The History Of The Mystery Track – Definitions & Categories

What is a mystery track?  Here’s a basic definition:

A mystery track is a song, outtake, monologue, dialogue, multimedia presentation, excerpt from a TV show, radio program or motion picture, or experimentation in audio that is not properly credited in all the appropriate places.  It’s not listed in the liner notes, it’s not part of the track listing nor is it named on the label of an actual CD, cassette or vinyl record.

However:

A mystery track can be mentioned by name or clever clue in the liner notes without being part of the track listing.  Occasionally, you’ll find a lyric sheet and/or songwriting credits, as well.

It can be mentioned in the track listing but is assigned the wrong track number so you have to search for it.

It can be named on the label side of a recording and nowhere else.

If it’s a secret CD-ROM (remember those?), sometimes on the label side you’ll see a tiny symbol with the words “CD EXTRA”, but neither the outside packaging nor the label side of the actual CD indicate multimedia material.  Sometimes only a single clue is offered in the accompanying booklet.

There’s an advertising sticker mentioning otherwise uncredited bonus material placed somewhere on the jewel case or the cellophane wrapped around a new copy.

There’s a blank space next to a track number.  That doesn’t always indicate a credited untitled song.

The actual words “Hidden Track” or numerous variations thereof are substituted for the real title of the song.

If a song is listed as a “Bonus Track” and no track number is given, unless it’s the very next track on the CD, it’s a mystery track, also.  Example:  If you have 10 tracks on a CD and the “Bonus Track” follows the 9^th song on track 10, that’s not a hidden track because that’s where you would naturally expect to find it.  But if it’s buried at the end of track 9 or on any other track besides track 10, then you have a hidden track.

Now that we have a clear understanding of what a mystery track actually is, how many different types are there?

In truth, there’s only three:  proper songs, miscellaneous audio and multimedia.

But then, there’s the issue of format exclusivity.  One category of mystery track can only be heard on vinyl while a few others can only be accessed through CDs.

Finally, there’s the matter of location.  Not every mystery track is tucked away at the end of an album, a single or an EP.  Some are cleverly concealed before the first listed track while others are literally crammed between credited songs.

All in all, considering all of these factors, there are fourteen different categories altogether.  Let’s go through them one by one.

Category 1 – Unlisted Bonus Track

The most common type of mystery track.  It’s an uncredited song assigned its own track number on a CD.  In the case of vinyl and cassettes, it’s simply an unlisted cut.  More often that not, it’ll be the last song you hear on a recording.

Category 2 – “Listed” Bonus Track

This type of mystery track is mentioned in the track listing but the words “Bonus Track” or something similar appear next to the title instead of a number.  Instead of being heard after the last credited track (where you would normally expect to find a properly listed additional song), the “listed” bonus track is actually elsewhere on the CD, hence the ironic quotations.  In other words, you have to locate it yourself.  Sometimes it’s tucked away at the end of the last listed track.

Category 3 – Unlisted Audio Track

Instead of hearing a tune on an assigned track number, you’ll hear a secret audio clip.  It can be anything from movie scenes to experimental sounds or effects not considered legitimate songs.

Category 4 – Buried Song

A buried song shares space with a listed song on the same track number.  Sometimes, it plays immediately after the credited track but usually there’s a break before the mystery begins.  The silence can be as short as a few seconds or as long as twenty or thirty minutes.  The bottom line is if you want to hear it right away, you need to fast forward to its starting point.

Category 5 – Buried Audio

Like the buried song, it’s a miscellaneous audio clip that shares space with a credited piece on the same track number and is always heard last.

Category 6 – Track 0

Every CD begins with track one.  Usually, when you hold the rewind button, there’s just 2 to 3 seconds of silence.  But sometimes, there’s something more.  With a minus sign in front of the counter, it is possible to hide a mystery track before the very first listed track.  However, holding the rewind button too long results in your counter being reset to zero, meaning you’re back to track one again.  The key is to stop rewinding until you’re right at the start of what is usually an uncredited song.  (I recommend doing this after pressing the pause button.  It speeds things up.)  Like the Buried Song and Buried Audio, the process of locating a Track 0 mystery track can be maddening at times, but if the song is good, it’s so worth the hassle.

