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In the field of recorded music, a hidden track is a piece of music which has been placed on a Compact Disc, audio cassette, vinyl record or other recorded medium in such a way as to avoid detection by the casual listener. In some cases, the piece of music may simply have been left off the track listing, whilst in other cases more elaborate methods are used. In some rare cases a "hidden track" is actually the result of an error that occurred during the mastering stage of the record's production.

Contents 1 Methods 2 Titles 3 Reasoning 4 Notability 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

On unindexed media such as vinyl records, hidden tracks are generally additional tracks omitted from the liner notes. "Train in Vain" on The Clash's London Calling is technically a hidden track because it does not appear on the track listing, although it was not intended to be such (see also Reasoning).^[1][2][3] Alternately, a vinyl record may be double-grooved, with the second groove containing the hidden tracks. Notable examples of double-grooving are Monty Python's infamous "three-sided" Matching Tie and Handkerchief, Tool's Opiate EP^[4] and Mr. Bungle's Disco Volante.

On indexed media such as compact discs, double-grooving cannot be used, but there are additional methods of hiding tracks, such as:

• Placing the song after another track (usually the last track on the album), following a long period of silence. For example, Nirvana's song "Endless, Nameless", was included as a hidden track in this way on their 1991 CD Nevermind, after over 13 minutes of complete silence.^[5][6] Although it was not the first hidden track to use this technique, this hidden song gained significant attention.^[2] This is the most common method used of placing a hidden track on a CD.

• Placing the song in the pregap of the first indexed track, so that the CD must first be cued to the track, and then manually rewound; these are usually referred to as "Track 0".^[7] The "downside" of this method is that the CD player will not play these tracks without manual intervention and some models (including computers) are unable to read this content. See Albums with songs hidden in the pregap.
• Using many short tracks of silence.^[7] On Danzig's album, Danzig IV, after the twelfth song, there are numerous blank tracks, until reaching the 66th track, the monotone chant, "Invocation.",^[8] or on Bowling for Soup's Drunk Enough to Dance, Track 28, 'Belgium'.^[9]
• Making the track playable only through the computer. An example would be Marilyn Manson's Mechanical Animals. This album contains a hidden track only playable if you upload the album to a computer [10].

Often it is unclear whether a piece of music should be considered a hidden track. For example, "Her Majesty," which is preceded by fourteen seconds of silence, was originally unlisted on The Beatles' Abbey Road but is listed on current versions of the album.^[10] This is allegedly the first instance of a hidden track (except that The Beatles has a hidden track after "Cry Baby Cry", referred to only as "Can You Take Me Back" (see "Cry Baby Cry" for more). The song snippet at the end of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is considered by some to be a hidden track, by others to be noise not worthy of such a designation, and by others to be part of "A Day in the Life."^[11]

As these tracks are left off the song list, they often have no formal or no publicly known song titles. When mentioned in music reviews, these tracks are usually referred to as "Untitled Track" or "Hidden Track." However, titles of hidden tracks often become known when they, before or after the fact, are released as the title track or B-side of singles, EPs, or promotional releases.

Examples include:

