Part Two: 1979–84

[Note: Between January 1979 and June 1984, Springsteen & The E Street Band would tour just once, albeit on the year-long River Tour (October 1980 to September 1981). He would also change his working methods as a songwriter dramatically, demoing much of the material at home, initially on cassette, and then on the TEAC Portastudio (still on cassette but in four-track, at 3 ¾ ips), and finally, from January 1983, using an eight-track home studio. One particular set of 1981–2 home demos would become the critically acclaimed Nebraska. But such an approach would also mean many songs were never recorded in the studio with his trusty band, but nonetheless circulate as demos (thanks to Springsteen’s decision to rely on guitar-tech Mike Batlan to set up and operate the rudimentary home recording equipment). Batlan kept reference copies of much of this material, which eventually (partially) fell into the public domain after he left Springsteen’s employment at the end of the Born In The USA tour. Not surprisingly, the songs on these demo-tapes exist in various states of (dis)repair and so, though they confirm the prolific nature of Springsteen’s songwriting, the reader must be prepared to go from the sublime to the scarcely constituted in the twinkling of a piano.]

 

XIV) 141, 95a, 142–149, 139a, 250–160. Songs demoed January-May 1979:

141. JANEY NEEDS A SHOOTER MK.3

Known studio/demo recordings: Home recording, Holmdel NJ January-May 1979; ‘Telegraph Hill Studio’ band rehearsal March 1979 [x2].

as JEANNIE NEEDS A SHOOTER

Known studio/demo recordings: None.

 

Another gem from the ‘Son You May Kiss The Bride’ tape, ‘Janey Needs a Shooter’ has been a source of contention ever since. Most commonly assigned to the Darkness sessions, with a few dissenters preferring those for The River, it is found nowhere in Sony’s studio logs, save in its 914 incarnation of 1973. There is probably a good reason – the song was never officially recorded with the E Street Band. The 6:42 ‘studio’ version on the above tape sounds like a rehearsal. Corroboration, and a solid indication of a likely recording date, is provided by the recent, discreet circulation of a full spring 1979 band rehearsal featuring (among others) ‘The Man Who Got Away’ and this seven-minute ‘Janey Needs A Shooter’. (An enticing acoustic fragment, recorded at home that March, had previously appeared on Lost Masters VIII, confirming its River status.) Virtually indistinguishable from the SYMKTB ‘mix’, the rehearsal in question was taped ‘live’ in the room – and contains a lead guitar-break that threatens to rip the roof from the rehearsal room and send it rolling down Telegraph Hill. The chorus seems to owe a certain debt to ‘I’m Going Back’ in the way it leans all over the title phrase, ‘Janey needs a shooter, Jack’. To have not immediately taken this into the studio made no more sense than his decision to donate it to Warren Zevon to do his worse. [See discussion in main text pp. 193–4]

 

95a. Bring On The Night

Known studio/demo recordings: Home recording, Holmdel NJ January–May 1979; ‘Telegraph Hill Studio’ band rehearsal March 1979; 14/5/79; Power Station, New York ?13/6/79. [TR]

 

Given how much time Springsteen spent working on Darkness outtakes like ‘I Wanna Be With You’, ‘Independence Day’ and ‘Sherry Darling’ at the first sustained set of River sessions in May/early June, it should perhaps come as no surprise that he returned to ‘Bring On The Night’, another song attempted at the summer 1977 Atlantic sessions. This time the band was prepped, rehearsing the song in mid-May. But again, it is missing from the June 13 log, though it was a productive day, with ‘White Town’, ‘Night Fire’ and ‘The Man Who Got Away’ all recorded. (That date comes from the not-always-reliable Tracks booklet.) Its first appearance in the Sony logs comes as part of the 1993 ‘comp.’ reel mentioned previously.

 

142. BABY COME BACK

143. LOVE WILL GET YOU DOWN

144. WALKING ON THE AVENUE

145. FIND IT WHERE YOU CAN

146. LOVE AND KISSES

Known studio/demo recordings: Home recording, Los Angeles January-February 1979; [#146:] ‘Telegraph Hill Studio’ band rehearsal March 1979.

 

All these tracks appeared in 1996 on the ninth instalment in the Lost Masters bootleg series, culled from the legendary Batlan tapes. The tape in question, a home cassette with decent sound but zero production values, also contains a few fragments whose existence I’ve not numbered. Only one of those now taped would make it to the pukka sessions (‘Under The Gun’ – #152) and none to the album itself. Which is perhaps the rub. The song he works on the hardest, ‘Love Will Get You Down’, illustrates a painstaking but unfocused working method, and an unshakeable belief that something inspired will come along just by giving every love cliché a repeat spin to the accompaniment of a few standard chord changes. The song has a single idea adhering to it, that no matter how one feels initially in a love affair, ‘pretty soon, you’ll find out a smile turns to a frown’, a sentiment he will address with far greater resolve the following year, on ‘Your Love (Is Gonna Let You Down)’.

The rest of the tape yields little juicy in the way of forbidden fruit. Soured by the same attitude to relationships as ‘Love Will Get You Down’, ‘Love and Kisses’ starts with a line straight from 1965 Dylan, ‘If I wanted to, I’d be with you’, but quickly runs out of steam. ‘Walking On The Avenue’ suggests some rough lyrics hinting at the underlying loneliness of the road scribbled out in advance, ‘Girls come to my hotel room/ Well, they just want to sit and talk’; though by the second take we are treading familiar ground, waiting to find out when she’s gonna decide to ‘turn me out again/ I remember back when . . .’. All in all, I’m hard-pressed to agree with the bootlegger’s claim that ‘some true gems [are] included here, and several examples of Bruce at his melodic and rhythmic best’.

 

147. OUT ON THE RUN (LOOKING FOR LOVE)

148. BABY DON’T YOU GO

149. PROTECTION MK.1

139a. BREAK MY HEART [aka ‘Tonight’]

Known studio/demo recordings: [#147-49:] Home recording, Holmdel NJ January–May 1979; [#139a & 147:] ‘Telegraph Hill Studio’ band rehearsal March 1979.

 

Resuming the demo process in New Jersey, Springsteen continued for a few more weeks to put song ideas onto cassette. ‘Protection’ and ‘Baby Don’t You Go’ are two tracks he plays around with, but in both cases the idea fizzles out before inspiration dawns. (‘Protection’ has no connection to the track he later donated to Donna.) Other song ideas spanning the two relevant volumes of Lost Masters (IX and X) are so threadbare that to call them songs would be stretching the term to breaking-point. Generally speaking, Springsteen is chewing the carpet looking for love.

‘Out On The Run’ would be the one snippet that warranted a series of band rehearsals at the end of March (three of these are on Lost Masters XIV); and though the lyrics are impossible to glean when submerged ‘neath the full E Street roar, it has a decent pop hook and its own frenetic energy. Also back for a second beating is ‘Tonight’, rehearsed the previous October, which retains its beat sensibility but amped up to amphetamine speed. That sense of living on the edge of a mad, mad world would probably have counted against it. As it did for a number of spring 1979 songs.

 

150. I DON’T WANNA BE

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Telegraph Hill Studio’ band rehearsal ?May 1979.

 

The curio ‘I Don’t Wanna Be’, where Clarence’s backing vocals at times drown out the boss, represents one of the odder oddities from the weeks which prefaced the resumption of studio work, this time in earnest, in late May 1979. Like other songs that spring, it seems to have been all but worked out structurally and melodically by the time of band rehearsals (from which the misdated 16/9/79 version on Lost Masters IV originates), but Springsteen only has dummy lyrics.

 

151. IN THE CITY TONIGHT

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Telegraph Hill Studio’ band rehearsal 25/3/79.

as NIGHT FIRE

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Telegraph Hill Studio’ band rehearsal 30/3/79; Power Station, New York 13/6/79.

152. UNDER THE GUN

Known studio/demo recordings: Home recording, Holmdel, NJ January-March 1979; ‘Telegraph Hill Studio’ band rehearsal 30/3/79; Power Station, New York 14/6/79.

153. THE MAN WHO GOT AWAY

Known studio/demo recordings: Home recording, Holmdel, NJ January-May 1979; ‘Telegraph Hill Studio’ band rehearsal 30/3/79 & March 1979; Power Station, New York 13/6/79; 5/7/79.