Category 7 – Mislabelled Track

There are two kinds of Mislabelled Tracks:  accidental mistakes and intentional misdirects.  Most people take it for granted that the track listing on the back cover of a recording is always correct, that every song is listed and in the appropriate sequence.  They never think that something might be wrong, that a human error might have been made or that someone is trying to mess with their heads.  A Mislabelled Track is a song listed as being on a particular track number when it’s really on a different track number.  For example, a song listed on track 4 is really heard on track 9.  Sometimes, a band will put a completely incorrect track listing on the back cover of their album and hope the listener will figure out where ALL the songs are supposed to be or offer an incomplete track listing that misses a number of songs or even audio clips.  Naturally, we call these “mystery albums”.  (By the way, some mystery albums have NO track listing at all.  Spooky.)

Category 8 – Preface

In the world of non-fiction literature, a “preface” is an introduction, a preview of what’s to come in the book you’ve started reading.  In the realm of recorded music, it’s a type of mystery track that appears at the beginning of a track number before the listed track is heard.  It can be anything when you think about it, with one exception.

Sometimes when you’re listening to a live album chances are you’ll hear the singer make some kind of comment to the audience in attendance before a song begins.  (“Hello, Cleveland!”)  Almost all concerts involve direct interaction between the band and their fans who watch them perform.  Unless the comments are literally separated from the music tracks, this isn’t hidden material.

One more thing.  There’s a big difference between Preface mystery tracks and Track 0 hidden tracks, as far as CDs are concerned.  A Track 0 mystery track is something you hear before track 1.  Always.  A Preface hidden track can be found at the start of any track number including track 1.

Category 9 – Inbetweener

Do you ever pay attention to the clock counter on your CD player when you’re playing a CD?  You know, you should.  You might miss something.  Mystery tracks can be found lurking anywhere on a recording:  before track 1, at the beginning of a track and at the end of a track.  But do you know that it’s possible to hide extra material between songs, as well?

As far as vinyl and cassettes go, an Inbetweener mystery track is an unlisted song or uncredited audio that is literally between 2 listed tracks.  When a CD track is over, there is usually a short break before the next track appears.  Normally, within that interval, you’ll hear a few seconds of silence.  Not always.  Sometimes, in place of that silence, you’ll hear bonus material like an excerpt from a film, a studio conversation, an introduction to the next song you’re about to experience in a live setting, even proper songs.

You know you have an Inbetweener mystery track when you see a negative sign in front of the clock counter and you hear something that’s not contained on an actual track.  Sometimes on live CDs (never on records or tapes, by the way) song introductions and speeches directed to the audience in attendance are kept separate from the performances.  Instead of being heard on a track number, where you expect this material to be, it’s found in that interval between 2 tracks.  By the way, Inbetweener mystery tracks are almost never mentioned in the track listing.  But, occasionally, the liner notes provide you with important clues.

Category 10 – Phantom Track

A Phantom Track is a properly listed item that you can’t hear on your record.  Why?  Because it’s not on there.

Most Phantom Tracks are mistakes, songs that were supposed to make the cut but got dropped at the last minute.  Because replacing artwork for an album can be expensive, especially for vinyl, an incorrect track listing is left as is (although latter pressings usually fix this error).  And the listener will feel a little ripped off.

But other Phantom Tracks are jokes.  If you have a sense of humour, you’ll probably appreciate some of them.  Basically, you’ll see a title listed next to a number and when you learn that it’s a blank track, if the gag works, you’ll laugh.  If not, well, you’ll probably roll your eyes or get red faced.  Either way, as Alanis would say, isn’t it ironic?

Category 11 – Play-Out Groove

The essence of rock ‘n’ roll is the loop, a sequence of notes and chords repeated over and over again in order to create a simple, memorable, danceable hook.  But that’s not the only purpose of a loop.  In the world of unlisted music, the loop is a tremendous annoyance, a joke made at the expense of the unsuspecting listener.  It has no intention of making you want to dance.  What it really wants to do is make you laugh but it’s more likely to piss you off.  This category is exclusive to vinyl, the oldest format in recording history with roots dating back to the 1870s.

