10 Amazing Songs That Were Never Performed Live

The best way to really make sure a song is battle tested is to bring it to the live stage. After all, since most bands make a lot of their living on the road, you need to make sure you have a healthy arsenal of new songs to pull from every time you go out on tour. Though there are some staples of every single live set, there are always those rare songs that manage to fall through the cracks.

For one reason or another, all of these songs never met the live stage, instead being reserved for either the deep cuts on an album or being left on the cutting room floor when deciding on the final setlist. While some of them may have been on the setlist of these acts at some point, they've never actually appeared during crunch time when everyone was firing on all cylinders.

Then again, some of them might not be in there for a different reason entirely, either through some shady business dealings or the fact that the song might be too much for the singer to have to put themselves through again. At this point, you may as well cherish the studio cuts while you have them, because you're never going to see these in action any time soon.

A lot of the draw that came with the Eagles was their pure synergy whenever they took to the stage. Though their lethargic look onstage was never going to fly in the MTV generation, you didn't really need to show off when you had songs that sounded this good to begin with. It only starts to get complicated when the song actually hits a little too close to the bone.

During the touring cycles for the album Desperado, Gram Parsons of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers passed away, which hit everyone in the California rock scene pretty hard. Aside from the Eagles' fixation with the sunshine-y brand of rock, Bernie Leadon was also the lead guitarist of the Burritos for a while, which made him pour out his feelings into song for My Man. As much as this song feels ripped straight from Leadon's broken heart, it's almost understandable as to why it never saw the stage.

Even though there are a lot of sonic similarities between this and something like Tequila Sunrise or Lyin Eyes, it gets a bit more complicated when the characters in these songs have a real name and are no longer here to say anything about it. Still, this is a great eulogy to one of the legends of folk rock and a worthy inclusion for any open mic nights you may have.