 

All four of these songs would be rehearsed with the E Street Band, the last three on March 30, probably intended as the final band rehearsal before sessions started in earnest. ‘Night Fire’ had already appropriated the tune of a song called ‘In The City Tonight’ which Springsteen and the band had spent a whole day working on five days previously. The other two tracks, which had already occupied Springsteen at his Holmdel homestead, were clearly always intended to be put on duty, though he took his time getting to them. All three were cut at the June 13–14 sessions as Springsteen finally focused on the new songs he needed to fill out forty minutes of vinyl. However, only ‘The Man Who Got Away’ would be revisited; featuring on an initial sequence for The Ties That Bind. All three tracks would also be pulled to the aforementioned 1993 ‘rarities’ reels, though none made it to Tracks or circulate in studio guise.

 

154. CHAIN LIGHTNING

Known studio/demo recordings: Home recording, Holmdel, NJ January–March 1979; ‘Telegraph Hill Studio’ band rehearsal 30/3/79; Power Station, New York 17/2/80.

 

Like the above trio of try-outs, the only versions of ‘Chain Lightning’ in circulation precede the Power Station sessions. Thankfully, these include a terrific grease-lightning rendition from that final March rehearsal. Something prompted him to remember it the following February, when it finally got an actual studio slot, with perhaps his decision to dispense with the rockabilly ‘You Can Look’ a factor. Yet not only didn’t it make The River, it didn’t make the Tracks short-list either. So much for that professed ‘passion for chain lightning’.

 

55. ROULETTE

Known studio/demo recordings: Home recording, Holmdel, NJ March 1979; Power Station, New York 3/4/79; [11-12/4/80]. [TR]

First documented performance: The Centrum, Worcester MA 25/2/88.

 

At the time he wrote ‘Roulette’, Springsteen thought it was one of the best things he had ever done. And he was right. But by the time he had signed up for the No Nukes concert in September – a commitment he made on the back of his new-found awareness of man as a political animal – he was already looking to drop the song from the shows (it was replaced at the last minute by the recently-penned ‘The River’) and the ill-fated The Ties That Bind. Asked what had happened to it the following year, he went all defensive: ‘I just didn’t like the way it sounded . . . We might redo it and put it out later.’ [See discussion in main text pp. 191–2]

Note: The original April 3 vocal has significantly different lyrics. The ‘final’ vocal, probably cut the following week, appears to have been remixed in April 1980.

 

156. TAKE ‘EM AS THEY COME

Known studio/demo recordings: Home recording, Los Angeles, winter 1979; Home recording, Holmdel NJ January–May 1979; Power Station, New York 5/12/79; [10/4/80]. [TR]

First documented performance: Stadion Bieberer Berg, Offenbach, Germany 15/6/99.

 

If Springsteen was in a hurry to record ‘Roulette’, he was positively lackadaisical when it came to ‘Take ’Em As The Come’, one of the best melodies he pulled from The River and dumped on Tracks. First found as the merest snatch on the first LA home demo in the winter of 1979, it crops up again a month or so later with the same trusty tape recorder. Already he has the germ of a good ol’ pop song. Yet it never figures in computations around the initial ‘pop’ album, The Ties That Bind, and it is December before the E Streeters get to embrace this rousing call. It was finally made official on Tracks, and from there moved to its rightful berth, rockin’ around the world rousing the rabble on the E Street reunion tour.

Note: The version on Tracks is credited to 10 April 1980, when Springsteen was making last-minute changes to the album shortlist. That is probably the date of the vocal but not the backing track.

 

157. YOU CAN LOOK (BUT YOU BETTER NOT TOUCH)

Known studio/demo recordings: Home recording, Holmdel, NJ January–May 1979; Power Station, New York 24–25/8/79; ‘Telegraph Hill Studio’ band rehearsal 11/1/80; Power Station, New York 17+23/2/80; 1, 9+21/4/80. [RI]

First documented performance: Coliseum, Richfield OH 7/10/80.

 

The first song at these sessions to really go with the new sideburns, ‘You Can Look’ began life as a dose of irreverent humour, the punch line of each put-upon verse being . . . you guessed it. In this guise, it became the buffer between ‘The River’ and ‘The Price You Pay’ on The Ties That Bind. But this homespun homage was rethought, restrung and rehung; and when sessions resumed in February 1980, he decided to kill two birds with one rolling stone – grafting the music from ‘Held Up Without A Gun’ to ‘You Can Look’. Mistake.

 

158. DOLLHOUSE

Known studio/demo recordings: Home recording, Holmdel, NJ January-May 1979; Power Station, New York 20–21/8/79. [TR]

First documented performance: Stadthalle, Vienna, Austria 24/4/99.

 

Another slightly formulaic piece, ‘Dollhouse’ suggested Springsteen quietly yearned to join one of those chintzy new wave, skinny-tie bands. Unfortunately, this vocal don’t drip with the requisite ‘Joe Jackson meets the Jags’ misogyny. Perhaps he secretly envied The Knack, on the brink of multi-platinum success; as they in turn envied his effortless ability to synthesize the very best in sixties radio sounds. He certainly seems to have it in for some woman, or indeed womankind, berating her for an inability to grow up/move on.

 

159. JACKSON CAGE

Known studio/demo recordings: Home recording, Holmdel, NJ ?May 1979; Power Station, New York 22/5/79; ‘Telegraph Hill Studio’ band rehearsal 5/2/80; Power Station, New York 17/2/80; 10/4/80. [RI]

First documented performance: Chrysler Arena, Ann Arbor MI 3/10/80.

 

A fascinating snatch (or two) of ‘Jackson Cage’ on Lost Masters VII, a disc of 1979 home demos, hints at a very different approach than that of its released guise. This undated demo, generally credited to the fall of the year, probably dates from the weeks leading up to the resumption of studio work in May 1979, because almost the whole of the ‘first’ session, on May 22, was spent working on a song logged as ‘Jackson Cage’. However, he would not return to the track again until an E Street Band rehearsal the following February, the arrangement having received a full set of booster shots and the lyrics their own overhaul. In keeping with many songs from this period, the rough edges it had in rehearsal would be smoothed away by the recording process.

 

160. PARTY LIGHTS

Known studio/demo recordings: Home recording, Holmdel NJ 1979; Power Station, New York 8/10/79; Colt’s Neck NJ April 1981.

 

Found on the same four-song home demo as ‘Jackson Cage’, ‘Party Lights’ focuses on another wasted life. Recorded just four days after he delivered The Ties That Bind, it seems an unlikely starting-point for the next set of sessions, but so it proved. He returned to the idea again in the spring of 1981, demoing another fragment with the same basic idea, before quietly turning out this particular lovelight.

 

XV) 161–172. Other songs recorded for The Ties That Bind May–September 1979:

161. MARY LOU

Known studio/demo recordings: Home recording, Holmdel, NJ January–May 1979; ‘Telegraph Hill Studio’ band rehearsals 14/5/79; ‘Telegraph Hill Studio’ band rehearsal ?16/5/79; Power Station, New York 30/5–1/6/79; 13/7/79. [TR]

as LITTLE WHITE LIES

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 1+13/6/79.

162. BE TRUE

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 18/7/79; [22/4/80]. [TR]

First documented performance: Capital Centre, Largo MD 26/8/84.

 

Almost as central to the whole The River project as the title track, ‘Be True’ would go through transformations galore before it finally ‘linked together in a certain way’. When Springsteen did find the right setting, in mid-July 1979, he was content to let it be, earmarking it for all three known sequences for The Ties That Bind. But for most of its early life, ‘Mary Lou’ was her name. Thanks to the availability of home demos, pre-session band rehearsals, as well as the (officially available) outtake from May 30, the evolution from ‘Mary Lou’ to ‘Be True’ is thoroughly documented. Also in circulation, and in many ways better, is an intermediate incarnation from June 1, generally known as ‘Don’t Do It To Me’ or ‘White Lies’, but clearly logged as ‘Little White Lies’. ‘Little White Lies’ explodes the moment the drums kick in (which is presumably why Weinberg always considered it one of his favourite E Street songs), stripping ‘the falseness of some of those things’ layer by layer.

