Vault tracks are a vision from the archives, a restoration of an appreciated artifact. Songs make it onto the cutting room floor and never further. The finished album is released, this perfect container of a sonically complete thought, and nobody ever asks what happened to those that never made it. They are locked away in the vault, deprived. Eventually, some of these tracks emerge from the shadows as a b-side or re-recording bonus or internet leak. They are not a nostalgic forgery; this is the real thing (or, could have been the real thing; as close as it can get). Sounds that are so redolent of, yet removed from a certain time. Evocative of an era, but elided from its definition.
now playing: “say yes to heaven”
I spent the first two weeks of the new year exclusively looping a 14:19 minute four-version compilation of Lana Del Rey’s “Say Yes to Heaven.” The song exists on the fringes of her extensive discography, widely-embraced and superior to the majority of her published tracks. This compilation is a history lesson of a single song, in which each produced demo adds and subtracts instrumentation beneath the vocal track. It is a game of spot the difference as the versions morph to the same conclusion. It remains an unreleased song, though it has been in contention across multiple album cycles. (To love something so much and revisit it, again and again, even when reinvention demands novelty; to shape it in the image of what you are now.)
Vault tracks are artists in the attic. Their completed works stand alone, but must contend with the knowledge that there was almost more. The vision could have been, still may be, radically different. They can open the vault for reclaiming inspiration or a recycling project. They are timestamped with authenticity. (A fuzzy outtake of who you were when you made it against the startling clarity of who you are now looking at it.)
Vault tracks are me when I trawl through old places I’ve been or older pieces I’ve written, consider it in the day’s light, and realize it still holds up. That surging flood of prideful recognition when it is not a vintage, but a classic. (To have found or created this thing that lives beyond us; won’t leave us behind even after we have left)
But I also do this with songs already in existence; that aren’t vault tracks, but are vaulted from my lived experience. I’ll uncover sounds of a foregone era, of music that only existed in my past periphery, and then foreground it in my present. The 1975’s “About You” opened up this black hole of a mid-2010s discography deep-dive (the song hangs its head, questions, do you think i have forgotten—). A decade removed, I’d almost have the courage to be embarrassed about it, but the Arctic Monkeys also released an album last fall and it’s all just so predictable. Maybe the point is that we don’t forget, creatures of habit and found familiarity.
Vault tracks imply there is always more from where it came from. They are a delicious trap masquerading as an error of omission. Makes it insurmountable to set aside the past with a conclusive gesture when there is still more, unturned. Holds space for the wisp of possibility that it can go back to the way it was before. That it can be revisited with equal fervor and sentiment, and feel the same.
Tells you the moment isn’t over; asks, why don’t you stay a little longer this time?