History Main / RarelyPerformedSong

* Despite the commercial success of her 1999 debut bubblegum pop single "Candy", musician and actor Mandy Moore overtime has felt embarrassed by her debut single and first two albums, describing them as "cheesy". Moore has even offered to refund the money of anyone who bought her first two albums. Lived up to it during a radio interview in '06. Yup, that's just how much she hated them. She seems to have softened on this however, as she celebrated the 20th anniversary of "Candy" in 2019 warmly and performed "Candy" as a blues-tuned version in 2020-'21 concerts.
* Zig-zagged with Music/PaulMCCartney. During the early post-Beatles years, he refused to play any Beatles songs. Eventually he relaxed that policy but still played only a few Beatles songs (mainly the songs that he wrote without the help of Lennon). Also, he still rarely plays songs such as "Coming Up", "Every Night" and "Here Today".

* Despite the commercial success of her 1999 debut bubblegum pop single "Candy", musician and actor Mandy Moore overtime has felt embarrassed by her debut single and first two albums, describing them as "cheesy". Moore has even offered to refund the money of anyone who bought her first two albums. Lived up to it during a radio interview in '06. Yup, that's just how much she hated them. She seems to have softened on this however, as she celebrated the 20th anniversary of "Candy" in 2019 warmly and performed "Candy" as a blues tuned version in recent 2020-'21 concerts.

** Inverted for the song "Butterflies." It was recorded on the original cassette tape version of their first album (in which Grohl played recorded every instrument himself) but was [[CutSong not included]] in the CD release, or on any album since. However, the band does play it live, meaning "live" was the ''only'' way for most to hear it until it was uploaded to Youtube and other similar sites.

** They for the longest refused to play "Big Me" live because whenever they did, [[ProducePelting they'd be pelted with Mentos mints,]] since the song's video spoofed Mentos commercials, frequently making Dave chastise their audience. They started playing it again after Music/{{Weezer}} covered it with great acclaim during their joint "Foozer" tour in 2005-'06.

* The German musician Alligatoah rarely live-performs songs from his early albums.[[note]] ATTNTAAT, STRWI and STRW II aren't nearly as well-known and from In Gottes Namen, STRW III and STRW IV, he usually only chooses the respective [[SignatureSong Signature Songs]]. [[/note]] From his 2013 album "Triebwerke" that caused a significant NewbieBoom, "Prostitution" and the "Münchhausen trilogy are usually not played either due to their relative obscurity, while "Wunderschöne Frau" and "Erntedank" additionally have featured artists that he usually doesn't live-performs with.

* Music/DavidBowie deliberately sought to invoke this with his 1990 Sound + Vision tour, done to promote Creator/{{Rykodisc}}'s remasters of his back-catalog. Not wanting to become a legacy act, the idea behind the tour was that he would perform all his greatest hits (plus the recent [[Music/KingCrimson Adrian Belew]] collaboration "Pretty Pink Rose") for one last run before permanently retiring them from his setlists. The plan mostly fell through during the supporting tour for ''Music/{{Outside}}'', where his unwillingness to play old songs drew staunch criticism and forced him to renege on his idea, but he still deprioritized them in favor of post-1990 material, and six tracks featured on the Sound + Vision tour [[https://bowiesongs.tumblr.com/post/29900916399/did-bowie-really-retire-his-oldies did indeed disappear]] from Bowie's setlists for good: [[Music/TheRiseAndFallOfZiggyStardustAndTheSpidersFromMars "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide"]], "John, I'm Only Dancing", "Amsterdam", "Music/YoungAmericans", [[Music/StationToStation "TVC 15"]], and "Pretty Pink Rose".

This can occur for a variety of reasons. It's possible that the song is an OldShame or [[CreatorBacklash can be hated by the musician(s) themselves, in spite of its popularity.]] Another reason could be that the song is too difficult to perform live due to the changes to the artist's voice in the time between when it was first released and now, and them fearing of it [[VocalRangeExceeded not being performed to the best of their abilities]] or the complexity/legality of the song (certain instruments are required, they could be sued for playing it, etc.) deters them from playing it again. Another popular explanation is that the song is one from an emotional standpoint (oftentimes, dedicated to a deceased loved one or its subject matter now being DistancedFromCurrentEvents) and is considered too intimate or painful to perform again. Sometimes though their reasoning for not playing it again is either [[AmbiguousSituation unclear or unexplained]].