Note: The so-called September 1979 rehearsal version of ‘Mary Lou’ – which appears on Lost Masters IV – is certainly misdated.

 

163. HUNGRY HEART

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 14,21/6/79; 5/9/79; [24/3/80; 10/4/80]. [RI]

First documented performance: Kiel Opera House, St Louis MO 18/10/80.

 

‘Hungry Heart’ was the moment Springsteen surrendered to the process of crafting, not creating, music in a state-of-the-art 24-track studio, sacrificing at the altar of commercial success a song with a ravenously real heart. The song certainly came quickly enough, being completed the same day he recorded the definitive ‘Stolen Car’ (though Flo and Eddie’s overdubbed ‘la-la-las’ were a later addition; as was the decision to fade the song before things got too ‘Hey Jude’-ish).

 

164. DO YOU WANT ME TO SAY ALRIGHT

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 14/6/79.

 

An uncirculated outtake from a highly productive coupla days at the Power Station, ‘Do You Want Me To Say Alright’ musta had something going for it, because it was one of the tracks pulled to the 1993 ‘rarities’ compilation reels.

 

165. THE PRICE YOU PAY

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 15, 18, 19 + 21/6/79; [4/4/80]. [RI]

First documented performance: Memorial Sports Arena, Los Angeles 31/10/80.

 

First recorded the day after ‘Hungry Heart’, ‘The Price You Pay’ finds the same lost soul in a more contemplative mood, reflecting on all he has loved and lost. In its Ties That Bind incarnation, the song’s message was made clearer by the inclusion of a bridge which gave the listener the real pay-off: ‘Some say forget the past, some say don’t look back/ But for every breath you take, you leave a track/ And though it just don’t seem fair/ For every smile that breaks, a tear must fall somewhere/ Oh, the price you pay’. This verse would remain an integral part of 1980–81 shows, leading fans to assume it had been added after the fact. Actually, he had simply cut these lines from the album take, an inferior alternate take cut at the same time as the one previously assigned to The Ties That Bind.

 

166. STOLEN CAR

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 20–21/6/79; 24/9/79 [TR]; Home recording, Holmdel, NJ January 1980; ‘Telegraph Hill Studio’ band rehearsal 16/1/80; Power Station, New York 21/1/80; 20/2/80; [1+9/4/80; 9/5/80]. [RI]

First documented performance: Chrysler Arena, Ann Arbor MI 3/10/80.

 

Finally, two months into these sessions, Springsteen felt the tendrils of a familiar but tardy inspiration. With ‘Stolen Car’, Springsteen chanced upon a way to tie together all the elements he looked to address on Darkness On The Edge of Town’s successor, some of which he’d already explored in single-idea songs. (‘From these banks I can see those party lights shine’, self-consciously references ‘Party Lights’). What took him half an hour to evoke would take him nine months to dismantle, as the Tinker Man again set about deconstructing a song he – and the E Street band – captured in all its ineffable essence those first two days in the studio (Tracks says this version was recorded on July 26, but there is no record of the original version being attempted after July 21). The thematic centrepiece of The Ties That Bind LP, it would become a shadow of its ghostly self when Springsteen returned it to rehearsals in the new year with a different arrangement and truncated lyric. [See discussion in main text pp. 196–7]

 

167. TIME THAT NEVER WAS

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 27/6/79; 16/3/80.

 

A lost song in every sense of the word, ‘Time That Never Was’ has never circulated. Nor was it shortlisted for Tracks. And yet the fact that he returned to it in mid-March 1980 when starting to sequence the double album suggests Springsteen felt it merited further consideration.

 

168. I WANNA MARRY YOU

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 5, 11–12/7/79; 12/4/80; 6–7/5/80. [RI]

First documented performance: Chrysler Arena, Ann Arbor MI 3/10/80.

 

A wedding song for Marc Brickman. [See discussion in main text p. 198]

 

169. RICKI WANTS A MAN

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 16/7/79; 10/4/80. [TR]

First documented performance: Sprint Center, Kansas City MO 24/8/08.

 

Having got the picture-postcard version of marriage out of his system, Springsteen returned to putting a New Jersey spin on a version of This Year’s Girl jointly recorded by Manfred Mann and The Animals. ‘Ricki Wants A Man’ would be the first recorded proof that the author of ‘Fire’ and ‘Because The Night’ had not entirely lost his touch. But Ricki would share the fates of Mary Lou and Cindy, sisters in wilful spirit, sidelined by a Springsteen no longer sure what kind of album he was making.

 

170. CINDY

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 16–17/7/79; 11–12/4/80.

 

The songs cut at the sessions on July 16–18 suggested Springsteen was back on track. The one track on The Ties That Bind October 4 1979 ‘safety’ that remains unreleased – even after three non-album B-sides, the 4-CD Tracks and The Essential Bruce Springsteen bonus ‘rarities’ disc – ‘Cindy’ is one of the great lost Springsteen songs. It is also perhaps the perfect representation of what the 1979 album would have been had it remained a bunch of ‘early English-style stuff’. ‘Cindy’, placed second on The Ties That Bind, effortlessly achieves that rare balance between pop sensibility and fractured reality he was reaching for.

 

171. LOOSE ENDS

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 18/7/79. [TR]

First documented performance: Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy, Paris, France 3/6/99.

 

Though it would take Springsteen another month to reach ‘The River’, he had already reached that edge of desperation on this song. Originally the closer of The Ties That Bind, these loose ends were left dangling free, though he would return to ‘Loose Ends’ at a later date, replacing the homicidal fury of the original with the world-weary resignation of ‘Baby I’m So Cold’, a Born In The USA outtake.

 

172. OH ANGELYNE

Known studio/demo recordings: Home recording, Holmdel, NJ January–May 1979.

as THE RIVER

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 26+29/8/79; 21/1/80; 12+24/4/80. [RI]

First documented performance: Madison Square Garden, New York 21/9/79. [NN]

 

An instant classic, ‘The River’ – a reworking of an earlier home demo – was quickly recorded at the end of August, with no background vocals, in a sparser arrangement than the released version and slotted onto The Ties That Bind as opening track on side two. Coming after ‘Stolen Car’, its inclusion necessitated a wholesale rethink for the album, which resulted in Springsteen substituting ‘Cindy’ for ‘Ricki Wants A Man of Her Own’, ‘You Can Look’ for ‘Ramrod’ and ‘The River’ for ‘The Man Who Got Away’. [See discussion in main text p. 199]

 

XVI) 173–187. Songs demoed September 1979–January 1980:

173. FROM SMALL THINGS, BIG THINGS COME

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 2/9/79. [TE]

First documented performance: Big Man’s West, Red Bank NJ 7/8/82 [w/ Beaver Brown].

 

With The Ties That Bind still being sequenced, Springsteen turned up at a session in early September with one of those great rockabilly throwaways he used to bring to the Darkness sessions just to keep the band on its toes. As he puts it in The Essential notes, he ran the song down for the other musicians ‘and the band drove the hell out of it in a take or two’. Was the version cut on the 2nd always intended as a demo, or was Springsteen making an early start on the rockabilly album he felt he had in him? Either way, it never figured again in the recording process for The River. The following year he palmed it off on Dave Edmunds, who knew a rocker when he heard one and made a fine job of heaping the Rockpile sound on top.

 

174. WHERE THE BANDS ARE

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 9/10/79. [TR]

First documented performance: Forum, Milan, Italy 19/4/99.

175. CRUSH ON YOU

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 11–12/10/79. [RI]

First documented performance: Chrysler Arena, Ann Arbor MI 3/10/80.

 

Whatever doubts he had about The Ties That Bind as an advance on Darkness, they didn’t take long to manifest themselves. Just four days after the master was made (and presumably delivered to CBS) he was back in the studio working on these two freshly minted songs. He later claimed the songs chosen for TTTB, ‘lacked the kind of unity and conceptual intensity I liked my music to have’, but what these two makeweights brought in the way of ‘conceptual intensity’ is anybody’s guess.

 

176. CHEVROLET DELUXE

Known studio/demo recordings: Home recording, Holmdel, NJ, Fall 1979; ‘Telegraph Hill Studio’ band rehearsal 15/11/79.