No matter what type of vinyl you have in your collection – 7”, 10”, 12” – they all have something in common:  the play-out groove.  When you finished playing a side of vinyl (this was in the days before the arrival of the automatic record player) the needle would move into this small area close to the label called the play-out groove (or the run-out groove, as some like to call it) and play endlessly until you manually removed the needle from the record.   Usually, when this happened, you’d just hear the crackle of vinyl.  But sometimes, you’d hear an uncredited recorded loop that will either amuse you or drive you insane.  This type of mystery track later inspired similar kinds of repeated audio clips and songs, usually found at the end of a CD.

Category 12 – Multimedia

For a time, CDs didn’t just have audio.  They also stored video, pictures and text files.  In the 1980s, we were introduced to the short-lived CD+G’s (Compact Discs plus Graphics) which eventually became the standard format for karaoke.  Then in the 1990s, there were Enhanced CDs and Hyper CDs, singles, EPs and albums with additional content accessible through your computer and the Internet, respectively.

Most were properly credited but quite a few were not, although sometimes helpful clues on the label side of a CD or in the liner notes pointed you in the right direction.  Some CD+G’s featured an advertising sticker on the front cover.

The CD-ROM has long since died but you can still find multimedia mystery tracks on old Enhanced discs which can still be viewed if you have a DVD-ROM drive on your computer (although these drives are not being consistently manufactured these days) and a decent version of Windows or QuickTime.  A very small number can’t be accessed by any technology because that technology no longer exists which is why most people have never seen a CD+G outside a bar.  And the bonus Internet content originally accessible through Hyper CDs, whether uncredited or not, has long since disappeared.  You can’t even find cached copies.

In the last decade, CDs merged with DVDs to become Dual Discs.  (Audio on side one, video on side two.)  But there haven’t been any mysterious versions to date.

Category 13 – Stickered Bonus Track

Sometimes, a band decides at the last minute to add another song to their new record.  But because all the artwork has already been completed and the release date is rapidly approaching, the only way to let listeners know about this track without spending too much additional money is to have a sticker announcing it on the front cover.  Usually attached to the manufacturer’s sealed cellophane (which most people throw away) but sometimes permanently stuck on the door or back cover of an actual CD case, the Stickered Bonus Track is an easy way to spot a mystery track.

Almost always a proper song (and often a monster radio hit), it can also be miscellaneous audio.  It can be on a proper track of its own or share space with another.

Category 14 – Continuous

Almost all mystery tracks are found in one particular space on a recording with one notable exception.

A Continuous Mystery Track is a song that begins on one track number but ends on a different one.  Let’s say you start listening to track 10.  In a normal situation, the song would end before you reached track 11.  But if it’s a Continuous Mystery Track, it will literally continue uninterrupted into that next consecutive track number and the next one and the one after that and possibly as many as dozens more until it finally concludes on a much later track number.

Some Continuous Mystery Tracks are credited in the track listing but as you’ll discover, they only tell you where it begins.  As long as you don’t have your shuffle function activated, you’ll ultimately realize where and when it actually ends.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Thursday, October 24, 2019
4:01 a.m.

The History Of The Mystery Track – An Introduction

Tell me if this has ever happened to you.

You start playing an album.  You want to hear the whole thing so you begin with track one.  By the time you make it to the end of the last track, you’re ready to take it off the turntable or remove the CD from your stereo.

But the album isn’t over yet.  It keeps playing.

Something feels wrong.  You just hear silence, a whole lot of nothing.  What’s going on here?  Why won’t it automatically shut off?

Then, out of nowhere, you’re jolted.  Suddenly, the band has surprised you with an additional song.

You look at the track listing again just in case you missed something.  Nope.  It’s not mentioned at all.  You pore through the liner notes.  No indication whatsoever.

Congratulations, you’ve just heard your first mystery track.

Everyone has their passions and obsessions.  Mine is finding unlisted music.

It started when I was a teenager.  Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s I noticed certain tapes I owned had bonus songs or mysterious noises not properly credited in all the right places.  By the time I was in college, I discovered more unlisted material on CDs, on the albums & EPs stored in the tiny library of my campus radio station and in my own collection I had started when I was 18.

In 1998, two years after I graduated with honours from Mohawk College’s TV Broadcasting program and three years after I first conceived of the idea, I hosted a short-lived radio series ambitiously titled The History Of The Mystery Track.  In nine months, I had produced 16 episodes, most of which aired without much fanfare on Mohawk’s own FM station, although the Station Manager at the time had hoped to secure syndication rights for me which thankfully never happened.

