I received a copy of Bowie’s “Loving The Alien” box in the mail this week, and was amazed to learn that “Too Dizzy”, a song originally released in 1987 on his “Never Let Me Down” album had, at Bowie’s request, been excised from all reissues of the album beginning in about 1995 or so. I had no idea.

Last year, I was equally fascinated to discover that Christina Aguilera’s 1999 debut album had also been quietly reissued in 2000 with new versions of two songs completely replacing the original versions—and with absolutely no mention of this anywhere on the CD packaging.

This now has me wondering—what other songs, once widely released with an artist’s full and conscious approval, were later “retired” or otherwise disowned by that artist? The most obvious song to pop in my head was “One In A Million”, conspicuously absent from the recent “Appetite For Destruction” box set—yet the song is still readily available on the “Lies” album, and can be purchased as a download in the next ten seconds to anybody with a credit card. So...no.

Other tracks that pop into my head were originally released by mistake—alternate takes accidently substituted for the finished master on vintage albums by Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan, and probably any number of other artists of the era. More recent releases have been recalled after accidently containing technical and/or audio glitches. But to me, that’s not quite the same thing as an artist consciously withholding an existing, finished, and released recording from further release.

The only other song I can think of which “qualifies” is probably “Diana”, the Bryan Adams b-side which, like Bowie, Adams has apparently refused to reissue or perform since the death of Princess Diana. While a lot of vinyl-era b-sides have become elusive in recent years, this is the only b-side where the artist has acknowledged that the track is intentionally remaining withheld.

Anyway, there have got to be more tracks like this. Anybody?

Alanis Morrisette pretty significantly disowned her first two electro-dance albums.

The Tragically Hip's initial EP was dropped from all of their sets by about 1993, though it's still readily available.

Body Count's song Cop Killer was scrubbed from their first album, and hasn't made a released return, although it's still in every set.

The Strokes dropped "New York City Cops" from the US CD of "Is This It"

I believe what you are looking for are examples of an album being altered in later years, and not just an alternate release at the time it came out, like stopping a track over complaints or copyright.

So, what came to mind was X and Ain’t Love Grand from 1985.

Apparently they hated their version of the Small Faces’ “All or Nothing” which was on the album.

When it was remastered in 2002, it was removed from the album and added as a bonus cut, so it still existed but not on the album itself anymore.

10,000 Maniacs famously removed "Peace Train" from later pressings of In My Tribe after misconstrued comments about the Salmon Rushdie situation caused a backlash against Cat Stevens.

Oh yeah--I had forgotten about that. And it immediately reminded me that in 2013, Lady Gaga recorded "Do What U Want", an R. Kelly song, for "Artpop," also releasing it as a single (with a slew of remixes). She has since not only removed the song from recent CD's and vinyl pressings of "Artpop", but has removed the song and every remix of the song from every digital platform known to man.

I'm thinking that Morrissey has done this a couple of times, but I can't remember the exact instances offhand.

The B-52's dropped Don't Worry and replaced it with Moon 83 on Whammy!, but I believe that was due to legal rights to Yoko's song.

"Misconstrued"? He was quite clear. Several times.