- \n
- \n
\t\u2018Unsatisfied Heart\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t
![\"LOS](\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Aaron Rapoport\/Corbis\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tIn addition to weirdly anticipating the plot of A History of Violence, this noir-ish tale of a man haunted by his past cuts close to the core of the personal issues Springsteen was grappling with in 1983. It stands alongside \u201cStolen Car\u201d and \u201cCautious Man\u201d in its unsparing depiction of a man in existential crisis, with the chorus posing an unanswerable question: \u201cCan you live with an unsatisfied heart?\u201d (\u201cFugitive\u2019s Dream,\u201d presented in two versions on the same album, tells the same story, with some of the same lyrics.) Newly in therapy, Springsteen was finally facing the darkness of his childhood, even as he spent his days recording songs that often resembled a more fleshed-out version of what he\u2019d released on Nebraska the year before. In essence, Springsteen had to think about his entire life, Dewey Cox-style,\u00a0before he could allow himself to release the big rock anthems he\u2019d already recorded for Born in the U.S.A..<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
\t\u2018Farewell Party\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Frans Schellekens\/Redferns\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tNear the end of the recording process for the album now known as The Streets of Philadelphia Sessions, Springsteen called guitarist Shane Fontayne, drummer Zachary Alford, and bassist Tommy Simms, all veterans from his 1992-93 tour, to his home studio in Los Angeles. The album was originally built entirely on drum loops and Springsteen\u2019s solo instrumentation, but \u201che was looking for another element,\u201d Fontayne told Rolling Stone in 2020.\u00a0 \u201cFarewell Party,\u201d the tale of a couple realizing their story is coming to an end, is one of the tracks that lose their drum-loop origins entirely in favor of a full-band sound. \u201cDon\u2019t we all dream of a life somewhere,\u201d Springsteen sings.\u00a0 \u201cUntouched by our failures?\u201d In an unpublished segment from Springsteen\u2019s recent Rolling Stone interview, he said the album was originally called The Streets of Philadelphia Sessions: The Farewell Party. \u201cI should have kept that title,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that song is the kind of love song that I write, a doomed one.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
\t\u2018Under A Big Sky\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Michel Linssen\/Redferns\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tThe chronology of Tracks II can get wildly confusing: \u201cUnder A Big Sky\u201d is a perfect example. Studio records unearthed by author Clinton Heylin suggest Springsteen first recorded this song with the E Street Band back in 1983 (as \u201cUnder The Big Sky\u201d), but the version here was laid down 12 years later, during the same sessions that produced The Ghost of Tom Joad. It\u2019s a swelling heartbreak ballad with a sound as wide-open as its title, largely thanks to the interplay of the late Danny Federici\u2019s organ and Marty Rifkin\u2019s steel guitar. This one is a full-on lost Springsteen classic.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
\t\u2018Blind Spot\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Michel Linssen\/Redferns\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tSpringsteen wrote and recorded the songs on The Streets of Philadelphia Sessions during one of the happiest times of his life, thanks to his recent marriage to Patti Scialfa and the birth of their first child, Evan. But you\u2019d never know it from the dark songs on the LP, kicking off with \u201cBlind Spot.\u201d Like many Springsteen songs, it seems to be about the hidden dark part of the human psyche that silently undoes our own best efforts. \u201cWe inhabited each other\/Like it was some kind of disease,\u201d Springsteen sings. \u201cI thought that I was flyin\u2019\/But I was crawlin\u2019 on my knees.\u201d It sets the tone for the entire record. \u201cPeople tend to think that singer-songwriters are always writing autobiographically,\u201d Springsteen recently told Rolling Stone. \u201cCertainly in my case, that\u2019s not the point. I\u2019ll go to some completely different geography in my head, I\u2019ll strike a vein that I find that is rewarding to write in, and I\u2019ll just work in that vein for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
