This is a spinoff of this thread (Black Sabbath): viewtopic.php?f=1&t=111277

Basically, I'm after what do you think are the most underrated Deep Purple songs. For the sake of brevity and avoiding this to become a "thread of lists", try and name only 3 songs (or less than 3).

Underrated is hard to define, generally speaking, if a song featured in the Billboard charts, if it featured on many compilations (Purple had a lot of bogus compilations so it's hard to judge), if it was released as a single (A-side; unless it totally bombed), if it featured in their live set and as a consequence has been captured on a live album, it is not underrated... but there may be exceptions and you can explain.

Mine would be:

1-Super Trouper, off Who Do We Think We Are ! (1973).
I got this album very early on in my discovery of Deep Purple. Pretty much at the same time as Made in Japan. I found it more commercial and immediately catchy than Made in Japan, which featured long songs and some jams. However, I was quick to prefer Made in Japan. Yet, on WDWTWA, the song Super Trouper was one of my favorites. It has none of the great displays of musicianship that one can expect in Purple; and Gillan's vocals are multi layered, and there is a lot of flanger applied to tracks, if not to the vocals itself. I never heard anyone saying that they liked this song. I never heard the band talking about it or mentioning it.

2-The Spanish Archer, off The House of Blue Light (1987)
Again, I got this album not much later after MiJ and WDWTWA!, some time in 1991.. I already knew Perfect Strangers and so I knew that Purple were very relevant after their reunion. But though this album was only 4 years old, it sounded incredibly dated - still does to this day. But a few songs really hooked me, and Spanish Archer has all these great guitar licks. It's a like a very logn guitar solo. The pace is great too, very cool Ian Paice drumming, and Gillan's lyrics and vocals are just great. I can't help but wonder why this song never went anywhere. The live album that followed HoBL, Nobody's Perfect, had some HoBL songs, but not this one.

2-Shield, off The Book of Taliesyn (1968)
This album is my least favorite of all 3 Mk I albums, but I long thought this song was a hidden psychedelic gem. It's got a groove and feel like I hadn't heard, with the haunting organ melody and lyrics by Rod Evand that seem to capture the spirit of the time (I wasn't there). until I heard Hendrix's "Stone Free" and then I realized, well it's not as original as I thought and that's probably why it didn't get the attention I first thought it deserved. I still prefer it to Stone Free though.

Well, from The Book of Taliesyn, Anthem is an amazing ballad, calm enough that my Grandmother would probably like it, yet Jon Lord's arrangements make it so much more than your standard rock ballad. And there's Wring That Neck, just an awesome instrumental. That repeating organ motif by Lord is just fantastic, and combined with the drumming and Ritchie's many solos, the song is very bombastic and "artistic". Really any of Mark 1 Purple is probably underrated except for the two well known singles (Hush and Kentucky Woman, which are both obviously covers). It's nice to see reviewers on this site mostly giving praise, but the average Deep Purple fan may have little knowledge of those three original full lengths. Stormbringer as a whole may be underrated as well, sure it isn't the genius of Burn just half a year before it, but it's a very creative release and really see's Purple's young blood injecting some funk and soul into the sound. Any Purple fan who doesn't love Stormbringer is missing out.

"Wring that Neck" / "Hard Road" is somewhat greatly rated in its own right. It featured on many compilations that got released by the actual record label between the Mk IV and Mk II reunion period. They also kept it in their live show shortly after Gillan joined, for instance they played it before the Concerto. Ian Paice also chose to do a jazzy-orchestral version of it in 1999 (Concerto's 30th).

"Anthem" is great, that instrumental section (organ, strings, organ, guitar) stands apart from the rest of the song. It would have been too "Donovaney", not Purple enough, to merge it with the rest of the song (not talking about the mellotron heard during the 2nd verse). The 2nd organ part is churchey enough to make it sound eerie. Apparently it was used in a 2006 German film (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0454931/soundtrack); I have to see this. I agree that it is generally not the best known Purple song and its inclusion of strings is generally overlooked by the following "April" piece of a year later, not to mention the Concerto.