A subtrope of CreatorBacklash. See also OldShame, BlackSheepHit, ScrewedByTheLawyers, DistancedFromCurrentEvents, HarsherInHindsight, HitlessHitAlbum, and NoHitWonder. Please do not confuse this with AlbumFiller, which regards songs not usually meant to be played live or released as a single.

''NOTE: {{Administrivia/Zero Content Example}}s are not allowed. Please explain or provide some background as to why it is considered a Rarely Performed Song. Also, the examples have been alphabetized for your convenience.''

* Despite its strong critical praise and live-friendly sound, Music/{{Adele}} refused to perform "To Be Loved" past a sole prerecorded video of her singing it in her living room. In an interview, she clarified that the song, which documents her attempts at explaining her divorce to her son, is so personal that "I can't even listen to it [...] I have to leave the room, I get really upset, I get really choked up."

* Music/Blink182. For a time, since 2009, the band retired "Adam's Song" from their live performances due to the death of their close friend [=DJ=] [=AM=] after succumbing to his drug addiction. Nine years later though, they brought the song back during their residency at Las Vegas, Mark Hoppus explaining that they saw the song in a new light.

** Drummer Nicko [=McBrain=]'s dislike of dual bass drum (according to the documentary ''The Early Days Pt. 1'', he considers them [[BuffySpeak "undrummerish"]]) is why "Face in the Sand", the only Maiden song where Nicko plays double bass drum, was left out of the ''Dance of Death'' tour, and any posterior tours.

* Music/MichaelJackson dropped various songs from his concerts over the years. After the first half of his ''Music/{{Bad}}'' tour, Michael 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/NineInchNails did not perform "Sunspots" live [[note]]Bar some sound checks/rehearsals[[/note]] until the Brixton leg of the NIN 2022 tour, due to Trent's fear of straining his voice too much.
** Vocal strain is also why "We're In This Together" has only been performed during the European leg of the Performance 2007 tour. It was also performed in a lower key than in the studio version.

* Since 2019 Music/TheRollingStones have taken "Brown Sugar" out of the set list whenever they perform live on stage due to controversy over the song's racist and misogynist lyrics.

* Music/TaylorSwift has only performed "Soon You'll Get Better" off her 2019 album ''{{Music/Lover}}'' once, to raise money for COVID-19 relief. The song is about Swift's mother's battles with cancer, and she's stated it was incredibly difficult to write and she nearly didn't put it on the album at all because of how personal it is. Prior to the fundraiser, she said that she wouldn't perform the song live because the topic is so painful for her.

* Music/{{Tool}}: "Ticks and Leeches" from ''Lateralus'' features a ''lot'' of screaming, and recording the song actually wrecked Maynard's voice for a couple of weeks. As a result, they very rarely play it live, and on the occasions that it is played, heavy electronic effects are added over Maynard's voice so he can sing it relatively normally but maintain its intensity.

** Despite being on their extremely popular ''Ride the Lightning'' album, they've only ever played "Escape" live a single time during an anniversary concert where they played each song from the album. The song was a last-minute addition to the album, literally written by James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich ''in'' the recording studio when they were [[ExecutiveMeddling told by the producer]] they had to have one more song on the album.
** Though it's their second best-selling album, it's rare for the band to play anything other than "One" from ''...And Justice For All'' live. It was their first album after original bassist Cliff Burton died in a bus accident, new bassist Music/JasonNewsted was all but mixed out of the album altogether, and they didn't have their usual mixing producer, leading it to have an overly "sterile" and "tinny" sound lacking bass. It was also their most aggressive and technically demanding album, leading to burnout. Finally, the album also has some of their longest songs which, according to Hetfield, the crowds don't always respond well to when they're played live. Though many of its songs are beloved by fans, the band itself rarely plays most on the album for these reasons.
** Given the CreatorBreakdown going on (shown in the tie-in documentary ''Some Kind of Monster'') and its status as a near-CreatorKiller, the band almost never plays anything from ''St. Anger'' these days.
** "The Unforgiven II" was a sequel song released as a single and had a music video, but as a slow PowerBallad, was a BlackSheepHit for the band. They initially only played it live once at the Billboard Music Awards in 1997 before shelving it until 2015. Even after, they've only played it a total of 10 times as of 2022.