Here we are more than twenty years later and I really wish I could fix it.  I wanna scrap everything and start over.  Heavily influenced by Alan Cross’ The Ongoing History Of New Music (which is back on the air after a long hiatus), I was unable to find my own voice as a broadcast historian.  (Cross did a few episodes on mystery tracks himself (and generously credited me for pitching a few selections (although he only used one) for an April 2001 program on the subject.  Well before that, he kindly faxed me a thorough critique of my show when I sent him a sample tape.)

I want to get it right this time.  But until I figure out how to achieve that, I want to write about mystery tracks in this space.

Shortly after I quit my five-year gig as a volunteer DJ at Mohawk’s radio station (long story), I attempted to write a book about mystery tracks with the same title as the documentary series.  (I even sought government support to ease any financial burdens I might face but was disappointingly turned down, even though they liked the concept.)  This proved an impossible task.

At that point, there were already hundreds of known mystery tracks in existence.  How could I, an outmatched twentysomething, possibly research all of them in a timely manner without owning a home computer at the time or having access to the people who could expand my limited knowledge?

After many months of sloppy, unfocused, excessive note-taking and occasional stabs at manuscripting, the project was shelved.  But truthfully, I’ve never really stopped researching or jotting down notes about mystery tracks.  After all this time, I’m still discovering new ones and remain fascinated.

When you hear something unexpected on a record or a tape or a CD, sometimes you get a buried treasure, a song so good it can make your day.  Other times, the discovery is something so memorably horrendous you still want to know everything about it.  You just have to know why this thing exists in the public sphere.

While not every mystery track will sustain your interest (there are average and boring ones, too) there are so many out there that are worth the time to experience, if you know where to look.  Some have incredible back stories.  A precious few changed lives and even the course of music history.

Your record collection is filled with these carefully hidden secrets.  It’s finally time to tell their stories.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Thursday, October 24, 2019
3:24 a.m.

Death Ship (1980)

In a horror film, anything can be haunted or possessed: a house, a vehicle, a painting, a doll, an appendage, even a small child.

Why not a giant ship lost at sea?

In Death Ship, an old Nazi torture vessel is still floating around on the water many decades after the last World War.  It long ran out of fuel but is somehow still functional.  No one is onboard except for all the dead bodies in storage.

It’s headed straight for a party ship.  Crabby Captain George Kennedy isn’t happy that he’s losing his job to his second-in-command Richard Crenna.  He should be relieved considering how much he hates all the tourists on board.  He’s the Tommy Lee Jones of the high seas.

As a young, unibrowed Saul Rubinek rocks the boat with his surprisingly groovy disco band, we briefly meet some of the passengers including Crenna’s wife and two kids, a tomboy daughter and a son who can’t stop peeing.  There’s another crew member, Nick Mancuso, involved with a pretty dame who’s DTF.  And Kate Reid, an old widow only on this doomed voyage because it was what her dead husband wanted to do himself.

The movie doesn’t even bother introducing us to any other characters which means a whole bunch of extras are going to drown once the Nazi ghost ship crashes into this Halloween-themed love boat.  A low budget means low excitement when it finally happens.

There are just enough survivors to conveniently fit in a makeshift wooden raft although when Kennedy finally emerges out of the water, which is treated as a cheap scare, there’s still room for one more.

As they drift along patiently hoping to be rescued, here comes that goddamn Nazi boat.  The gang is thrilled but immediately something is wrong.  As they climb up a lowered staircase, it’s only a matter of time before it collapses on purpose.  Sure enough, Kennedy, Crenna and Mancuso are the last to go on it and only get about halfway up before they crash into the ocean below.

Thankfully, a rope ladder is lowered down and they finally make it safely onboard.

But then Rubinek, the cheerful band leader, gets a little too acclimated with the new digs.  It doesn’t help that he’s Jewish.

There are long gaps in between the killings which means lots of creaky doors, unexplained slammings, music and movies that suddenly play on their own, a whole slew of cobwebs and a whole lot of exploring.  The lack of an unsettling atmosphere means both boredom and unintentional silliness, although I did enjoy the old musical some of the passengers watch.  Not a good sign when that film from the 30s has better special effects.