This little number:


Quite ambitious, Jon Lord must've been out of his mind... wait, to be honest I don't really like this record. Quite a feat they got the Royal Philharmonic to agree to the project. Garishly English, and the English have always sucked at orchestral music.

Edit: the purely electric parts are still electrifying though.

^ whaddyou mean the English suck at orchestral music? Holst's Neptune, Delius' Sea Fever and anything by Handel.

On topic, Anyone's Daughter off Fireball. The lyrics are hilarious but beyond that the instrumental is funky country groove with a epic, morose chorus where the chords go minor and Blackmore throws in a few slide notes and mm.

Sail Away off Burn? Idk if it's underrated, it may have been one of the singles at the time.

I always loved Holy Man off Stormbringer.

Totally agree with The Spanish Archer, a highlight of an otherwise average album

The Battle Rages On has some really good songs on it too - the title track, Anya and Solitaire.

Fools off Fireball.

Pretty much all the lesser-played Machine Head tracks.

Bloodsucker off In Rock [those vocals!]

Hallelujah from the early days, also You Keep On Moving from the mid 70s.

I rather think of chamber music when I think of English music. There's Vaughan Williams, but his symphonies are rather small scale.
And Händel was German.

Some really good ones mentioned so far, and yes 'Sail Away' has one of the coolest grooves Blackmore ever did, set him right up for the first three records with Rainbow in terms of the sound. I guess it is underrated if you compare it to 'Burn' and 'Mistreated'.

There are some corkers from the Mark II reunion. I'll go with:

'Dead or Alive' - the finale to The House of Blue Light, I can never play it enough! Really scorching track with a belting chorus from Gillan.

'Anya', one of a few real standouts on The Battle Rages On, unfortunately like THOBL the consistency wasn't there the whole way. This track though is a very neat, dramatic stage for Blackmore and Gillan to show how well they worked together even if they found it impossible to get along sometimes.

And from the Steve Morse era (which also has its fair share of fantastic songs):

'A Simple Song' - I'm not sure if this is underrated really as it has been played a lot the past two years, but this will probably never get the acclaim it deserves as it is in my opinion the band's best song since 1984. This one regular length song just has so many different catchy ideas, riffs, motifs in it, it could have been spun out into a six or so minute self-indulgent epic.

Opus: love Vaughan Williams. And I stand corrected on Handel!

This. Fireball is an overlooked album, but 'Demons eye' and 'Fools' really are among Purple finest songs. Those riffs, thoses vocals...

Into The Fire is the first song that comes to mind for me. Don't know if it's necessarily underrated but that main riff has a serious groove to it.

Pictures Of Home and A Gypsy's Kiss also stand out for their resemblance to Rainbow. The former seems to predict Rainbow's influence on power metal with stuff like Kill The King and the latter feels like a really good Kill The King rewrite.

About Concerto: if you don't think it's great, it's certainly not underrated according to you. But the Concerto itself wasn't an obscure affair. Opeth for instance payed tribute to the album cover when they recorded their live album at the Royal Albert Hall. The Concerto's 30th anniversary was a grand affair as well (1999).

There are songs that people mentioned which indeed, were ignored by the band until much, much later.

Bloodsucker and Fools weren't back in the days regular features in their live set. They did introduce Fools during the Bananas tour (~2001) if I'm not mistaken, and Bloodsucker was re-recorded on their ABandOn album (1999). "Hard Lovin' Man" was also played when I saw them in 2012 and again last month, but wasn't part of Mk II live sets in the 70s.

A lacklustre version of "Anyone's Daughter", was played during the "Battle Rages On tour" and ended up on a live album, whilst they did play "Battle Rages On" when I saw them in 2007 - which was a pleasant surprise.

"Anya" does sound like a recycled "Stranded" (guitar wise) but much better.

"Dead or Alive"; that one always fascinated me. It sounds as an attempt to write speed metal, but it fails somewhat. The result is still listenable. They did play it live, but indeed, it is nowhere near famous.