\t\u2018Delivery Man\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Jeff Kravitz\/FilmMagic\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tLike \u201cUnder A Big Sky,\u201d \u201cDelivery Man\u201d dates back to 1983, but this version was recorded more than a decade later.\u00a0 It\u2019s an entirely delightful rockabilly tale, with the title character losing control of the chickens he\u2019s transporting, even as the rhythmic delivery serves as a reminder that Chuck Berry\u2019s lyrics were as influential on Springsteen as Bob Dylan\u2019s.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
\t\u2018Our Lady of Monroe\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Martin Philbey\/Redferns\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cHe was out of Newark, a retired detective,\u201d Springsteen sings, in an all-time-great first verse. \u201cTrying to lose some of what he\u2019d seen\/ He had 25 years on the streets\/Where the Lord does not intervene.\u201d From there, this unadorned acoustic story song traces a cinematic, profoundly moving tale of an ex-cop\u2019s spiritual epiphany on the New Jersey Turnpike, Burger King bag by his side. The number of other songwriters on Earth who could have pulled this one off is precisely zero.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
\t\u2018One Beautiful Morning\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Paul Bergen\/Redferns\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tThe most unabashed rock song on its album \u2014 with a sound that would\u2019ve fit in next to the Wallflowers on Nineties radio \u2014 also tackles the most harrowing subject matter. Kristen Ann Carr, daughter of Springsteen\u2019s then-co-manager Barbara Carr and biographer Dave Marsh, died in January 1993 of liposarcoma, a rare form of cancer.\u00a0 Her loss informed the writing of \u201cStreets of Philadelphia\u201d itself, as well as some of the songs that followed, most directly on \u201cOne Beautiful Morning,\u201d a stark portrait of efforts to find meaning after a death.\u00a0 \u201cIt was a devastating experience, being close to illness of that magnitude,\u201d Springsteen said in 1996. The song also seems to be a direct precursor to a key song Springsteen would write in the following decade, \u201cThe Rising.\u201d It has similar imagery \u2014 \u201cour spirit flies\/Come one beautiful morning when we rise\u201d \u2014\u00a0and even some musical resemblances, including a familiar-sounding approach to the guitar solo.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
\t\u2018Dinner at Eight\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Bobby Bank\/WireImage\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tThe closest analogue to Twilight Hours may well be Painted From Memory, Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach\u2019s fantastic collaboration of supper-club-ready ballads from 1998. \u201cDinner at Eight\u201d would\u2019ve fit right in on that album, with Springsteen writing one of the furthest-roaming melodies of his career, and hitting some seriously impressive high notes along the way. It\u2019s one of the best vocal performances of his recording career, buoyed by a huge, surging orchestral arrangement.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
\t\u2018Inyo\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Brian Rasic\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tThe title track to the lost follow-up to The Ghost of Tom Joad is as detailed and deeply researched a story-song as Springsteen has ever written, with the same historical fidelity as \u201cYoungstown.\u201d His tale is set at the beginning of the 20th century, when the civil engineer William Mulholland brought water to Los Angeles, and the residents of Owens Valley in Inyo County suffered the consequences.\u00a0 \u201cI was reading about the water and power situation in Los Angeles,\u201d Springsteen told Erik Flannigan for the set\u2019s liner notes. \u201cThere\u2019s a book called Rivers in the Desert by Margaret Leslie Davis \u2014 that was where I got a lot of my background as far as the song \u2018Inyo\u2019 goes.\u201d The story goes down easier thanks to a simple, melodic chorus: \u201cAin\u2019t you feeling dry, boys?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
\t\u2018Sugarland\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Bill Marino\/Sygma\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tSpringsteen played \u201cSugarland,\u201d a finely crafted tale of the human toll of the 1980s farm crisis, twice on the Born on the U.S.A. tour, and solo studio versions leaked over the years, but one of his best-loved outtakes is only now seeing official release. Like most of L.A. Garage Sessions \u201983, this version of \u201cSugarland\u201d lands somewhere between a demo and a full-fledged studio recording, with simple acoustic guitar strumming bolstered by a subtle drum-machine pattern and a bubbling keyboard riff. Later in 1983, Springsteen attempted the song with the E Street Band, and it appeared on at least one proposed track listing for Born in the U.S.A.. That version remains unheard, but there\u2019s always Tracks III.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
