GOD'S FOOT

• Fade Away
• Mountains Of Love
• What Have I Done To You?
• You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Melody
• How Would You Know?
• Don’t Need A Reason
• Charity
• Eye To Eye
• Perfection
• Losing Your Looks
• Takin’ It Easy
• Can’t Kill Myself
• Jake's
• I Didn’t Know
• Number One

The tracklisting here is speculative. Some of these songs may not have made the final album and some may have been used as b-sides. For example, Juliana has said that Losing Your Looks would have been rejected.

Fade Away and Mountains of Love were released on the 2002 Gold Stars compilation album.

I Didn’t Know and Number One were released in mp3 form on Juliana’s official website as part of the Honor Download ‘experiment’ in 2005. Can’t Kill Myself followed in 2007. Although originally recorded during the God’s Foot sessions it would seem that they are not owned by Atlantic Records / Disney.

All other recordings remain unreleased.

Music’s history is littered with albums prepared for release but for whatever reason (suitability / commercial / quality, but almost always a dispute between artist and label) they are withheld, sometimes indefinitely. So is the case with God’s Foot.

The original recordings remain the property of the record label – Mammoth / Atlantic as was, which is now owned by the Walt Disney Company.

Only two songs from what was to have been the follow up to Only Everything have ever seen an official cd release (Fade Away & Mountains of Love, which appear on the 2002 Gold Stars compilation).

Inevitably the advent of internetland has seen mp3s of unmastered mixes varying in quality being shared around over the years, much to Juliana's chagrin, with fans (and perhaps Juliana too) longingly, but seemingly forlornly, hoping for an official release.

"seeing my songs presented as "God's Foot" in a random order, including songs which I did not intend, for people to hear made me feel kind of powerless and scared"

(excerpt from Juliana's blog on "Remember November" - March 2009)

"I was obsessed with “You’re Living All Over Me,” Dinosaur Jr.’s second album, and with this song I can hear a bit of that influence. Even in the drums. Especially in the drums. I can’t remember if I told Todd (Philips, my drummer) to “play like Murph” or if Todd came up with that idea on his own. Todd would remember. Todd has a prodigious memory. I played all the other instruments."

(excerpt from Juliana's blog on "Perfection" - January 2009)

God's Foot - The Story

The story of God’s Foot was featured in a 32 page chapter in Dan LeRoy’s fascinating book – The Greatest Music Never Sold, published in 2007 by Backbeat Books.

LeRoy’s clear passion for music and the spirit of artistic endeavours is clear throughout the book. It’s a must read for Juliana’s fans for the God’s Foot chapter alone.

Meticulously researched, including quotes from LeRoy’s interviews with Juliana herself, Todd Philips (who played drums on the recordings) and Gary Smith (Juliana's then manager) in 2006/2007, the chapter offered the most detailed insight to date into the whole sorry tale. An absorbing if ultimately heart-breaking read of commerce interfering in artistic integrity.

It was a delight to read Juliana speaking with enthusiasm for the songs, particularly for Perfection – a scandalously missing gem from indie pop’s history , and as LeRoy chronicles a song which ironically owes its genesis to the unpleasant dispute between artist and label. But God’s Foot as an album didn’t need a radio friendly pop ‘hit’ as LeRoy demonstrates.

There were signs a decade on that despite the personal demons she still confronted when revisiting this album, there was a desire for the record to reach the wider audience it has always deserved.

LeRoy's book gave many fans hope that this story may yet have a Disney fairytale ending.

God's Foot - The Demos

On December 5, 2014, as part of her PledgeMusic campaign in support of the Juliana Hatfield Three reunion, Juliana released 'God's Foot Demos' to pledgers.

The tracklist as originally labelled (see 7):

1. How Would You Know
2. Mountains Of Love
3. Fade Away
4. Eye To Eye
5. Get Over Me
6. Don't Need A Reason
7. You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory
8. Chance Is Waiting
9. I Didn't Know
10. Simple Man / Take Me To Your Master
11. Charity

In preparation, Juliana said:

the recordings were taken from an old cassette--the only version of these recordings that i have. so the sound quality is going to be possibly very slightly unlike status quo to ears that are used to, like taylor swift..or digital high resolution everything..the songs were recorded onto 2-inch reel-to-reel tape and then most likely transferred to half-inch tape and then transferred onto a cassette for my listening pleasure and then that cassette ended up in the basement sitting in a paper bag full of cassettes and then years later (circa now) the cassette was transferred onto a CD. and then this will be converted to mP3’s..it is by no means a sonic disaster..it sounds great and fine to me. but i am a caveman. and i know there are some serious audiophiles out there and they might notice something sounds a little off..but i don’t, really. and the demo versions of the songs are really cool… and some are quite different than what ended up on the album that never came out.

there are 11 songs..there were some different songs that ended up being considered for the album but either we did not demo every single song, or there are some that just cannot be found. although i never finalized an official version and sequence of the album, some of you have heard versions of what people who made the songs available (not me) were calling “god’s foot”. but, again, i never sanctioned the song choices. since i knew the album was not ever scheduled for release, i never needed to finalize the song choices or mixes or the sequence. i am telling you this so that no one is disappointed that a few songs you might’ve been expecting to be part of the GF demos will not be there. for example, “perfection” is not included in the demos. i don’t remember doing a demo for that one. maybe it exists somewhere, but i can’t find it. so that one is not in the list of GF demos…

A New Recording?

In February 2018, Juliana tweeted:

2021 Interview

In February 2021, Juliana was a guest on episode 2 of The LIFERS podcast hosted by the rock band Local H. As part of a wider interview she discussed God's Foot, and mentioned the possibility of all her Atlantic recordings being contractually released back to her in 2025 or even sooner.

Listen to the whole interview at SoundCloud, it's totally worth your time, but here's the God's Foot segment, published here under a Creative Commons licence:

As the God's Foot saga continues through a third decade, Juliana and her fans are still trying to scratch that itch. It won't fade away.