"Pictures of Home" was one of the few songs performed at the Concerto's 30th; "A Gypsy's Kiss" is truly forgotten gem.

What about 'The Gyspy' from Stormbringer? I'm not crazy about the album itself (too much Glenn Hughes funk and you can tell Blackmore wasn't happy). This song, however, is like a precursor to Rainbow with Blackmore's medieval influences coming to the fore. It's an excellent piece with a beautiful mournful feel to it. I agree that Fireball is mostly made up of underrated, deep cuts. After the 1970s, I'm not keen on much - even Perfect Strangers is a bit toned down - but I like 'Fire in the Basement' from the otherwise crap Slaves and Masters. The album itself sounds like another JLT era Rainbow album (read: not good) but this song rides a nifty, twisting Blackmore riff that just couldn't have been written by anyone else.

Oh and what about 'Smoke...'?

I absolutely love Lay down, Stay Down. I get why people may not, but it has a lot of energy.

Sail away and Living wreck from In Rock and Burn, respectively, are pretty underrated cool tunes.
And Sometimes I feel like screaming, my personal favourite of DP, is so underrated also. Maybe because it's from their 90's era...

Acrobat: If only the rest of Stormbringer was as killer as that title track...

I'm surprised no-one is mentioning their songs from the 90s, or maybe that's just Martin Popoff giving every one of their 90s albums a 10 out of 10 rubbing off on me.

I've only heard Perfect Strangers of all their post-Stormbringer stuff, and the only thing that still stands out from that album was a ten-minute instrumental track that was added as bonus track for one of the CD reissues. I think it was called Sons of Aleric or something. Very cool piece.

Yes I nearly mentioned 'Sons of Alerik', but I was keeping faithfully to the "three only" rule from the OP! It is a great track and after all the meaty riffs, tight composition and catchy vocal lines on Perfect Strangers it makes a really great, chilled out postscript.


I didn't mention Fireball as when I got into it it was along with all the other Mark II records, so I just lumped it in with them as another incredibly awesome record by that lineup, one of the greatest in fact. That title track... there's nothing like it.


Personally I wish bands writing speed metal and power metal these days would have a good careful listen to that track once in a while!

How about 'One Man's Meat' and 'Ramshackle Man'?

All of the songs from the Morse era since people completely disregard it.

Amazing ballad/love songs: Haunted, A Touch Away

Rocking tracks: I'm Not Your Lover Now, Almost Human, Ted the Mechanic

Songs that make you feel like the coolest guy in the room: Doing it Tonight, Money Talks, Picture of Innocence

NO DRINKS! NO SMOKES!
NO DICKING AROUND, NO DIRTY JOKES!

I've always thought Bananas is one of the strongest Morse era records (along with Now What?!) and 'Haunted' is indeed a great track. So is the very smooth 'Walk On', makes you feel like the coolest guy in town! The lyrics to 'Doing it Tonight' are absurd, but funny, and the track itself is really good and groovy.

'Blood from a Stone' off the latest record has very cool vocals and is another one I'd like to mention if we are getting into a Mark 7 & 8 discussion.

There's quite a lot of M7/8 songs included on the two new live sets, recorded in Japan and Germany, which also have some fantastic packaging. Haven't heard 'em yet but looking forward to it. The one in Germany is a Wacken set so naturally the lineup of songs is a bit more predictable and "crowd pleasing", but still quite a few new ones.

The main riff from "Lay Down Stay Down" was first written for a side project while Purple disbanded, you can also hear influence from Mountain's "Blood from the Sun". But Purple did play it live.

Their mid-90s and 2000s, and 2010s, eras are great, but to me not all of it is underrated. I admit however that only a few Purpendicular songs (Sometimes I feel like Screaming and Ted) seem to have endured more than one tour. None of the Bananas songs made it to the Rapture tour, and so on.

