Wikipedia has a mindblowing-ly comprehensive account of the history of every unused, unreleased, almost-ed Madonna song ever. Literally hundreds of titles are listed and described – traced year by year, producer by producer, session by session, album by album. The exhaustive write-up even hunts down songs that were discussed in remembered conversations with producers and engineers who worked with her – then divides those rumors into works that can be attributed to traceable fact (an anthem titled Working My Fingers To the Bone, or an early New Wave-er called Fuck You Right Back) and those that were just hopeful rumors (a heartfelt ballad called Call Me Mr. Telephone …or how about a techno cover of Ozzy Osbourne’s Crazy Train?) United States Copyright Office records are even plundered; “Take A Holiday, US Copyright registration PAu-505-502 for original 1983 demo of Holiday written by Lisa Stevens and Curtis Hudson formerly of the disco group Pure Energy. Publishing rights given to House Of Fun Music in 1986 on registration PAu-905-744.â€?

Session tapes that were “stolenâ€? or that have fallen into the hands of obsessed fans over time are described in detail. Even 5-second snippets of Madonna just talking into a microphone, perhaps discovered on dusty tapes unearthed from dumpsters behind a recording studio – are analyzed and traced to a source, perhaps finally debunked as a “fakeâ€? (who would go to the trouble?) Some of these little crumbs are even collected on bootleg CDs(!) On a cassette obtained from the Erotica sessions, the writer describes:

Jitterbug: (song fragment, about 30-45 seconds) Included on the same Erotica demo sessions cassette tape submitted buy Shep Pettibone to the U.S. Copyright Office as his other “Rain’� album songs. It was mostly taped over, but showed up between two of the other tracks. It is listed on the handwritten tape label, but it has no copyright registration of its own. The title was originally spelled with a “G�, but was written over darker with a “J� in blue ink. It features typical generic Shep Pettibone dance music with Madonna finishing up with “Jitterbug, Jitterbug�. She stops singing but the music continues. She says into the microphone “Ya, that one has some good ideas to it�. The music still continues, and she says “How long is this one going to go on�? The music still continues and she finally demands “Isn’t anyone going to turn this damn thing off�? It abruptly ends.

Stupefying list is probably destined for a box set release in the year 3000. Actually, a large number of these recordings are already hear-able, shared by fans on the web and on bootleg collections. Oh, by the way, check out this cover photo that almost-was for her first album (eek!), switched at the last minute for the black & white photo one, and the title Madonna instead of “Lucky Star.� I have to admit this was a pretty fascinating read for me. What does that say about my soul (see title of this post)?

Comments Off on Slightly-Creepy Madonna Bootleg Underground: Making a List and Checking It Twice-Hundred Times