 

Brushing aside criticisms that he was starting to repeat himself, Springsteen spent a great deal of time and effort trying to whip this song into shape. It concerned a Chevrolet Deluxe which had become a substitute for the (ubiquitous) estranged wife: ‘I had a wife and kid, and I tried to settle down/ I just wanted to live an honest life on the edge of an honest town/ But in the end they left me dangling in the night’. By the sixth home demo we discover he ‘can’t keep those payments up’. Though not exactly a refashioned ‘Street Queen’, the band arrangement, rehearsed in mid-November, was surprisingly complex and the six-minute song itself quietly ambitious. Taken at a stately pace with ornate fills from guitar/organ, it does suggest ‘a separate thing happening’ but the subject matter meant it was quietly returned to the garage.

 

177. LIVING ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Telegraph Hill Studio’ band rehearsal 15/11/79; Power Station, New York 7/12/79. [TR]

First documented performance: Madison Square Garden, New York 28/11/80.*

 

If ‘From Small Things . . .’ was the first tiny step on the highway to Nebraska, ‘Living On The Edge of the World’ is more of a long stride. Rehearsed alongside ‘Chevrolet Deluxe’ and recorded at the December sessions, this bop-away-the-blues B-side would be given the musical makeover to end all such makeovers, re-emerging as ‘Open All Night’. Meanwhile, two lines giving the raspberry to the radio preacher’s promise of salvation, ‘Hey mister deejay gotta hear my last prayer/ It’s a hey ho rock and roll, deliver me from nowhere,’ would reappear in ‘State Trooper’, an altogether more fitting home.

*Note: Springsteen inserted a verse from this song into ‘Ramrod’ at this 1980 New York show.

 

178. SOMEBODY WANTS MY BABY

179. I WANT TO START A NEW LIFE

180. BABY I DON’T KNOW

181. MR OUTSIDE

182. YOU GOTTA FIGHT (FOR WHAT YOU WANT)

183. STOCKTON BOYS

Known studio/demo recordings: Home recording, Holmdel, NJ, Fall 1979.

 

All of the above songs can be found on another Batlan cassette, this one undated. Undoubtedly from the fall of 1979, it featured just three songs later recorded at Power Station: ‘Held Up Without A Gun’, ‘You Can Look’ and ‘Mr Outside’ (as ‘Down In White Town’, see below). Having got the hang of how to record himself in private moments, these demos are sonically superior to those recorded the previous winter, and the songs themselves seem to have more of a preordained structure. If other ideas from the same tape/s – ‘Everybody’s Looking For Somebody’, ‘The Time In Between’ and ‘Love’s Gonna Be Tonight’ – are quickly discarded, the likes of ‘You Gotta Fight’ (‘Every day is a battle within/ The state of the future looks so dim . . . Well, you just got to fight for what you want’) and ‘Baby I Don’t Know’ have attractive constructs. The former was set to a light calypso beat, while the latter resembles the kinda thing often found on E Street. However, ‘Mr Outside’ would be the only idea deemed worthy of studio reconfiguration.

 

184. I’M A ROCKER

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 4/12/79; 10/4/80. [RI]

First documented performance: Kiel Opera House, St Louis MO 18/10/80.

 

With The Ties That Bind definitely off the Xmas schedule, Springsteen continued recording what new material he worked up in short bursts of studio time. Six more songs occupied him from the third to the seventh of December, with one song (listed only as ‘No Title Yet’) occupying most of the first two days. Of these, only ‘I’m A Rocker’ would make the final record, albeit with a change of person, from third to first (on takes 4 and 6 from December 4 he sings ‘She’s A Rocker’, though it is listed as ‘I’m A Rocker’). Along with the already-recorded ‘Where The Bands Are’ and ‘Crush On You’, this high-octane rocker suggested he was looking to include more crowd pleasers to take around the arenas of America.

 

185. DEDICATION

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 4+6/12/79.

 

‘Dedication’, the title track of Gary US Bonds’ comeback album when it appeared in 1981, began life as a candidate for The River, being recorded with the E Street Band across two days in December 1979. However, it probably had a little too much irreverence for Springsteen’s own now-sprawling statement. Whether Bonds re-recorded the whole song or simply used the 1979 backing track (as he did on ‘Jole Blon’, a song recorded at Power Station the following month) is not clear from the album credits; but the Gary US Bonds ‘version’ could be a vocal-overdubbed River outtake.

 

186. YOUR LOVE

187. THIS LITTLE GIRL

 

When exactly Springsteen wrote these two slices of pop ephemera for his early idol, Gary US Bonds, is undocumented, but if it was during the sessions for The River, as seems likely, he should have saved ‘Your Love’ for himself. But it was ‘This Little Girl’, a song which came straight from the discard pile, that was a respectable hit for Bonds, the bouncy arrangement and novelty value of a Bonds/Springsteen collaboration probably doing more for the song’s chances than any romantic insights on offer.

 

XVII) 188–200, Other songs recorded February–April 1980:

188. I’M GONNA BE THERE TONIGHT

Known studio/demo recordings: Home recording, Holmdel NJ January 11/1/80.

as OUT IN THE STREET

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 21/3/80. [RI]

First documented performance: Chrysler Arena, Ann Arbor MI 3/10/80.

 

By 1980 the lyrics have begun to play a subsidiary role in a number of songs, revisiting familiar aspects of an increasingly narrow worldview (the world is tough, really tough, or really, really tough and/or baby, little girl so young and so fine, get your red dress on, you’re mine, all mine). ‘Out In The Street’ was one that began life at January band rehearsals musically complete, but with only dummy lyrics (and a dummy song-title). It would have to wait until March to get a first look at its lyrics, a ‘Friday on my mind – walk it, talk it’ piece of blue-collar bravado.

 

189. YOU GOTTA BE KIND

as DOWN IN WHITE TOWN

Known studio/demo recordings: Home recording, Holmdel NJ Fall 1979; home recording, Holmdel NJ January 11, 1980; Power Station, New York 16/3/80.

 

‘Down In White Town’ was another composite effort, combining elements of ‘You Gotta Be Kind’ – a reggae song he demoed at home in the fall – and ‘Mr Outside’, another song demoed at the same time (see above). This one he persevered with, recording it for The River in March as final selections were being made. [See discussion in main text p. 209]

 

190. SLOW FADE

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Telegraph Hill Studio’, Holmdel NJ 5/2/80.

 

A source of great confusion, and much frustration, this explosive song exists only as a series of band rehearsals, set up presumably to hone arrangements without Power Station’s pricey clock ticking. That said, given the six known attempts made at this song on February 5, each an E Street tour de forceful, it would be somewhat surprising if the song went unrecorded at Power Station. (Actually, they spent most of January 31 and February 1 working on an untitled song. But if I had to put my money on a likely contender, it would be ‘I Will Be The One’ [#198], one of three songs recorded on February 16.) As with a number of songs done in band rehearsal that winter, the vocals are buried deeper than the devil and ‘Slow Fade’ is merely the title on the tape-card, offering no clue as to its subject-matter or line of attack. The musical evidence, though, suggests something potentially remarkable.

 

191. FADE AWAY

Known studio/demo recordings: Home recording, Holmdel NJ ?December 1979; Power Station, New York 9, 15–17/3/80; 9, 29/4/80. [RI]

First documented performance: Memorial Sports Arena, Los Angeles 1/11/80.

 

The compilers of the Lost Masters series did no one any favours by including a solo demo of ‘Fade Away’ as a ‘bonus’ track on one of two ‘best of’ sets culled from the 19-CD series, and giving it the same title as the song above, ‘Slow Fade’. They bear no resemblance to each other. The demo in question is actually a terrific, fully-conceived prototype for ‘Fade Away’, probably dating from the nether end of 1979, though Springsteen did not bring the song to a pukka Power Station session until mid-March. But he knew right away he had a good strong ballad to hand. All he needed to do was decide where it fit. As a prelude to ‘Stolen Car’?