I also think at some point they were playing all of Machine Head during a tour, probably 2004 but I didn't see them. So of all Machine Head songs, no leftovers, not even outtakes such as "When a Blind Man Cries" which featured in many live sets and compilations.

"Demon's Eye", "Fireball", were played live in the 90s and 2000s.

"Gypsy", "I'm Not Your Lover Now", "Ted", "Almost Human", those songs were all part of the live set when they came out.

"Livin' Wreck" is probably the less played of all "In Rock" songs.

sushiman: you say "A Simple Song" has been played a lot. May I ask where you live ? I think I want to move there. Here it is completely ignored - if you're referring to local radio, clubs, pubs, other people's cars, etc.

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The Battle Rages On title-track is very good. Got the chorus playing in my head all the time.

Seconding Living Wreck. Need to listen to Burn and Fireball more before I can say anything about them. Stormbringer was the first album I bought from them, and it's all about the title-track, The Gypsy and and the last ballad maybe. The rest is kind of soft. Maybe the title-track is the "hit" of that album, so don't know it's in any way unerrated...

"Living Wreck" is a really cool tune, nice and bluesy with a great catchy chorus.

"Lay Down, Stay Down" is an absolute masterpiece. I didn't think it counted as underrated, but then, I'm newer to the band. It's basically the embodiment of rock n roll - that swagger and attitude, goddamn.

"Never Before" and "Maybe I'm a Leo" are really fun, cool tracks as well.

Hungry Daze from Perfect Strangers is great, by far my favorite from the album. I'm not real big on The Battle Rages On, but Ramshackle Man is awesome. I'll go ahead and echo the praise for Sail Away as that or Mistreated are my favorites from Burn, the beginning of Sail Away is fantastic.

I always liked "Blind" off their self-titled album. Lord going nuts with the harpsichord sound, acid-induced lyrics and that freak-out wa-wa solo...cool as fuck!

Surprising to me that "Never Before" didn't do much as a single and that the band has barely played it live. That's a great song, single-y and "sing along", but it still has great Blackmore and Lord solos. More musically involved than "Smoke on the Water". A world where "Never Before" became their big hit would have been interesting.

Living Wreck is awesome, that Lord solo at the end just sounds insane, like someone or something just spiraling out of control. Damn he was special.

"Never did understand you... My sorrow is hanging in the gray sky!" *dadadadadadadada-dadadadadadadada*

Well, I don't know if you properly read the topic at all, but multiple posters have mentioned both of the songs that came to my mind instantly - "Anya" and "Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming". Both are among the best songs of their career for me. As someone who got into the band around 2004-2005, both The Battle Rages On and Purpendicular were part of my DP experience from the start (but for some reason albums like Abandon and Bananas weren't, and frankly still quite aren't, but that mightn't be a loss).

I wouldn't really know what's underrated and what isn't though, but it's probably safe to assume that 70s stuff and Perfect Strangers get the main focus. Anyway, if I have to name a third one, that'd be "Solitaire", another one off TBRO.

So yeah, "Anya" is a pretty epic, from that intriguing intro to the riff to the pretty decent solo. "Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming" has memorable guitar stuff and excellent vocal performance to make an impressive ballad (more or less). "Solitaire" has a riff, nice-ish solos and something done to the vocals. I guess there'd also be lots of stuff from the 60s and the 70s that's bit obscure but memorizing things is hard.

Lazy is a rockin' little song and even though it's on Machinehead, I never hear many people giving that song praise.

'Lazy' is played at pretty much every gig isn't it, although I would agree it still doesn't get the praise it deserves, which is masses.

Early era, first three albums of band are completely diffirent and underrated for rockers. More pyschedelic, more progressive. For example, April is a masterpiece epic song for me. Blackmore's early hard rock style Deep Purple is great too but I wonder if the band would continue in Jon Lord's way...

And of course, Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming is and many other Morse era songs are underrated for mainstream.

Some great choices already mentioned (Deep Purple is one of my favorite bands). Three of mine: "Chasing Shadows", "Why Didn't Rosemary?", and "Comin' Home".