History Main / RarelyPerformedSong

* Music/{{Tool}}: "Ticks and Leeches" from ''Lateralus'' features a ''lot'' of screaming, and its recording actually wrecked vocalist 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.

* Music/{{Tool}}: "Ticks and Leeches" from ''Lateralus'' features a ''lot'' of screaming, and recording the song actually wrecked vocalist 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.

* Due to his CreatorBacklash towards both albums, Music/RogerWaters rarely plays songs from ''Pros and Cons'' or ''Radio KAOS'' live, though he did perform the ''Pros and Cons'' track "5:06 AM (Every Stranger's Eyes)" on his 2000 ''In the Flesh'' tour.

** The first two Marcus Bridge albums ''Node'' and ''Mesmer'' stopped showing up in shows after 2020. The former in particular was a near CreatorKiller for Northlane and were all too happy to abandon the album once ''Alien'' dropped.

* After the PaterFamilicide of wrestler Wrestling/ChrisBenoit and his family, Music/OurLadyPeace had since admitted they would never play "Whatever", Benoit's theme, again; and the Wrestling/{{WWE}} themselves blacklisted the song.

* Music/GunsNRoses has two of the tracks from ''Music/AppetiteForDestruction'', "Anything Goes", which has not been played since 1988, and "Think About You", which had most of its plays between 2001 and 2006 (meaning Music/{{Slash}} hasn't performed it since 1987!).

* 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.

** 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 Burton's death, 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 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 of them for these reasons. From the 2010s onward, "Blackened", "Harvester of Sorrow", and "The Shorest Straw" get played a few times a year, though "One" remains the album's only staple.

** 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 Burton's death, 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 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 of them for these reasons.

** 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/{{Thriller}} "Beat It"]], "Music/{{Bad}}", and [[Music/{{Dangerous}} "Black or White"]], respectively).

** The song "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite" was a fairly well-received single, and the band members themselves seemed to like the song, since they always included it on compilations and generally described it as a good track that managed to lighten the rather somber mood of the album ''Automatic for the People''. Despite this, they never played the song live, maybe because it would have been too complicated, especially given the chorus, practically impossible to sing.

** [[https://forum.maidenfans.com/threads/iron-maiden-songs-%E2%80%93-a-rough-overview-of-their-%E2%80%9Clive-history%E2%80%9D.16270/ Many of their songs were never played live]] (only [[Music/IronMaidenAlbum their debut]] and ''A Matter of Life and Death'' had all tracks performed at some point), and quite a few only in a few concerts. One that fans particularly lament that has never entered a setlist is "Alexander the Great", something that cover band The Iron Maidens [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVvZtCfQbe8 tries to alleviate]].

** [[https://forum.maidenfans.com/threads/iron-maiden-songs-%E2%80%93-a-rough-overview-of-their-%E2%80%9Clive-history%E2%80%9D.16270/ Many songs were never played live]] (only [[Music/IronMaidenAlbum their debut]] and ''A Matter of Life and Death'' had all tracks performed at some point), and quite a few only in a few concerts. One that fans particularly lament that has never entered a setlist is "Alexander the Great", something that cover band The Iron Maidens [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVvZtCfQbe8 tries to alleviate]].

** Metallica hadn't played "Orion" from ''Music/MasterOfPuppets'' in its entirety until 2006, having last played it at original bassist Cliff Burton's funeral in 1986. Especially since the middle portion of the song was built exclusively around Cliff's bass-playing.

** 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 ''St. Anger'' these days.

** Metallica hadn't played "Orion" from ''Music/MasterOfPuppets'' in its entirety until 2006, having last played it at Cliff Burton's funeral in 1986. Especially since the middle portion of the song was built exclusively around Cliff's bass-playing.
** 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 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 songs from the album for these reasons.

** Metallica hadn't played "Orion" from ''Music/MasterOfPuppets'' in its entirety until 2006, having last played it at Cliff Burton's funeral in 1986. Especially since the middle portion of the song was built exclusively around Cliff's bass-playing.

* Music/BillyJoel understandably rarely performs his 1989 megahit "We Didn't Start the Fire" in concert due to his difficulty in remembering all the words, knowing that "if he messes up a lyric, he's done for".

* Since 2019, Music/{{The Rolling Stones|Band}} have taken "Brown Sugar" out of their setlists whenever they perform live on stage, due to controversy over the song's racist and misogynist lyrics.

* Music/TheB52s stopped playing “Song For A Future Generation” after the death of guitarist Ricky Wilson. Wilson had a spoken word section in the song, and the band felt it wasn’t right to perform it without him.

* 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/MyChemicalRomance hasn't played "Drowning Lessons" from ''I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love'' since the early 2000's, due to live performances of it being plagued with technical mishaps to the point where it was dubbed 'cursed' in a tweet by bassist Mikey Way.

** The original album version of "Hurt" is rarely, if ever, played anymore. The song has a bit of a "cursed" reputation in that several live performances of it have been interrupted for various circumstances (such as technical difficulties and fan trolling), and when it was CoveredUp so well by Music/JohnnyCash in 2002, Reznor outright said "that song isn't mine anymore". Still, they continued to play it until about 2005, where they began almost exclusively playing a toned-down version, literally called "Hurt (Quiet Version)", at all live performances. It features Reznor providing vocals and playing the keyboard, with the rest of the band only joining in at the final chorus. The song's original 1994 version from ''Music/TheDownwardSpiral'' is now rarely performed.

* Outside of a handful of early concerts, Music/{{Korn}} refused to play the song "Daddy" live due to its deeply personal subject matter of frontman Jonathan Davis' sexual abuse as a child. In 2015, Davis would relent and perform the song for a series of concerts commemorating the self-titled album's (from which "Daddy came from) [=20th=] anniversary, since his abuser had died by then and thus he felt comfortable performing it.

* Outside of a handful of early concerts, Music/{{Korn}} refused to play the song "Daddy" live due to its deeply personal subject matter of frontman Jonathan Davis' sexual abuse as a child. In 2015, Davis would relent and perform the song for a series of concerts commemorating their debut album's twentieth anniversary, since his abuser had died by then and he felt comfortable performing the song by then.