Bruce Springsteen is releasing his 'Lost Albums': The songs you haven't heard but need to
There are musicians, and there is Bruce Springsteen.
There are songwriters, and there is Bruce Springsteen.
There are singers, and yes, you get the point.
But there are also box sets, and there is “Tracks II: The Lost Albums,” seven genre-specific collections that span 1983-2018, a period that witnessed the arrival of “Born in the U.S.A.,” “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” “The Rising,” “Wrecking Ball” and eight other chameleonic Springsteen releases.
The set arrives June 27 in several forms – nine LPs, seven CDs and digital as well as a 20-song highlight version (“Lost and Found: Selections from The Lost Albums”) on two LPs and one CD.
That an artist crafted 83 songs of divergent styles – garage rock, country, Mexican ranchera and lush pop – as his leftovers illuminates Springsteen’s musical brilliances as well as the epic scope of this set.
And let’s not forget this is the sequel. In 1998, Springsteen unloaded the 66-song “Tracks” box set. But where that assembly corralled many demos and alternate versions of Springsteen favorites, “Tracks II” presents completed masterworks that probe Springsteen’s hallmark topics of redemption and romance while continuing down the path of enlightenment.
Here's a look at the seven additions to the Springsteen catalog.
‘LA Garage Sessions ‘83’
Springsteen calls these 18 tracks “a critical bridge between 'Nebraska' and 'Born in the U.S.A.,'” and of the magnificent seven “lost” albums, only this collection contains several songs previously heard as B-sides (“Johnny Bye-Bye” as the flip side to “I’m On Fire,” “Shut Out the Light” backing “Born in the U.S.A.”) or on anthologies (“County Fair” landed on 2003’s “The Essential Bruce Springsteen”).
In the early ‘80s, the King of New Jersey holed up in a small house in the Hollywood Hills. It was shortly after his timeless “Nebraska” arrived and he was keen to expand his sound yet unsure if he’d wrangle the E Street Band for a rock album (spoiler: he did, in 1984).
The lo-fi recordings include an eventual hit from “Born in the U.S.A.,” a thinner version of its final track, “My Hometown.” Springsteen’s voice is a combination of Tom Petty lilt and Tom Waits grit on the original form of the ballad, one of many vocal styles he samples on the album.
Springsteen is also transparent in his influences, saluting Buddy Holly with the quick bop, “Little Girl Like You” and nodding to Elvis Presley on “Follow That Dream.”
It’s a musically scattered collection, but foreshadows the genre-hopping Springsteen would soon explore.
Standout track: “Don’t Back Down on Our Love” – Borrowing a guitar tone from The Beach Boys and filling the song with a charmingly repetitive chorus, this is both a throwback and evidence of Springsteen striding forward. He eagerly tinkers with soul, pop and rock while encouraging strength amid struggles.
‘Streets of Philadelphia Sessions’
Recorded during the same period as his Oscar and Grammy-winning title track from 1993’s Tom Hanks-fronted “Philadelphia” movie, the album that fans affectionately call Springsteen’s “loops record” is a sonic time capsule.
The shuffling electronic beat under “Between Heaven and Earth” is similar to Soul II Soul’s “Keep On Movin’” and PM Dawn’s “Set Adrift on Memory Bliss,” hits in the late-‘80s and early ‘90s timeframe Springsteen has referenced as his influence for the record.
Springsteen completed these 10 songs for a 1995 release. But instead of dropping new music, he shelved the album and reunited with the E Street Band for the first time in seven years.
The only previously released song is the enigmatic “Secret Garden,” which hasn’t lost the seductive luster provided by Springsteen’s murmured lyrics coated in innuendo. Originally released on his 1995 “Greatest Hits” album, the ballad didn’t hopscotch up the charts until two years later, when it was included on the “Jerry Maguire” soundtrack and peaked at No. 19 on the Billboard Hot 100. It remains Springsteen’s last U.S. Top 40 hit to date.
Standout track: “Waiting on the End of the World” – Awash in keyboards and a chugging backbeat, the midtempo song offers a trademark lyric (“We hide from the truth in our hearts”), a singsong guitar solo and a dreamy outro that dissolves like a jet’s vapor trail.
‘Faithless’
Written for a film that has yet to be made, “Faithless” has smatterings of family influence.
Springsteen says he penned the 11 songs during two weeks in Florida when he and his brood were there to watch daughter Jessica, an Olympic equestrian, on a trip related to her vocation.
When it came time to record, wife Patti Scialfa (whose voice appears on several tracks) and their sons Evan and Sam offered a choir of background vocals on “Where You Goin’, Where You From?”
The musical shading of the album is influenced by the recording window – between the 2005 Devils & Dust tour and the release of “We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions” in April 2006 – that found Springsteen in an acoustic and spiritual state of mind.
Those emotional generators are apparent on the title track, a minimal hymn of salvation wrapped in Springsteen’s quivering voice.
He’s much bolder on “All God’s Children,” his foot stomping and his voice ragged as he morphs into preacher mode through lyrics such as “I scratched me a grave with my own hands/and you can bury me deep in the blood of the land” and a chorus of “Glory, hallelujah.”
