History Main / RarelyPerformedSong

* Music/{{Muse}} have all but abandoned their debut album ''Showbiz'' from 2014 onward after a slow decline in performances beginning in 2005. It is their only album to have no songs performed from it consistently at live shows, with the album's top 20 hit singles "Sunburn" and "Muscle Museum" only being performed twice and five times respectively in the last 10 years, the band's debut single "Uno" being performed a mere five times since 2003, and the album's fan-favorite TitleTrack being performed on extremely rare occasions from 2017 to 2019 due to high fan demand, and in 2023 after having technical difficulties while closing a gig with "Music/KnightsOfCydonia". A combination of the album's obscurity outside of Europe, the deeply personal and emotional lyrics, and all of the songs on the album becoming increasingly difficult for frontman Matt Bellamy to sing is believed to have led to the album's disappearance from the band's concerts.

** Reznor's frustration with "The Perfect Drug" led to it only being performed live in 2018, 21 years after it was recorded.

** "Harpua" and the pairing of "Colonel Forbin's Ascent" and "Fly Famous Mockingbird" are three of Phish's most beloved songs, with many fans hoping they get the chance to hear them at any given concert. One of the reasons for this is "Harpua" and "Mockingbird" both feature long narrated stories by guitarist Trey Anastasio that he changed every time they played them and which were usually connected to the band's Gamehendge mythos. However, they've all become rarer in later years. "Forbin" and "Mockingbird" stopped being regular features in Phish concerts after 1996, with just 11 more performances in the 25 years following. "Harpua" also largely dropped out of the band's repertoire by the late 90s, with just eight more performances after 2000.

* Music/CattleDecapitation seldom performs anything from before 2019's ''Death Atlas'', with 2009's ''The Harvest Floor'' being a particularly major pariah for their modern era despite having numerous fan favorites. This is because it is an extremely technically difficult and often physically painful album to play, and Dave [=McGraw=] in particular hates his drumming on the album and believes that he overplayed in a misguided attempt to prove himself as the new guy.

* Music/CannibalCorpse played "Frantic Disembowelment" exactly once before permanently retiring it, as it is a ridiculously technical song that is physically painful to play, and is nowhere near enough of a fan favorite to justify slogging through it.

* Music/RedHotChiliPeppers has rarely played their 1989 single "Knock Me Down" live in concert, since it was written about their fallen guitar player Hillel Slovak, making it too emotional to revisit. On at least one occasion, three of the band members wanted to perform the song but singer Anthony Kiedis refused. The band also rarely performed songs from ''One Hot Minutes'' with Chad Smith claiming, "We don't really feel that connected to that record anymore. No special reason, not to say we'd never play those songs, but we don't feel that emotionally connected to that music right now”.

* Music/RedHotChiliPeppers has rarely played their 1989 single "Knock Me Down" live in concert, since it was written about their fallen guitar player Hillel Slovak, making it too emotional to revisit. On at least one occasion, three of the band members wanted to perform the song but singer Anthony Kiedis refused.

* The Music/BeastieBoys rarely perform "Fight For Your Right" live, as while the song was intended to be a satire of frat-boy and party-hard culture, it was misinterpreted as a celebration of such by its targets. Mike D [[https://hiphophero.com/why-beastie-boys-dropped-fight-for-your-right-from-live-show-sets/ later noted]]:

** "The Unforgiven II" from ''[[Music/LoadAndReLoad ReLoad]]'' is a sequel song to "The Unforgiven", one of the most popular songs from ''Metallica''. It was released as a single and had a music video, but as a slow PowerBallad, was a BlackSheepHit for the band. They initially played it live once at the Billboard Music Awards in 1997 (the same year ''[=ReLoad=]'' was released) before shelving it until 2015. Even after, they've only played it a total of 10 times as of 2022. In general quite a few songs from "Load" and "Reload" have either rarely been performed(Poor Twisted Me, Mama Said, Outlaw Torn, Carpe Diem Baby, Fixxxer)or never been played(The House That Jack Built, Cure, Ronnie, Thorn Within, Bad Seed)

* Music/{{Supergrass}}' big hit "Alright" is barely performed in recent band reunions. Although Gaz Coombes seems to still be fond of the song, he states that it doesn't reflect them nowadays since they're not young anymore -- he's joked that if they ''did'' play it live, it would have to be a SofterAndSlowerCover with the lyrics rewritten in the past tense ("We were young, we ran green" etc).

** They retired "Exit" (from ''Music/TheJoshuaTree'') from their setlist after Robert John Bardo (murderer of actress Rebecca Shaeffer) claimed that the song influenced his actions. The band would later bring the song back for ''The Joshua Tree'''s 30th anniversary tour, where they played the album in its entirety.

** "The Unforgiven II" from ''[[Music/LoadAndReLoad ReLoad]]'' is a sequel song to "The Unforgiven", one of the most popular songs from ''Metallica''. It was released as a single and had a music video, but as a slow PowerBallad, was a BlackSheepHit for the band. They initially played it live once at the Billboard Music Awards in 1997 (the same year ''[=ReLoad=]'' was released) before shelving it until 2015. Even after, they've only played it a total of 10 times as of 2022.
** Given the CreatorBreakdown going on at the time of production (as explained in the tie-in documentary ''Some Kind of Monster'') and its status as a near-CreatorKiller, the band almost never plays anything from ''Music/StAnger'' these days.

* Music/TheWho: The group retired "A Quick One, While He's Away" for some time. Pete Townshend initially wrote it on a whim as a light-hearted story about affairs and a love triangle. But years later, he started seeing it as a metaphor for the sexual abuse and other bad experiences he suffered while living with this grandmother as a child. In his autobiography, he claims that he might have subconsciously written the song as a way to cope. They retired the song from their concerts for many years until TheNewTens, when they began include more deep cuts.

** Following the release of the 2019 documentary ''Leaving Neverland'', which detailed new child sexual abuse allegations against Music/MichaelJackson, Al opted to remove [[Music/WeirdAlYankovicIn3D "Eat It"]], [[Music/EvenWorse "Fat"]], and "Snack All Night" from his setlists, as they were parodies of some of Jackson's biggest hits ("Music/BeatIt", "Music/{{Bad}}", and [[Music/{{Dangerous}} "Black or White"]], respectively). "Eat It" had not been performed live in full since 1987, appearing only to close out a medley of Yankovic's own hits in concert. As "Snack All Night" has never appeared on one of his albums or as a standalone single (at the request of Jackson, who felt that the original song's message should not have been diluted by parody) it is now impossible to listen to legally.

* Music/MichaelJackson dropped various songs from his concerts over the years. After the first half of his ''Music/{{Bad}}'' tour, Jackson completely stopped performing any of the hits he recorded with [[Music/TheJacksonFive his brothers]], save for a medley of Motown-era classics, likely due to lingering feelings over the ill-fated ''Victory'' Tour. Come the ''Music/{{Dangerous}}'' tour, he also stopped performing cuts from ''Music/OffTheWall'' and ''Bad'', with the exception of a small handful of songs. Had he lived to complete the ''[[Film/MichaelJacksonsThisIsIt This Is It]]'' residency in 2009, nearly all the songs he stopped performing in the past would have been performed live once more.

* Music/{{U2}} retired "Exit" (from ''Music/TheJoshuaTree'') from their setlist after Robert John Bardo (murderer of actress Rebecca Shaeffer) claimed that the song influenced his actions. The band would later bring the song back for ''The Joshua Tree'''s 30th anniversary tour, where they played the album in its entirety.