While recovering from his near drownings and being oil bukkakkied, Kennedy suddenly hears an invisible Nazi talk to him in German.  Because the movie has already established him as a crank, he’s the ideal instrument for further mindless mayhem.  Unfortunately, I didn’t hate him all that much.  I mean he has a point about those tourists.

When that widow he can’t stand makes the mistake of eating those candies, she becomes the Before picture in one of those make-up segments on the Canadian Home Shopping Channel.  When she returns to one of the cabins to resume looking after him, he chokes her to death.  Who’s that silly-looking man he sees in her place?

Now declaring himself the Captain of this death trap, the Nazi ghosts seem to be sending him future clips of the movie while he sleeps.  We know what will happen to some of the survivors before they do.  None of it is scary but at least Mancuso’s fuck buddy has a nice body.  Guess she’s not a fan of blood showers.

You’d think Rubinek’s humourously convoluted death would’ve been an immediate tip-off but it takes at least half the movie for the remaining survivors to realize they should never have boarded.  Maybe you shouldn’t announce out loud what you’re planning to do.  This ship is smarter than you.  Then again, a spare raft is eventually discovered albeit not in the most ideal location.

You can pretty much guess who the final survivors will be, regardless of how many movies you’ve seen in your life.  Hell, even Trump could figure it out.

Did the filmmakers really believe they could get a sequel out of this?

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Friday, October 4, 2019
4:10 a.m.

The Lady In Red Kills Seven Times

There is a legend.  A very stupid legend.

Long ago, two sisters were at war over a guy.  One murdered the other.  But then the dead sister, miraculously resurrected, found revenge before resting in peace.

That’s not the end of this very stupid legend.

A century later, in this otherwise glorious castle in Germany, two more sisters feuded.  The exact same results.

Guess what.  It’s about to happen once more.

In 1958, two young siblings, Eveline and Kitty, are squabbling over a doll.  Their frail grandfather is alarmed by Eveline’s behaviour.  (Where are their parents?)  She stares transfixed at a painting.  It seems to be commanding her to stab that doll and decapitate it.  When an infuriated Kitty tackles her, Eveline reaches for that knife on the floor.  But grandpa wheels right over it.  (Why does he wear his cardigan off to the side like that?  It looks weird.)

The brief storm now passed, he explains the painting.  It features the two murderous sisters from centuries ago.  It was The Black Queen who eliminated The Red Queen only to be eliminated herself by her zombie sibling.

Clearly concerned about the future, fourteen years later, when the girls have grown into young women, he has secretly written a will, knowing he won’t survive beyond 1972.

Sure enough, another Red Queen walks into his bedroom and before she can stab him, his heart gives out.

At the reading of the will, old grandpa pulls a fast one.  No one gets any of his valuable shit until 1973 when the actual will will finally be unveiled.  Contrary to what Kitty has long believed, he has always worried the curse would eventually afflict his own family.

The creators of The Lady In Red Kills Seven Times should’ve been worried themselves.  This is nonsensical hooey.

Now a fashion photographer involved with a married man, Kitty is deeply guilt-ridden.  Why?  Because she believes she killed Eveline.  In a pitiful flashback, we see them fighting, if you can really call it that.  I mean it’s not exactly well choreographed.  (Why is Kitty flailing her arms in the air when she’s on top of her sister?)  One slap and a very gentle bump against a statue and boom, there she is, floating lifeless in the water with a preposterous amount of blood oozing out of her.  Honestly, it’s an oversell.

Of course, this is not the whole story as we eventually learn making the scene even more ludicrous.

Only two other people know what really happened to Eveline: another sister, Franziska, and her limping husband, Herbert.  Herbert is particularly pleased that the “old fart” has keeled over but wrongly presumes that Kitty will be the biggest beneficiary of the family estate.  She doesn’t care what she gets anyway.

Speaking of grandpa, his absence during the killing is glaring and unexplained.  Shortly before his own death, he gets annoyed that Eveline doesn’t visit him anymore.  Franziska, the only devoted family member left in his life, falsely claims she’s in America.  He never does learn the truth.  (How come we never see Franziska as a child?)