 

192. HELD UP WITHOUT A GUN

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Telegraph Hill Studio’ band rehearsal 22/2/80; Power Station, New York 23/2/80; 1,9+20-21/4/80. [45]

First documented performance: Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale NY 31/12/80. [TE]

 

Determined to prove his band had the chops to out-punk The Ramones, Springsteen decided to put all the fury of this angry lil’ song into the arrangement, if one can call it that. A two-minute sprint to the finishing line, one barely has time to catch one’s breath, let alone catch the clearest reference yet to the price of this particular kinda fame: ‘Some damn fool with a guitar walks in off the street/ Ain’t got nowhere to go, ain’t got nothing to eat/ Man with a cigar says, “sign here son”/ Whoa! Held up without a gun’. The ‘man with a cigar’ smacks more of Colonel Tom Parker than Mike Appel, being presumably a conscious nod to Bobby Bare’s classic Elvis send-up, ‘All-American Boy’, even if the maniacal delivery makes the whole thing sound personal.

 

193. RESTLESS NIGHTS

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Telegraph Hill Studio’ band rehearsal 10–11/1/80; Power Station, New York 14/1/80; 12/4/80; [2/5/80]. [TR]

First documented performance: HSBC Arena, Buffalo NY 22/11/2009.

 

By January 1980, Springsteen knew he was coming up short on songs to top those already sidelined from The Ties That Bind. ‘Restless Nights’, though, was a welcome exception and, not surprisingly, it was one he was anxious to run down when work resumed at Power Station. In fact, he seems to have set aside a session on January 14 to record ‘Restless Nights’ (and ‘Jole Blon’, rehearsed the same day), having spent the past few days at Telegraph Hill whipping it into shape. Once again, the rehearsal versions allowed Springsteen to give this up-tempo rocker the full ‘Prove It All Night’ treatment, before trimming it down to pop single length. Even in its truncated Power Station form (faded prematurely for Tracks), the song has muscle to spare. And yet, despite receiving a ‘final’ mix for inclusion on The River in early May, it was one more casualty of the kinda ‘conceptual intensity’ that rated ‘Ramrod’ and ‘I’m A Rocker’ over such substantial fare.

 

194. TWO HEARTS

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Telegraph Hill Studio’ band rehearsal 22/2/80; Power Station, New York 23–24/2/80; 17/3/80; 9+26/4/80. [RI]

First documented performance: Coliseum, Richfield OH 6/10/80.

 

Along with ‘Out In The Street’ and ‘Cadillac Ranch’, ‘Two Hearts’ seemed to confirm that Springsteen had firmly lost the plot sometime in February 1980, recording songs for recording’s sake; and that any ol’ cliché would suffice for a lyric if the arrangement was radio-friendly enough to make a mnemonic imprint.

 

195. WRECK ON THE HIGHWAY

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Telegraph Hill Studio’ band rehearsal 11/1/80; Power Station, New York 10–12/4/80. [RI]

First documented performance: Chrysler Arena, Ann Arbor MI 3/10/80.

 

The last song recorded for the album, ‘Wreck On The Highway’ still occupied three days of studio time. He presumably already knew it would serve as a coda to ‘Drive All Night’. The third downer in a row, its intimations of mortality would serve as both an album closer and a (presumably intentional) semi-ironic farewell to albums about cars and girls.

 

196. ANGELYNE

Known studio recordings: Power Station, New York 1/2/80.

 

One of two Springsteen originals recorded for The River which ended up being donated to Gary US Bonds to engineer his own commercial comeback, ‘Angelyne’ would not appear until 1982’s On The Line. However, it could well be a 1980 outtake, given that resounding Big Man sax solo. The Bruce and the E Streets take had enough merits to be included on those intriguing 1993 ‘rarities’ reels.

 

197. A THOUSAND TEARS (WILLIAM DAVIS)

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 31/1–1/2/80.

198. I WILL BE THE ONE

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 16+26/2/80.

199. STRAY BULLET

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 24/2/80; 9/3/80; 10/4/80.

 

Just as The Ties That Bind sessions produced a surprising number of songs that have managed to bypass both official archival releases and the more unofficial variety, the February 1980 sessions produced three more mysteries-in-song – all worked on for more than a single session; though only ‘I Will Be The One’ seems to have ever been under consideration for Tracks (see ‘Slow Fade’). However, a song called ‘William Davis’ [#247] would be recorded at the May 1982 Born In The USA sessions, suggesting ‘A Thousand Tears (William Davis)’ may well have received a treatment similar to ‘Loose Ends’, another River reject he recast at the self-same sessions.

 

200. CADILLAC RANCH

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 16/2/80; 9,15+17/3/80; 9+26/4/80. [RI]

First documented performance: Chrysler Arena, Ann Arbor MI 3/10/80.

 

I guess if it took The Beatles eighty-six takes to get the risible ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’, the effort expended on this ‘homage’ to the graveyard of America’s car industry can’t be considered any more misguided. But when one realizes that Springsteen had already recorded enough strong songs for his own version of Sandanista!, one has to wonder what he was thinkin’. And that was before it became a live embarrassment.

 

XVIII) 201–211. Songs demoed, soundchecked and/or performed October 1980–December 1981:

201. ROBERT FORD

Known studio/demo recordings: Colt’s Neck NJ Spring 1981; Colt’s Neck NJ January–April 1982; Power Station, New York 27/4/82.

 

A seventy-five-second fragment on the spring 1981 home demo (bootlegged as Fistfull of Dollars) suggests the start of a western ballad: ‘Robert Ford and Jesse James were like brothers/ Together they would loot the [mail] trains.’ A year later, post-Nebraska, he fleshed this earlier notion out to make it about Ford’s betrayal of his friend, and the price he paid: ‘Robert Ford shot Jesse in the back/ He ran to Maria, but the freedom he gained for his sins/ She said Bobby, oh Bobby what have you done/ And she would not marry him . . . [And] everywhere across the land people came/ To meet the man who shot Jesse James’. The song was presumably inspired by Woody Guthrie’s ‘Jesse James’, which branded Robert Ford ‘that dirty little coward’ and wondered aloud ‘how he feels/ For he ate of Jesse’s bread and he slept in Jesse’s bed’. Recorded at the Electric Nebraska sessions.

 

202. DANGER ZONE

203. LION’S DEN

Known studio/demo recordings: Colt’s Neck NJ April 1981; [#202:] Band rehearsal, Colt’s Neck NJ April 1982; [#203:] Hit Factory, New York 25/1/82.

First documented performance [#203]: Palais Omnisport de Paris-Bercy, Paris, France 3/6/99.

 

The relationship between another tough-guy song demoed in the spring of 1981 (‘Man, you’re messin’ in a danger zone/ Let the girl go home’), and an otherwise undocumented full-blooded gaol song rehearsed with the band in the lead-up to the Electric Nebraska sessions is tenuous, but both warn about entering the ‘Danger Zone’. Never one to throw away a good song title, he also reused another from the same cassette. ‘Lion’s Den’ then consisted solely of the line, ‘Daniel’s in the lion’s den.’ (He presumably already knew (of) the traditional ballad of the same name.) Nine months later it became a riposte to a lioness of his acquaintance: ‘At night I hear you out prowling around/ Tearing guys up, scaring ’em down/ Now all that growling’s gotta come to an end’. One of the better songs Springsteen gave to Gary US Bonds for the follow-up to Dedication, ‘Lion’s Den’ went unused and uncirculated until Tracks.

 

204. FIST FULL OF DOLLARS

205. MY HEART IS AN OPEN BOOK

206. RIDING HORSE

Known studio/demo recordings: Colt’s Neck NJ Spring 1981.

 

Of the songs on the spring 1981 home tape, ‘My Heart Is An Open Book’ is the most interesting idea left wholly unused. It directly anticipates Elvis Costello’s 1982 song, ‘Every Day I Write The Book’, Springsteen dividing a budding relationship into a series of chapters: ’chapter 1, we’re going out, we’re having fun . . . chapter 2, there’s a story of my love for you . . . chapter 3, it tells you how good our love could be’. ‘Riding Horse’ also has an interesting premise, a girlfriend ‘so tall and fair/ I need a stepladder to run my fingers through her hair/ I’m gonna kill the next guy who asks, how’s the weather up there?’ – but little else to set the pulses racing.

 

207. JOHNNY BYE BYE

Known studio/demo recordings: Colt’s Neck NJ spring 1981; Power Station, New York 27/4/82; ‘Thrill Hill West’, Los Angeles ?4/1/83; 9,24/3/83. [TR]

First documented performance: Apollo, Manchester, England 13/5/81.