But it’s the closing “My Master’s Hand (Theme),’” a purposeful march on which Springsteen handles nearly every instrument, including the shuffling snare drum, organ and harmonica, that sounds primed for the end credits of a film that might still hatch.
Standout track: “God Sent You” – It’s easy to glean from the title that the potent ballad will be rooted in the idea of, as Barbra Streisand tells us, people who need people. Organ chords provide a gospel tinge, but piano drives the song as Springsteen dispenses his gratitude for a savior as he sings, “God sent you to me/a prayer of safety and salvation/God sent you to me/when faith was so hard to see.”
‘Somewhere North of Nashville’
Springsteen’s 1995 album, “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” spotlighted his folk instincts, sometimes to dreary effect. But Springsteen wasn’t spending all of his time ruminating.
This barnburner recorded at the same time as “Joad” confirms that he saved plenty of energy to tear through 12 songs with the band live in the studio. The result is Springsteen unleashed.
He’s joined by E-Streeters Danny Federici (who died in 2008), Garry Tallent and Soozie Tyrell, as well as drummer Gary Mallaber and pedal steel ace Marty Rifkin as they embark on a jaunty tour of country, honky-tonk and rockabilly.
Springsteen’s voice veers from sandpapery growl (“Repo Man,” “Detail Man”) to silky twang (“Poor Side of Town,” “Silver Mountain”), while the music audaciously mashes pedal steel guitar, boogie woogie piano, harmonica and string orchestrations as seamlessly as if that collective sound is routine.
Standout track: “Repo Man” – The first song on the album bursts with natural electricity. Springsteen’s wink-and-smile delivery of amusing lyrics (“A repo man lives by a code/you don’t pay and I own your little piece of the road”), Rifkin’s skilled dance on pedal steel guitar and a final, fluttering cymbal crash collide for one hell of a boot-stompin’ party.
‘Inyo’
During the 1990s, Springsteen headed west of his beloved New Jersey and spent time driving his motorcycle throughout the Southwest and California. He took long drives along the California aqueduct through Inyo County and into Death Valley and writes strikingly about the immigrant experience, particularly the generational erosion of shared culture between Mexico and the United States.
The 10 vivid recollections on the album, which Springsteen calls one of his favorites, shudder with sadness. Many of the songs feature only Springsteen with Soozie Tyrell’s weeping violin or light instrumentation from coproducer Ron Aniello on bass, guitar and drums.
Springsteen also turned to the roots of his album, notably on “Adelita,” which features mariachi musicians to complement his rich storytelling talent. “Your portrait I carry deep in my breast pocket/my rifle firing into the campaña/I ride with you ‘round my heart/protected from this death by beauty,” he sings.
Standout track: “The Lost Charro” – Springsteen isn’t celebrated for having a particularly pretty voice. Rugged character is more his thing. But he locates a rarely heard upper register here as he takes on the persona of a proud former “charro” (cowboy) who misses his past while picking fruit in fields in his current life. The full chorus of mariachi band members at the end completes this tale of a spiritual dreamer.
‘Twilight Hours’
Springsteen says he saved these dozen songs recorded during his “Western Stars” era because they were “intentionally middle of the road.”
It might sound like a slight, but what Springsteen crafted is an album that pulls from ’70’s California pop and the melodic songwriting of Burt Bacharach and Jimmy Webb.
Songs such as “I’ll Stand By You” and “Dinner at Eight” were born with a softer touch, nudged along by a sumptuous assembly of strings, piano and polished choruses.
This is the closest we’ve heard Springsteen to pure pop music – the kind with complex elements that sound effortless in the hands of a pro – and it’s a suit that fits him well.
Standout track: “Two of Us” – A sweet love song spiked with strings, a gently plucked Glockenspiel and glorious key changes. It’s Springsteen at his most Bacharach-ian, winding through a swoony melody as he stretches his voice to sing, “Through one more mile, one more town/there’s one heart, I can trust/so we’ll keep moving for the two of us.”
‘Perfect World’
The opening swing of piano and guitar on first track “I’m Not Sleeping” is a signal that these 10 songs will embody the E Street Band style not heard as palpably on the other albums.
It’s a mostly fair indicator.
“Idiot’s Delight” clip-clops through rowdy harmonica that suits the song’s bitter lyrics (“The jackals leave here laughing as they slip into the night/how did something so beautiful turn into an idiot’s delight”) and a towering chorus and gritty guitar power “Another Thin Line” into familiar E Street territory (and yes, that is cowbell you hear).
There are several stylistic shifts throughout the release that Springsteen says is the only one of the “lost” seven that wasn’t conceived as an album. That is evident in the title track that returns him to piano-backed twang, balanced by the soulful pop singalong, “You Lifted Me Up.” And hello, Steven Van Zandt on background vocals, whose appearance aptly encapsulates the album’s intent.
Standout track: “Rain in the River” – Squealing guitar notes lead the song into one of Springsteen’s most muscular vocals. Recorded around the same time as “Western Stars” (2010-11), the swelling anthem is all Springsteen, with an assist from Ron Aniello on organ and drums, but sounds like the work of 100 men.