* Due to the difficulty involved with replicating its MotorMouth bridge, Music/WeirdAlYankovic refuses to perform the fan-favorite song "Hardware Store" live. He also avoids performing the popular "Albuquerque" because its 12-minute EpicRocking length and extensive passages of comedic yelling and screaming put a strain on his vocal chords.

* According to ''Series/PopUpVideo'', Boy George no longer performs his 1992 cover of Dave Barry's 1964 hit "The Crying Game" for the [[Film/TheCryingGame the soundtrack for the film of the same name]] due to the strain it causes to his voice.

** Their 1991 BlackSheepHit "Shiny Happy People" is an interesting case. Depending on the source, the band refuses to perform the song in concert due to either [[CreatorBacklash absolutely hating the song]] or because they find it too difficult to perform live. Furthermore, they also bounce between either hating the song or having a love-hate relationship with it.
** They also stopped playing "Catapult" live after 1984 due to their bad memories of attempting to record it for ''Music/{{Murmur}}'' with producer Stephen Hague. Hague was an acidic perfectionist during the band's tryout sessions with him, and the Sisyphean process of recording the song deeply demoralized them before they eventually got fed up and convinced Creator/IRSRecords to replace him with prior collaborators Mitch Easter and Don Dixon. Even after they recorded a satisfactory version of "Catapult" with Easter and Dixon, R.E.M. couldn't perform it on-stage without thinking back to their turbulent first attempts with Hague.

* [[Music/SystemofaDown System of a Down]]'s "Dreaming" features several vocal tracks from Serj and Daron overlaid on top of each other. It's never been played live as a result.

** [[Music/{{BGM}} "U-T"]] was removed from the band's setlist after their initial dissolution in 1984. While it was scheduled to be played during their 1993 reunion tour, it was taken out after the band discovered that it was recorded in an obsolete equipment standard, making it prohibitively difficult to perform again.

** [[Music/{{BGM}} "U?T"]] was removed from the band's setlist after their initial dissolution in 1984. While it was scheduled to be played during their 1993 reunion tour, it was taken out after the band discovered that it was recorded in an obsolete equipment standard, making it prohibitively difficult to perform again.
* Music/OingoBoingo: Even though "Weird Science" is one of the band's [[SignatureSong most well-known songs]], due to it being written for the [[Film/WeirdScience movie of the same name]], the band stopped playing it live due to frontman Creator/DannyElfman believing that the song isn't his best work and [[CreatorBacklash getting tired of it]]. Even during Coachella 2022, in which Danny Elfman played several of Oingo Boingo's most popular songs, he didn't perform "Weird Science".

** [[Music/{{BGM}} "U?T"]] was removed from the band's setlist after their initial dissolution in 1984. While it was scheduled to be played during their 1993 reunion tour, it was taken out after the band discovered that it was recorded in an obsolete equipment standard, making it prohibitively difficult to perform again.

** The band kept their entire discography as Music/JoyDivison out of their setlist until 1998 to avoid being compared to their prior incarnation, which was renamed following the 1980 suicide of frontman Ian Curtis.

* Music/EricClapton's 1992 GriefSong "Tears in Heaven" was written for his four-year-old son Conor, who died after falling from an apartment window. Come 2004, however, Clapton has stopped performing the song, citing being able to cope with the loss and no longer needing it. He additionally no longer performs his 1998 song "My Father's Eyes", which was inspired by growing up never knowing his father, for similar reasons.

** They for the longest refused to play "Big Me" live because whenever they did, [[ProducePelting they'd be pelted with Mentos mints,]] since the song's video spoofed Mentos commercials, frequently making Dave chastise their audience. They started playing it again after Music/{{Weezer}} covered it with great acclaim during their joint "Foozer" tour in 2005-06.

** Inverted for the song ''Butterflies''. It was recorded on the original cassette tape version of their first album (in which Grohl played recorded every instrument himself) but was [[CutSong not included]] in the CD release, or on any album since. However, the band does play it live, meaning "live" was the ''only'' way for most to hear it until it was uploaded to Youtube and other similar sites.

* Music/MichaelJackson had dropped various songs from his concerts over the years. After the first half of his ''Music/{{Bad}}'' tour, Michael 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.