\t\u2018Blue Highway\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Luciano Viti\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tSpringsteen has long admired Hank Williams, while taking more direct inspiration from the plainspoken poetry of his lyrics than his music.\u00a0 But this loping, low-key country shuffle, convincingly sung in Springsteen\u2019s twangiest mode, with Marty Rifkin\u2019s steel guitar offering lyrical counterpoint, is the closest he\u2019s come to writing a song that could be an actual lost Williams classic.\u00a0 It shares a lyric from \u201cAcross the Border,\u201d recorded in the same sessions, about a place where \u201cpain and memory have been stilled,\u201d and the line may work even better here.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
\t\u2018The Little Things\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Paul Bergen\/Redferns\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tIf some of Springsteen\u2019s songs play as compressed movies, this oddly uplifting blow-by-blow account of a one night stand is a short story. Its relative explicitness (\u201cshe stuck her tongue in my mouth\u201d) anticipates \u201cReno\u201d from Devils and Dust, and Springsteen also considered this track for that album. Its storytelling is also reminiscent of early Nineties outtakes like \u201cLoose Change\u201d\u00a0\u2014 on The Streets of Philadelphia Sessions, it\u2019s a welcome outlier.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
\t\u2018Detail Man\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Vinnie Zuffante\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tMuch like \u201cRed-Headed Woman\u201d from a few years earlier, \u201cDetail Man\u201d is a light-hearted tune where Springsteen boasts about his sexual prowess \u2014 this time via an automotive metaphor a la \u201cPink Cadillac.\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t matter if you\u2019re custom, don\u2019t matter if you\u2019re stock,\u201d he sings. \u201cHave you purring like a kitty and humming like a clock.\u201d The song was recorded during the Somewhere North of Nashville sessions, which took place concurrently with the recording of The Ghost of Tom Joad.\u00a0 As Springsteen recently told us, a song like this one simply wouldn\u2019t have worked on the same album as deadly serious tunes like \u201cStraight Time.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
\t\u2018The Lost Charro\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Kevin Mazur\/WireImage\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tPatti Scialfa provided a rare real-time window in her husband\u2019s creative process in March 2014 when she posted a photo of Bruce recording with a group of mariachi musicians at the family\u2019s home studio. The purpose of the session remained a mystery until news of Tracks II arrived earlier this year \u2014 two songs on Inyo, we learned, were cut with mariachi musicians Springsteen met via a Mexican cowboy who taught Springsteen how to rope horses at his ranch. \u201cThey were very unrefined when it came to recording and they can only lead themselves \u2013 that\u2019s how that music works \u2013 but now they had to follow Bruce, which they had never done before,\u201d producer Ron Aniello told Uncut. \u201cThere was a language barrier, and they didn\u2019t quite know how to do it, so it was like mixing together classical musicians with street musicians.\u201d\u201dThe Lost Charro\u201d \u2014\u00a0which sounds unlike anything else in Springsteen\u2019s catalog \u2014 was recorded with the material that ended up on Western Stars. But Springsteen ultimately decided it was a better fit on Inyo, even though much of that material was cut in the mid-Nineties.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
\t\u2018High Sierra\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Kevin Mazur\/WireImage\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tSpringsteen recorded 2019\u2019s Western Stars and Twilight Hours at roughly the same time, and briefly considered releasing them as a double album. That meant making a lot of hard choices about what to cut, including the achingly tender \u201cHigh Sierra.\u201d It\u2019s a tale of a doomed relationship with a small-town waitress, punctuated with horns and strings straight out of a Burt Bacharach Sixties masterpiece. \u201cI probably should have got that onto Western Stars somehow, and I almost did,\u201d Springsteen told Rolling Stone. \u201d It might\u2019ve just tipped the balance a little too much, or I figured it might have not been as appreciated as much as I felt it might be in the context of this other record. It\u2019s one of my favorite songs in the whole package.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
