MICK Harvey compiled the original B-Sides & Rarities album in 2005 after Cave and the Bad Seeds began to realise how much extraneous material they had recorded over the years. That decision was inspired by the existence of two specific B-sides that ultimately didn’t make it onto Harvey’s B-Sides & Rarities but acted as a guide for its ebb and flow.
“There was a pair of really long meandering B-Sides that were partially the inspiration for this compilation,” explains Harvey. “We did a B-side that was actually called ‘B-Side’. That was a mash-up where I edited together all the demos we’d made for Let Love In and turned it into one continuous collage. The other B-side around that time was called ‘Where The Action Is’, which was the music that became ‘Red Right Hand’. It was improvised music, with completely improvised lyrics. Putting those together made us start to ask what we could do with the B-sides. In the end, they were both a bit too long as we didn’t put them on the compilation. We thought they could become the even weirder hidden gems. They are still out there on the loose.