 

The legendary Nebraska version of ‘Johnny Bye Bye’ does not exist – the version on the tape he sent Landau was almost certainly a live 1981 take. (When the Nebraska tape was backed up in June 1982 in its entirety, alternate takes and all, there was still no ‘Johnny Bye Bye’.) For all its significance to the man himself, the song – originally included on the July 1983 sequence for Born In The USA – had to be content with being B-side to ‘I’m On Fire’; and even then not in its most complete form. The released version omits one verse, recorded in the winter of 1983 [See discussion in main text pp. 222 and 262]

 

208. ALL I NEED

Known studio/demo recordings: Colt’s Neck NJ Early July 1981.

First documented performance: Brendan Byrne Arena, East Rutherford NJ soundcheck 8/7/81.

 

Aside from his two ‘Elvis’ tributes, Springsteen refrained from playing any new songs on the year-long River tour; perhaps because he was undecided as to his next step forward. Even the few documented soundchecks show little evidence of a next stage in the songwriting. The one time he did break the trend was during a record-breaking stint at the recently-opened Brendan Byrne Arena, when he turned up with a song he’d just demoed on his home recorder, and ran it down for the band. At his insistence, this soundcheck version was taped by Batlan, presumably as an aide de memoire. The song itself, ‘All I Need’, is a simple testament to the gal he loves, receiving the kind of r&b arrangement he long ago left behind on his own artefacts. This would be no exception, being donated to Gary US Bonds at the earliest opportunity.

 

209. VIETNAM BLUES

210. LOVE IS A DANGEROUS THING

211. CLUB SOUL CITY

Known studio/demo recordings: Colt’s Neck NJ September–December 1981.

 

The story of Springsteen championing the Vietnam Veterans’ cause in the summer of 1981 is well known. As always, he was looking to find a way to put these feelings into song. But the transition from advocate to proselytizer was not a straightforward one. The song he began immediately on his return east, ‘Vietnam Blues’, merely provided spare parts for ‘Shut Out The Light’ and ‘Born In The USA’. Both ‘Club Soul City’ and ‘Love Is A Dangerous Thing’ inhabit more familiar Bruce territory. The fall 1981 demo of ‘Club Soul City’ is the merest snatch, but by January 1982 it would be a hostage to Bruce’s Bondsman, Gary US. Set in the nightclub next door to the Heartbreak Hotel, this is another torch ballad for the losin’ kind. ‘Love Is A Dangerous Thing’ would become one of those potentially-promising songs that instead donated a single line to a Bruce classic (in this case, ‘Pink Cadillac’).

 

XIX) 212–226. Songs demoed and recorded for Nebraska or Electric Nebraska:

212. FADE TO BLACK

Known studio/demo recordings: Colt’s Neck NJ July & September–December 1981; January–April 1982; Power Station, New York 11/5/82.

 

According to Brucebase, the first ruminative elements of ‘Fade To Black’ were demoed at the same time as ‘All I Need’ (this version appears on Lost Masters VII). A finished version was cut during the May 1982 Born In The USA sessions. Quite a journey, raising its own issues, one being how the E Street Band could add a great deal to a song the tenor of which was very much the same emotively bleak landscape as the coeval Nebraska. [See discussion in main text p. 233]

 

213. JOHNNY 99

Known studio/demo recordings: Colt’s Neck NJ September–December 1981; Portastudio Sessions, Colt’s Neck NJ 17/12/81–3/1/82 [NE]; Power Station, New York 27–28/4/82; 3/5/82.

First documented performance: Civic Arena, St Paul MN 29/6/84.

 

The first of the ‘desperado’ songs written for Nebraska, predating even the title track, ‘Johnny 99’ is sung entirely as if Springsteen really was walking in a murderer’s shoes (the murderer in question being a fictionalized Gary Gilmore – see discussion in main text pp. 237–8).

 

214. ATLANTIC CITY

Known studio/demo recordings: Colt’s Neck NJ September–December 1981; Portastudio Sessions, Colt’s Neck NJ 17/12/81–3/1/82 [NE]; Power Station, New York 26-28/4/82.

First documented performance: Civic Arena, St Paul MN 29/6/84.

 

In the notes to Nebraska he sent to Landau, Springsteen wrote, ’This song should probably be done with whole band + really rockin’ out.’ But, according to Landau, when it came time to record the song electric, ‘No way was it as good as what he had goin’ on that demo tape.’ On the other hand, Clarence Clemons in his autobiography described the band version as ‘good . . . more heat’. The fact that they spent three days working on the song in the studio does suggest a determination to render it right.

 

215. BORN IN THE USA

Known studio/demo recordings: Colt’s Neck NJ September–December 1981; Portastudio Sessions, Colt’s Neck NJ 17/12/81–3/1/82 [TR]; Power Station, New York 27–28/4/82; 3/5/82. [BITUSA]

First documented performance: The Stone Pony, Asbury Park NJ 8/6/84.

 

When Springsteen sent the completed ‘BITUSA’ demo to Landau, he denigrated the initial result (now released on Tracks) – ‘this song is in very rough shape but is as good as I can get it at the moment’ – and envisaged something that ‘should be done very hard rockin’’. On 27 April 1982 he did indeed rerecord the song in a new electric arrangement which by any criteria qualified as ‘very hard rockin’. ‘Born In The USA’ was the third song recorded for the Electric Nebraska (after five takes of ‘Johnny Bye Bye’), and was captured in just four takes, two of which were complete (take 4 being marked ‘Great!’ on a rough-mix reel the following day), before becoming the title track of a wholly independent artefact hewn from more commercial rock.

 

216. USED CARS

Known studio/demo recordings: Colt’s Neck NJ September–December 1981; Portastudio Sessions, Colt’s Neck NJ 17/12/81–3/1/82 [NE]; Power Station, New York 30/4/82.

First documented performance: Civic Arena, St Paul MN 29/6/84.

 

Always conflicted about wealth, Springsteen now wrote an entire song from the vantage point of ‘a rich man [who] felt like a poor man inside’. The whole idea of a rock star imagining ‘the day the lottery I win’ (a horrible circumlocution to retain the rhyme) is an amusing conceit, as are some of the spoken intros in concert: ‘When I was a kid, there was only two things I wanted, a pony and a convertible . . . [Me and my sister,] we’d be out in the backyard going “Please, daddy, please.” He said, “Well, come on, we’ll go down to the car lot.” . . . We went down to this car lot, that was called like Big Al’s Used Cars, and he had a sign up front that said, “I’d give ‘em away, but my wife won’t let me.” . . . We’d be looking around and we’d end up coming home in a Rambler – that would break down about three months later.’

 

217. DOWNBOUND TRAIN

Known studio/demo recordings: Colt’s Neck NJ September–December 1981; Portastudio Sessions, Colt’s Neck NJ 17/12/81–3/1/82; Power Station, New York 27–28/4/82; 3, 5–6/5/82 [BITUSA]; ? ‘Thrill Hill West’, Los Angeles 3/2/83.

First documented performance: Civic Arena, St Paul MN 2/7/84.

 

One of the highlights of the original 14-track Nebraska demo tape. Also one of just three songs from the Electric Nebraska sessions that worked well enough in its electric guise to be bumped from the acoustic album. The electric version affirmed how such remorseless, downbound songs could still benefit from the full-on E Street Band heat treatment.

 

218. THE LOSIN’ KIND

Known studio/demo recordings: Colt’s Neck NJ September–December 1981; Portastudio Sessions, Colt’s Neck NJ 17/12/81–3/1/82; Power Station, New York 30/4/82; ‘Thrill Hill West’, LA 12/3/83.

 

The omission of ‘Losin’ Kind’ from both Nebraska and Tracks makes it the one song from that original demo-tape still unreleased in any form. The fact that he returned to it in March 1983 suggests he hadn’t entirely decided to discard it, but its absence from any of the Tracks compilation reels is baffling. A notable loser in the Nebraska/BITUSA lottery.

 

219. NEBRASKA

Known studio/demo recordings: Portastudio Sessions, Colt’s Neck NJ 17/12/81–3/1/82 [NE]; Power Station, New York 27–28, 30/4/82.