* Despite the commercial success of her 1999 debut bubblegum pop single "Candy", musician and actor Mandy Moore overtime has felt embarrassed by her debut single and first two albums, describing them as "cheesy". Moore has even offered to refund the money of anyone who bought her first two albums. Lived up to it during a radio interview in '06. Yup, that's just how much she hated them. She seems to have softened on this however, as she celebrated the 20th anniversary of "Candy" in 2019 warmly and performed "Candy" as a blues tuned version in recent 2020-2021 concerts.
* Zig-zagged with Music/PaulMCCartney. During the early post-Beatles years, he refused to play any Beatles songs. Eventually he relaxed that policy but still played only a few Beatles songs (mainly the songs that he wrote without the help of Lennon). Also, he still rarely plays songs such as "Coming up", "Every Night" and "Here Today".

** Despite being on their extremely popular ''Ride the Lightning'' album, they've only ever played ''Escape'' live a single time during an anniversary concert where they played each song from the album. The song was a last-minute addition to the album, literally written by James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich ''in'' the recording studio when they were [[ExecutiveMeddling told by the producer]] they had to have one more song on the album.
** Though it's their second best-selling album, it's rare for the band to play anything other than ''One'' from ''..And Justice For All'' live. It was their first album after original bassist Cliff Burton died in a bus accident, new bassist Music/JasonNewsted was all but mixed out of the album altogether, and they didn't have their usual mixing producer leading it to have an overly "sterile" and "tinny" sound lacking bass. It was also their most aggressive and technically demanding album, leading to burnout. Finally, the album also has some of their longest songs which, according to Hetfield, the crowds don't always respond well to while playing them live. Though many of its songs are beloved by fans, the band itself is rarely plays most on the album for these reasons.

** ''The Unforgiven II'' was a sequel song released as a single and had a music video, but as a slow PowerBallad, was a BlackSheepHit for the band. They initially only played it live once at the Billboard Music Awards in 1997 before shelving it until 2015. Even after, they've only played it a total of 10 times as of 2022.
* When Music/TupacShakur mocked Mobb Deep member Prodigy for having sickle cell disease on "Hit 'Em Up", the group released the diss single "Drop a Gem On 'Em" in response. A little less than three weeks after its release, Shakur was murdered in a drive-by shooting, and Mobb Deep [[NeverSpeakIllOfTheDead quickly pulled the single from circulation and airplay]] out of respect for Shakur and his family; but still included it on ''Hell on Earth''.

* Music/{{Psychostick}} rarely plays ''Orgasm = Love'', a fan favorite from their very first album, live. Vocalist and songwriter Rob "Rawrb" Kersey noted that "this song was written during a weird phase in my life. I was going through some weird turbulent stuff with relationships" and at one point dubbed it a "studio only" song when asked by a fan if they would ever play it live. Additionally, it's a slow PowerBallad for an otherwise "thrashy" comedy metal band, giving it BlackSheepHit vibes. The band has ultimately relented, playing it live on a few occasions, but nowhere near as often as other songs of its popularity.
* For a long time, Music/{{Radiohead}} refrained from performing their BreakthroughHit [[Music/PabloHoney "Creep"]], due to their discontent with audiences only showing up to hear that song before leaving right after it was over. They eventually made peace with the song and added it back to their setlist in 2016.

** Their 1991 BlackSheepHit "Shiny Happy People" is an interesting case. Depending on the source, the band refuses to perform the song in concert due to either [[CreatorBacklash absolutely hating the song]] or because they find it too difficult to perform it live. Furthermore, they also bounce between either hating the song or having a love-hate relationship with it.

* Music/SteeleyeSpan no longer performs the old English folk song ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8qXkBoR80k Little Sir Hugh]]'', despite the fact it is thought of as one of their best. It was pointed out to them that although the song in its various forms has been around for at least six centuries, it isn't ''just'' a medieval ditty about cruel child murder. The ballad, about a woman dressed in green who slaughters a little boy to collect his blood in a bucket, is about the "blood libel", the invented reason for expelling all Jews from England in the late 1100s. The band accepted the ballad is extremely anti-semitic and dropped it from their performances.

* Due to the difficulty involved with replicating its MotorMouth bridge, Music/WeirdAlYankovic refuses to perform the fan-favorite song "Hardware Store" live. He also avoids performing the popular "Albuquerque" because its 12-minute EpicRocking length and extensive passages of comedic yelling and screaming put a strain on his vocal cords.

''NOTE: {{Administrivia/Zero Content Example}}s are not allowed. Please explain or provide some background as to why it is considered a Rarely Performed Song.''

* Due to the difficulty involved with replicating its MotorMouth bridge, Music/WeirdAlYankovic refuses to perform the fan-favorite song "Hardware Store" live.