• Cracker's "Eurotrash Girl," released in all aforementioned formats, originally as a B-side of the "Tucson" EP, then as a hidden track on Kerosene Hat, then as a single and promotional single.^[12]
• "Endless, Nameless," the bonus track for Nirvana's Nevermind, was also released as a B-side to "Come as You Are".^[13]
• Sometimes the song is a cover version and its title thus already known, such as Look at Your Game, Girl, originally by Charles Manson, on Guns N' Roses' "The Spaghetti Incident?".^[14]
• At other times, the name is inferred by external communication from the artist; for example, the untitled track on Alanis Morissette's 1995 album Jagged Little Pill is referred to as "Your House" when she performs live, and on her website's official biography^[15]
• On Sarah McLachlan's album "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy" a hidden track is heard about three minutes after the last listed track. At the start of the track, there is first the sound of guitars tuning up before an acoustic piano version of the song "Possession" begins. In the sheet music folio for "Fumbling", both versions are included. The hidden track version of "Possession" is listed as "Piano Version Possession".
• My Chemical Romance's album, The Black Parade, contains a hidden track called 'Blood' which starts playing after 90 seconds of silence.
• On Green Day's album Dookie, the hidden track 'All By Myself' has 3 minutes of silence.
• The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus's hidden track "Grim Goodbye" on the album Don't You Fake It was actually from their previous first self-titled LP.
• Pearl Jam's album Yield contains a hidden track called "Hummus", which starts 90 seconds after the album's final song, "All Those Yesterdays" ends.
• The Gorillaz album features a small remix of "Clint Eastwood", which stars two minutes after the end of the last track, "M1 A1".
• The Triplets of Belleville soundtrack features the sound of Madame Souza's attempt to play the piano and "sing" from the film of the same name, played two minutes after the English version of "Belleville Rendez-vous".
• The Homestar Runner album, Strong Bad Sings, features a hidden track about hidden tracks called "Secret Song", played after the last track "Everybody to the Limit (Live from West Reykjavik)" ends. Some of the lyrics include "Secret songs, I can't believe you found it."
• The Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack features an extra track called "[Untitled Hidden Track]", which is mainly a montage of several of the songs from the film.
• There is a secret track on the "Weird Al" Yankovic album Off the Deep End called "Bite Me", which is just a six-second cacophony that occurs after ten minutes of silence. It was designed to frighten listeners who forgot to turn off their CD players after the album was over.

Most artists who decide to include a hidden track do so simply to surprise their fans. Sometimes, the tracks are hidden for specific reasons:

• In some rare cases, it is used to put forbidden (by law) songs on live discs. An example is Ramones' Loco Live American version, which has the song "Carbona Not Glue" hidden after "Pet Cemetery" on track 17. It was originally recorded on their album Leave Home, but the makers of the spot remover Carbona, a registered trademark, objected. Therefore reference to the song was taken off of the album and cover.^[16]
• The aforementioned "Train in Vain" was left out of the track listing simply because it was added last-minute to the album; it was initially for a different compilation album.^[3]
• The Beatles's "Her Majesty" from Abbey Road. Although the piece was intended to be used as a bridge between "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Polythene Pam", it was cut from the line-up because Paul McCartney reportedly didn't like the placement of it. However, an engineer placed as the final track on the album after "The End", the official ending. The LP doesn't make note of it on the back of the sleeve, but in the 1983 reissue of the albums, "Her Majesty" is in the written playlist. It begins after eleven seconds of silence following "The End".^[17]
• The song Look at Your Game, Girl written by Charles Manson is not listed on "The Spaghetti Incident?" album of cover versions by Guns N' Roses to avoid controversy.^{[citation needed]}
• "Weird Al" Yankovic's Bite Me was put on after ten minutes of silence to scare listeners who had forgotten to turn off the CD player.^{[citation needed]}

Sometimes hidden tracks have become quite popular and received heavy radio airplay, and occasionally climbed the charts.

• Counting Crows' hidden cover of "Big Yellow Taxi" on Hard Candy.^[18]
• Cracker's "Eurotrash Girl," an original, was one of their biggest radio hits despite being a hidden track on Kerosene Hat.^[12]
• Collective Soul's song "She Said" was the hidden track on their fourth album Dosage, but was later released on their greatest hits collection, 7even Year Itch, as a self-contained track, rather than sharing a track with another song. ^[19]
• Skin (Sarabeth) by Rascal Flatts, received so much success that the album was reissued with the track listed due to confusion caused when it was released as a single.^[20]
• Pearl Jam's song "4/20/02," about the fellow friend and grunge singer Layne Staley's overdose, is titled with his estimated date of the Alice in Chains singer's death and begins exactly 4:20:02 after the conclusion of the song "Bee Girl." The song was not featured as a listed track on Pearl Jam's album Lost Dogs because Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder did not wish for it to be exploitative.^[21]

• Easter egg (virtual)
• B-side
• List of albums containing a hidden track
• Backmasking
• Bonus track

• Hidden Songs A user submitted database of hidden song listings.