Keeping Kitty quiet is a blackmail scheme.  Some weirdo named Peter (who looks like a young Charles Manson) threatens to off her if she doesn’t pay up although his shakedown technique needs work, he’s all over the place with his thoughts.  When she eventually does, he assaults her.  She’s naked, he’s fully clothed.  Thankfully, it’s extremely brief and not more explicit than that.  Nevertheless, this should’ve been cut.  It’s just an excuse to see the actress Barbara Bouchet in all her glory.  A consensual love scene with Martin, the married douche she works with, would’ve made more sense.

Speaking of the douche, when the Red Queen kills off a couple of people he knows particularly well, he arouses the suspicion of Inspector Toller, who looks uncannily like Ravishing Rick Rude with that glorious moustache.  Toller doesn’t have any real evidence against him.  He just knows that both killings make Martin’s professional and personal lives a whole lot easier.

When a spooked Kitty gets a weird call from someone clearly pretending to be Eveline, she goes back to the family castle to make sure her childhood tormentor (who, as a child, is too cute to hate, quite frankly) is really dead.  Now hidden in a secret passage in the basement that is also home to rats, leeches and fake bats, when Kitty opens the door, you can clearly see Eveline blinking.  No wonder she’s confused.  (Eveline must be secretly related to Bernie.  Neither of them decompose despite being long deceased.)

As more people end up dead, Kitty eventually confesses the truth to a now freaked out Martin.  At the crummy, low-end fashion house where they work, he gets hit on by one of the models (Sybil Danning).  Nothing happens until he gets his promotion and she shows up unannounced at his apartment.  Wearing a scarf around her head for some reason, she’s a literal red herring.

As the camera solely follows him in his ridiculously skimpy robe, that gives the shallow redhead more than enough time to strip down completely and show off her own glorious body once the camera is back on her.  A necklace she wears later inspires him to find out the truth about the second will.  I’m amazed he was able to focus on it at all.

I haven’t mentioned Rosemary, another hot co-worker at the fashion house who is also acting rather suspiciously.  Toller asks her a direct question and he immediately catches her evasiveness.  (Her oversized spectacles are hilarious.  That ain’t high fashion, toots.)  But he’s not quick enough to solve the case to prevent more murders.  He’s no Adrian Monk.

Italian slasher films, better known as Giallos, are notorious for shamelessly exhibiting big gaping plot holes.  The point is the spectacle, be it bloody murders or the delightful displaying of mondo gazungas.  Sorry, but I need a coherent story and actual scares.  There isn’t one of either to be found in The Lady In Red Kills Seven Times, a misleading title.

I have a lot more questions.

If the real killer is wearing a mask of Eveline, with one notable exception, why do we see the actress who plays the real, very dead Eveline instead of the imposter?  When you see the actual mask she wears, how could anyone possibly be fooled?  How was she able to kill the kinky fashion house boss so quickly despite being quite a distance away just moments earlier?  How come no one chases her down after when she’s such a slow runner?

Why does that door to fake Eveline’s apartment move on its own when Sybil Danning’s character visits but Kitty has to physically open it herself?  How did that fourth key get in her purse undetected?

How does Kitty escape when the only ways out appear to be the staircase and the elevator, both occupied with cops?  How is Herbert able to hide from Kitty but not the police?  Why didn’t he use the same hiding spot?

Why does Martin’s schizophrenic wife still want to be married to him when she doesn’t even want him touching her while declaring “all men are beasts”?  Why is there so much lax security at this mental institution when Martin specifically instructs her doctor to increase surveillance on her?  Why give her drugs that make her condition worse?

Why doesn’t Peter just take off his coat when it gets caught in the car door as it moves?  Why didn’t they use a proper stunt guy instead of an obvious dummy for the crucial moment of impact?  (Another unplanned laugh.)  Are those sticks of gum he’s handing to a co-conspirator or are they drugs?

Why is this conspiracy so needlessly complicated?  I get that you’d want to make an innocent person look guilty and have them nabbed for your crimes instead but considering all the planning involved, shouldn’t you, oh I don’t know, rely on more than just circumstantial evidence to frame them?

Wouldn’t it be easier to just kill off the heirs to grandpa’s fortune and dump their bodies in that secret room?  It’s not like anyone outside the family ever goes down there.

Nah, that would make too much sense.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Friday, October 4, 2019
3:56 a.m.