First documented performance: Civic Arena, St Paul MN 1/7/84.

‘There was something about [‘Nebraska’] that was the centre of the record, but I couldn’t really say specifically what it was, outside of the fact that I’d read something that moved me . . . I think in my own life I had reached where it felt like I was teetering on this void. I felt a deep sense of isolation, and that led me to those characters and to those stories . . . I was at a place where I could start to really feel that price . . . for not sorting through the issues that make up your emotional life.’

– Bruce Springsteen, 1999. [See discussion in main text pp. 235–36]

 

220. OPEN ALL NIGHT

Known studio/demo recordings: Colt’s Neck NJ spring 1981; Portastudio Sessions, Colt’s Neck NJ 17/12/81–3/1/82 [NE]; Power Station, New York 27/4/82.

First documented performance: Stone Pony, Asbury Park NJ 3/10/82.

 

An update of ‘Drive All Night’, the narrator of ‘Open All Night’ remains sure ‘she’ will be waiting, no matter how long it takes him to negotiate the New Jersey Turnpike: ‘Sit tight, little mama, I’m comin’ ‘round/ I got three more hours but I’m coverin’ ground’. The idea of recrafting ‘Living on the Edge of the World’ as ‘Wanda’ ( the working title for ‘Open All Night’) dated to April 1981, when it first appeared on some home demos.

 

221. MANSION ON THE HILL

Known studio/demo recordings: Portastudio Sessions, Colt’s Neck NJ 17/12/81–3/1/82 [NE]; Power Station, New York 27, 28+30/4/82.

First documented performance: Civic Arena, St Paul MN 29/6/84.

 

The subtext throughout this sprightly song remains, ‘First the limousine, then the big mansions on the hill – I’ve always been suspicious of the whole [fame] package deal’. Suspicious mind or not, the song refuses to resolve whether the narrator watching the cars rushing ‘home from the mill’ is standing outside that mansion on the hill. One of the Nebraska songs that worked especially well live, hence presumably why he felt like playing it at The Apollo in 2012.

 

222. PINK CADILLAC

Known studio/demo recordings: Portastudio Sessions, Colt’s Neck NJ 17/12/81–3/1/82; The Hit Factory, New York 31/5/83. [TR]

First documented performance: Civic Arena, St Paul MN 1/7/84.

 

The only song from the acoustic Nebraska ignored at the electric sessions three months later, ‘Pink Cadillac’ would nonetheless effortlessly achieve the transition few of its kith and kin could, Springsteen reviving this deft slice of rockabilly heaven during the summer 1983 E Street sessions.

 

223. STATE TROOPER

Known studio/demo recordings: Portastudio Sessions, Colt’s Neck NJ 17/12/81–3/1/82. [NE]

First documented performance: Civic Center, Hartford CT 8/9/84.

 

‘I dreamed this one up comin’ back from New York one night. I don’t know if it’s even really a song or not . . . It’s kinda weird.’ – Springsteen’s description of ‘State Trooper’ in his notes to Nebraska, January 1982.

 

224. HIGHWAY PATROLMAN

Known studio/demo recordings: Portastudio Sessions, Colt’s Neck NJ 17/12/81–3/1/82 [NE]; Power Station, New York 30/4/82.

First documented performance: Civic Arena, St Paul MN 29/6/84.

 

Prefacing ‘State Trooper’ on Nebraska, ‘Highway Patrolman’ was written from the perspective of a cop who lets a fugitive get away because the man in question is his brother, Frankie. Though not someone who had an older brother to ‘catch him when he’s strayin’’, Springsteen’s vantage point is very much that of someone with a strong family bond. Not surprisingly, it also appealed to Johnny Cash, who the following year covered it in his trademark gravel as a way of announcing Johnny 99.

 

225. REASON TO BELIEVE

Known studio/demo recordings: Portastudio Sessions, Colt’s Neck NJ 17/12/81–3/1/82 [NE]; Band rehearsal, Colt’s Neck NJ April 1982; Power Station, New York 27–28/4/82.

First documented performance: Civic Arena, St Paul MN 1/7/84.

 

A recently emerged band rehearsal preceding the Electric Nebraska sessions suggests Springsteen intended to give ‘Reason To Believe’ a more rockabilly arrangement, complete with flickering guitar licks. Which is not the arrangement it received on the Born In The USA tour. The 1984 live arrangement did little more than superimpose the E Street Band on the acoustic arrangement (a complaint which could be made for a few Nebraska tracks). In fact, one might argue the first really successful full-band arrangement was not until the 2008 Magic shows, when a wacky hillbilly hoedown showed faith and reason really could be bedfellows. [See discussion in main text p. 244]

Note: In his note to Landau, Springsteen refers to two versions of this song, the second of which has an extra verse. The version on the album is a first take, so presumably a whole verse was cut.

 

226. CHILD BRIDE

Known studio/demo recordings: Portastudio Sessions, Colt’s Neck NJ 17/12/81–3/1/82.

as WORKING ON THE HIGHWAY

Known studio/demo recordings: Band rehearsal, Colt’s Neck NJ April 1982; Power Station, New York 30/4/82; 6/5/82. [BITUSA]

First documented performance: Civic Arena, St Paul MN 29/6/84.

 

The four months separating the last of the Nebraska sessions from its stillborn electric equivalent were productive ones for Springsteen. He wrote and recorded a number of songs for Gary US Bonds and Donna Summer, and continued to demo new material at his home studio (the thirteen tracks on Lost Masters X possibly represent the tip of an audio iceberg). But the fifteen songs he had just demoed in January went largely untouched – save for ‘Child Bride’, the last track recorded, a song ‘in which the protagonist violates the Mann act and is left to ponder his fate’. He soon set to work shifting gear, lopping off the entire original ending of the song and giving it a quite different sensibility, before returning it to the side of the road – working on a chain-gang. [See discussion in main text p. 243]

 

XX) 227–243. Other songs demoed January–April 1982:

227. COVER ME

Known studio/demo recordings: Hit Factory, New York 25/1/82; Power Station, New York 12/5/82. [BITUSA]

First documented performance: Civic Arena, St Paul MN 2/7/84.

 

Three weeks to the day after sequencing the original 14-track Nebraska cassette, Springsteen returned to making rock music. Still producing a bewildering number of songs that were surplus to current requirements, he had written this groovy pop song specifically for Donna Summer. But when Jon Landau heard the finished track, it was ‘Hungry Heart’ all over again. He insisted his employer give the lady something else, this one was a keeper. Springsteen thought not. It would take Landau some two years to convince him otherwise. During this time ‘Cover Me’ would be reworked at the May 1982 Born In The USA sessions (over nine takes), but still did not make the ‘final’ 1982 BITUSA sequence. Nor would it make 1983’s equivalent. But Landau got his way in the end.

 

228. WORKIN’ ON IT

Known studio/demo recordings: Hit Factory, New York 25/1/82.

229. OUT OF WORK

230. HOLD ON

231. LOVE’S ON THE LINE

232. SAVIN’ UP

Known studio/demo recordings: Hit Factory, New York ?25[-??]/1/82 and/or Hit Factory, NY 23/2/82 .

 

Leaving aside ‘Cover Me’ and ‘Lion’s Den’, the one other song definitely recorded on that January day, logged as ‘Workin’ On It’, remains uncirculated. But at least four more songs were recorded at this time for the use of Gary US Bonds, each probably recorded with a Springsteen guide vocal and overdubbed by Bonds later. The resultant album, On The Line, may have been top-heavy with Springsteen originals, seven in all, but two were older songs (‘Angelyne’ and ‘Rendezvous’). ‘Lion’s Den’ and ‘Savin’ Up’ would be deemed surplus to requirements, the latter cropping up instead on Clarence Clemons’ 1983 debut LP.

 

233. PROTECTION

Known studio/demo recordings: The Hit Factory, New York 23/2/82.

 

This one was written to order – a replacement order – after ‘Cover Me’ never left the office. Given its recipient, disco queen Donna Summer, and the premise (he needs protection from her love although she is his obsession), the resultant song shouldn’t be as good as it is. According to Summer, he even ‘came to my house in Los Angeles for several days to get it done’. He also contributed backing vocals and guitar to her perfectly respectable rendition. Overlooked for Tracks, it was almost a surprise inclusion on The Essential Bruce Springsteen bonus ‘rarities’ disc, but as of now it’s just one more lost master from a period when two years of studio time equated to a single album.