\t\u2018All God\u2019s Children\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Kevin Mazur\/WireImage\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tA full-on chain-gang gospel song, with Springsteen in full blues-holler mode, \u201cAll God\u2019s Children\u201d is a highlight of Faithless, the mysterious mid-\u201900s soundtrack to a \u201cspiritual Western\u201d film that was never made. It\u2019s a Springsteen composition, but it sounds like something Alan Lomax field-recorded \u2014\u00a0the only thing close to it in his catalog is \u201cShackled and Drawn\u201d from Wrecking Ball, which appears to have also been originally recorded for Faithless.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
\t\u2018Shut Out The Light\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Lester Cohen\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tThe thematically similar B-side of \u201cBorn in the U.S.A.\u201d\u00a0 cuts even deeper in the alternate version on Tracks II. The story of a troubled veteran returning from Vietnam hints at a drug problem in the released version, but that side of the story becomes explicit here.. \u201cHe lies awake until the morning light stretched across the chair,\u201d Springsteen sings. \u201cJust him and a few of the bad habits he brought back from there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
\t\u2018I\u2019m Not Sleeping\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Rob Verhorst\/Redferns\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tIn the Nineties, Bruce Springsteen and Pittsburgh singer\/songwriter Joe Grushecky started writing songs together. Many of them wound up on Grushecky\u2019s 1995 solo LP American Babylon, but the partnership continued in the years that followed. \u201cI felt we had something in common in our roots, coming out of the working class, and he wrote about that a lot,\u201d Springsteen recently told Rolling Stone. \u201cAnd also, Joe was just very persistent. He would just send me lyrics.\u201d The lyrics for \u201cI\u2019m Not Sleeping\u201d were inspired by a regular bit where Grushecky\u2019s mother would call out his father for sleeping on the sofa. He\u2019d respond, \u201cI\u2019m not sleeping. I\u2019m only resting my eyes.\u201d Grushecky\u2019s take on the song appeared on his 1998 album Coming Home, and they\u2019ve done it live together several times over the years, but this is the first time we\u2019ve heard Springsteen\u2019s studio version. Had he actually cut an album around the time of the \u201999\/\u201900 E Street Band reunion tour, this would have been one of the highlights.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
\t\u2018Late In The Evening\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Martin Philbey\/Redferns\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tMuch like his The Rising ballad \u201cYou\u2019re Missing,\u201d the Twilight Hours track \u201cLate In The Evening\u201d is told from the perspective of someone desperately missing their departed spouse, wondering how they can possibly carry on without them. It begins late at night when a bartender calls last call, forcing a widower to stumble home and confront an empty house. \u201cIn bed as shadows fall,\u201d Springsteen sings. \u201cI stare at empty walls\/And listen for your footsteps to fall.\u201d The song is suffused with sorrow and longing, but the majestic string arrangement projects a glimmer of hope.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
- \n
\t\u2018Perfect World\u2019<\/p>\n
\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\tImage Credit: Neal Preston\/Disney General Entertainment Content\/Getty Images\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\tThe title track to A Perfect World \u2013 a mishmash of songs cut between the mid-Nineties and early 2000s \u2013 was first demoed in 1997 when Springsteen was trying to figure out his next steps following the Ghost of Tom Joad tour. It\u2019s a deceptively mournful ballad about a guy dealing with deep regret following a failed relationship. He imagines a \u201cperfect world\u201d where stray dogs find their way home, losing teams win the game, and rain cools a hot day \u2014 picture the inverse of Alanis Morissette\u2019s \u201cIronic.\u201d\u00a0 In the actual world, however, he\u2019s alone, and has nobody but himself to blame. \u201cI\u2019d have had the guts to let our love stand,\u201d Springsteen sings. \u201cI\u2019d have never let you slip through my hands.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With 83 songs spanning seven previously unreleased albums, Springsteen\u2019s new archival set is a lot of take in.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[7627,77,269,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-227028","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-bruce-springsteen","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114773232016976987","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}