machine, this one has a synth but also guitar and actual drum set.
Why would they fuck around with that equipment for one song that didn't even make the cut to be on their album?
If the singer who's a dead ringer voice wise and style wise however did it on his own, maybe the other band member is trying to take credit because he's trying to release the album with extra songs, potentially this one included.
This theory struck me as making a lot of sense.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK8l0pkyiy0
Found online soo many years ago in a random website because it had a name similar to another track I was looking for.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLW3M-yio9tLtffeHaqZs-pXqK...