Originally posted by Herbert the turbot:
Yes, it's another one of those idle speculation threads!
Back in the days of "The Service" fan club magazine, there was an edition that came out circa 1984/5 listing the titles of some of the new tracks that John was working on, which subsequently formed part of the "In Mysterious Ways" album.
There were only ever two editions of
The Service - both of which WILL be featured in the (soon to be revamped and expanded)
Archive . The track-listing to which you're referring to was part of the introduction to the second edition.
Originally posted by Herbert the turbot:
As is the nature of such things, several of the listed songs didn't make it onto the finished album but finally appeared on the 2CD re-release last year. However - one track called "My City And My Pride" has to the best of my knowledge never been performed or released. I'm just curious to know if there ever was a song of this name and if so, what happened to it?
A track entitled
My City and My Pride definitely existed at some point.
As for why it didn't appear on the remastered double disc edition of
In Mysterious Ways? Maybe the tape which contained it fell apart when it was being transferred, maybe the tape had been incorrectly labeled and there wasn't time to go searching through the other tapes for it, maybe the tape was successfully transferred - but John doesn't like the track anymore, or maybe the track will eventually be released at some point in the future, perhaps under a different name. At the moment it really doesn't matter.
But that's no different from the other tracks whose existence (for whatever reason) have become common knowledge despite never having been formally released -
The Joker,
Radio Beach,
Hanging in the Air,
The Shadow of Your Smile,
Eurotrash,
Meeting Venus,
City Doesn't Care,
Car Crash Flashback,
The Day the World Ended,
Dark Love,
Storms of Things,
Do the Mutation, etc. The fact that they exist (or once existed) doesn't necessarily mean that they will ever get released. This happens all the time - just because a track comes into being doesn't mean that it should ever see the light of day.
When the
Discography gets 'upgraded' (it's one of the many things I'm currently working on) then all of these tracks will be featured, with a note of their current 'status' so that when this subject is raised again (as it inevitably will be) the information will be easier for everyone to find.
Oddly enough, this reminds me of a
thread from a while back where I was being asked when the track
TBC was going to be released.
Rob