My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

It had been so many years since I had listened to my vinyl copy of this seminal album that I did not notice one track was missing on the CD version.

“My Life in the Bush of Ghosts” (Tim Wright, Bill Laswell, Brian Eno, Busta Jones, David Byrne [performer], Brian / Byrne, David Eno, Brian / Byrne, David / Jones, Busta Eno, Chris Frantz, David Van Tieghem, John Cooksey, Prairie Prince)

Luckily, not everyone is as dense as me, and the song is available (for a limited time) for download here

Some history, from enoweb

The track Qu'ran was later left off the UK cd (and other euro pressings?) over concerns about its religous implications - the track includes a recording of a reading of the Koran and it may be considered insulting some followers of the Koran. It can still be found on the US releases.[B12 editor: not on my US copy, purchased Jan 2003]

On “Qu'ran” -- Qu'ran is the proper spelling of the Muslim book of scripture; “Koran” is an anglicized misspelling as is “Moslem.”

“Very Very Hungry” was subsituted for Qu'ran. This was originally a b-side to a 12“ EP.

Opal Information 12 (Spring 1989) explained: ”A year or so after its release (1980) EG received a serious letter from the World Council of Islam in the UK stating that they considered the recording offensive. Brian Eno and David Byrne explained that no disrespect was intended and immediately agreed to remove the track.“ To put this in context, Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses was published in 1988, with the fatwah declared shortly after.

Gregory Taylor elaborates:

The Islamic Council of Great Britain had approached the record company with a complaint about the use of the ”found“ material [a ritual chanting of the Holy Koran. Actually, I'm surprised that anyone got permission to even tape it in the first place]; There are some expressions of Islam in which *all* music is considered ”haram“ [I think that's the Arabic term, anyway] - or against the teachings of the Koran. There is an argument about whether or not Mohammed (pbuh) stated that ”music“ for use in certain Islamic festivals or special occasions *is* allowable, but that's for folks who know the Surahs better than I.

At any rate, the Islamic Council voiced its strong disapproval of having the original source material used in the way it was used [in some ways, the objection is really quite similar to that raised by Kathryn Kuhlman's estate when they wanted her sermon on Lot and the angels removed from what finally became ”The Jezebel Spirit“], and in the days of watching the Fatwahs [pronouncements of death] fly back and forth, Eno and his pals deemed it meet to exclude it. ”Very Very Hungry“ was added instead. However, my copy of it includes both, so some other judgements must have been made later

(from boingboing, of course)