Back in 2004, a few weeks before RCA Records released Velvet Revolver’s debut album ‘Contraband’, popular peer-to-peer filesharing networks were flooded with audio files that had names of songs from the album. Everyone who downloaded them got a little surprise: this was definitely Scott Weiland’s voice, but the music didn’t sound anything like the Velvet Revolver songs that we knew then.
It was actually a strategy for record labels and big name artist management at the time to flood the internet with fake files, to make it virtually impossible to download illegal copies of the real thing once the album ‘leaked’. Keep in mind that in 2004 there were no valid online platforms to purchase or stream digital music legally like there are today. People bought CD’s. And if you wanted mp3’s, you had to rip them from your discs or download them from sources like Kazaa and Gnutella.
The “Contraband Poetry” was produced and recorded at Lavish Studios by Scott Weiland (vocals), Douglas Grean (keyboards, programming, guitar) and Michael Weiland (guitar, bass). The six recordings, initially posted as loops with different random running times, were never included on any commercial release.
The fragments are:
- “My Thoughts Are All Diseased” (1:18)
- “You Pushed My Buttons” (1:36)
- “On A Cold Winter’s Night” (2:54)
- “You Give Me Mixed Messages” (0:40)
- “On A Cold Winter’s Night” (2:54)
- “If I Were A Woman” (0:34)
Lyrics and YouTube links are posted below:
“My Thoughts Are All Diseased” (1:18)
My thoughts are all diseased
I carry them all like cancer
they spread like syphilis
and they’re sold like cigarettes
and then judged like hereticsBurn, witch, burn!
You’re a God of men
A nothing, a void
I need a way out now
There is no way outGive my life to save my children
But need to live for them to thriveIs happiness really a warm gun, or warm rum?
“You Pushed My Buttons” (1:36)
You pushed my buttons
I pushed the steel throught my skin
I’m under siege, the war beginsYou take my rights, I’m at the brink
We attack, we bleed
I hate the hate, that war has causedOnly love can stop it now.
But fear the seven nation army bent on destruction
and it knows no fear
and it knows no fear
and it knows no fear
and it knows no fear
“On A Cold Winter’s Night” (2:54)
On A Cold Winters Night
I Lost My Soul
And I Try
To Justify
All Those Who Die
In The Name Of Him
And His FlagHmmmm
Hmmmm
Hmmmm
HmmmmYou Got To Know It’s Coming
You Got To Know It’s Coming
You Got To Know It’s Coming Down
“You Give Me Mixed Messages” (0:40)
You give me mixed messages
My broken heart is stitched togetherI’m strung out on you
Ripped, wrecked, roped and hung
Blowing in the windThe representative flag of the United States of Altered Consciousness
“Money Owns Money” (0:32)
Money owns money
Used to own dreams
First class piece of journalist me
Don’t know ‘m self
Don’t know ‘s name
The gist shipped and back off to the warfront again
“If I Were A Woman” (0:34)
If I were a woman, I’d be a Jezebel Junkie
And told the nuns that washed me clean of all of my sins:I’d give my life
to the lord Jesus Christ
Or maybe have a child
And then meet myself
in the mirror again”