 

234. TRUE LOVE IS HARD TO COME BY

Known studio/demo recordings: Colt’s Neck NJ January–April 1982; Hit Factory, New York 2/6/83.

 

Of the thirteen songs on the Lost Masters X demo tape, recorded sometime in early 1982 (suggesting the Portastudio used on Nebraska was continuing to earn its keep), over half would be attempted at E Street Band sessions that spring. But ‘True Love Is Hard To Come By’, which he made three attempts to whip into shape at home, would not receive the full E Street treatment until June 1983. Even then, it merely served as a precursor to ‘Janey Don’t You Lose Heart’, to which it would donate the clichéd couplet, ‘Till the sun is torn from the sky/ Till every river, baby, it runs dry’. Shortlisted for Tracks.

 

235. JAMES LINCOLN DEER

Known studio/demo recordings: Colt’s Neck NJ January–April 1982; ‘Thrill Hill West’, Los Angeles 20/1/83; 15, 17/2/83; 12/3/83.

 

Another song demoed in the winter of 1982, only to be left out in the rain for a full year. Like ‘True Love Is Hard To Come By’, ‘James Lincoln Deer’ was then reworked, becoming ‘Richfield Whistle’ (save for one couplet, ‘Man said, “These jobs are goin’ boys/ And they ain’t comin’ back”’, he reapplied to ‘My Hometown’). Given its thematic proximity and empathic similarity to much of Nebraska, it is perhaps surprising he returned to the self-same song in the winter of 1983, when hard at work on a set of eight-track demos that threatened to become something grander. None of those versions recorded shortly before its transition into ‘Richfield Whistle’ circulate, but he clearly rated the song, working on it for at least four sessions.

 

236. I NEED YOU

237. RULED BY THE GUN

Known studio/demo recordings: Colt’s Neck NJ January–April 1982.

 

Of the songs on Lost Masters X that did not make it to band rehearsals, let alone pukka sessions, ‘I Need You’ takes a familiar Springsteen idea and spins it out to two minutes: ‘I don’t need no money, I don’t need you to drive me around/ I don’t need no pretty face cause that just gets me down/ I need you’. Elsewhere, he extends his repertoire to songs about cars, girls and guns; even if those who wield them seem determined to live down Raymond Chandler’s observation, ‘So many guns, so few brains’. ‘Ruled By The Gun’, a distant cousin of ‘Under The Gun’, may conceivably have evolved into ‘Gun In Every Home’, an uncirculated track cut that May, though it contains no such line.

 

238. YOUR LOVE IS ALL AROUND ME

Known studio/demo recordings: Colt’s Neck NJ January–April 1982; Band rehearsal, Colt’s Neck NJ April 1982; Power Station, New York ?10/5/82.

 

Such a cracking song was bound to benefit from some E Street magic, but until recently no such beast had emerged. Thankfully, the April rehearsal tape includes a full band version, and the song has clearly been worked on since it was home-demoed. A middle eight has been acquired, for starters. As such, it always seemed unlikely the song wasn’t at least run through at the band sessions in May. Sure enough, a two-inch tape of the song, undated but on the same reel as ‘Wages of Sin’ (so probably recorded the same day – May 10), was logged by Sony and, frankly, requires immediate excavation for the Born In Nebraska boxed-set. [See discussion in main text p. 246]

 

239. WAGES OF SIN

Known studio/demo recordings: Colt’s Neck NJ January–April 1982; Power Station, New York 10/5/82. [TR]

 

The refrain remains, ‘Wages of sin, we keep paying for the sins we’ve done,’ from the first demo to its May studio debut, even if initially the man in the song doesn’t ‘know what it is I’ve done’. What is absent from the demo is the memory dredged up from some therapy session, providing the song’s summation when recorded in May: ‘I remember when I was a little boy out where the cottonwoods grow tall/ Trying to make it home through the forest before the darkness falls/ Baby, all the sounds I heard, even if they weren’t real/I was running down that broken path with the devil snapping at my heels.’ These lines convinced him he should address those feelings in a more personal song. The glorious result was ‘My Father’s House’.

 

240. FOLLOW THAT DREAM

First documented performance: Palais des Sports, Paris, France 19/4/81.

241. BABY I’M SO COLD

Known studio/demo recordings: Colt’s Neck NJ January-April 1982; Band rehearsal, Colt’s Neck NJ April 1982; Power Station, New York 11/5/82.

as FOLLOW THAT DREAM MK.2

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Thrill Hill West’, Los Angeles 29–30/1/83; 7-8, 17/2/83.

 

Conceived before he had decided what shape ‘Johnny Bye Bye’ might take, ‘Follow That Dream’ held its own throughout the spring/summer 1981 shows. But rather than being demoed in the months either side of Nebraska, it became – with a little help from ‘Loose Ends’ – ‘Baby I’m So Cold’, a superior all-original. So what then prompted him to demo ‘Follow That Dream’ in the winter of 1983, when he spent five whole days working on the song in his new Los Angeles home? Maybe he had arrived at a more positive place. He even added a more positive middle verse: ‘Now I’ve been searching for a heart that’s free/ Searching for someone to search with me/ I need a love, a love I can trust/ Together we’ll search for the things that come to us’. That version was positioned mid-point on side two of the July 1983 BITUSA sequence.

 

242. THE BIG PAYBACK

Known studio/demo recordings: ?Colt’s Neck NJ January–April 1982. [TE]

 

According to Springsteen’s 2003 Essential notes, ‘The Big Payback’ was ‘cut at home shortly after the Nebraska album’. Presumably it therefore shares a berth with the winter 1982 demos, also absent from the Sony logs. But ‘shortly after’ could cover a multitude of sins, especially as the song did not appear until 1983.

 

243. GLORY DAYS

Known studio/demo recordings: Colt’s Neck NJ January–April 1982; Band rehearsal, Colt’s Neck NJ April 1982; Power Station, New York 5/5/82. [BITUSA]

First documented performance: The Stone Pony, Asbury Park NJ 8/6/84.

 

The downbeat message of ‘Glory Days’ was partly ameliorated by the judicious removal of a verse from the released version, recalling when his father ‘was working at the Metuchen Ford plant assembly line/ Now he just sits on a stool down at the Legion Hall, but I can tell what’s on his mind’. The song would go on to become almost vaudevillian in concert, and a long way removed from its genesis, whether that was at a roadside bar or in a cinema seat. [See discussion in main text p. 253]

 

XXII) 244–255, 98a, 80a, 256. Other songs recorded during Electric Nebraska sessions April 1982 & Born In The USA May 1982 sessions:

244. TV MOVIE

Known studio/demo recordings: Band rehearsal, Colt’s Neck NJ April 1982; The Hit Factory, New York 13/6/83. [TR]

 

More light-hearted than ‘Johnny Bye Bye’ or ‘Follow That Dream’, ‘TV Movie’ was presumably Bruce’s response to John Carpenter’s 1979 biopic of Elvis, with Kurt Russell playing the young firebrand. Another song he rehearsed in April 1982 but did not record for another fourteen months, this rapier-thrust at reality TV has the fictional wife of the rock star turning over in bed to tell him ‘my life would be immortalized/ not in some major motion picture/ or great American novel  . . . / No, they’re gonna make a TV movie out of me.’ Once again, a song which pricked his own ego would be deemed too lightweight even for B-side status. But not Tracks.

 

245. ON THE PROWL

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 30/4/82.

First documented performance: The Stone Pony, Asbury Park NJ 8/8/82 [3/10/82].

 

Because of the timing of the two live performances, it has long been assumed that this song dated from summer 1982, when he was hanging out with all those Jersey girls. But it had already been recorded the previous spring, at the last of the Electric Nebraska sessions; a first-person narrative where I, for once, was not another. [See discussion in main text pp. 249–50]

 

246. WILLIAM DAVIS

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 27–28/4/82.

247. GUN IN EVERY HOME

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 30/4/82; 6/5/82.

248. COMMON GROUND (STAY HUNGRY)

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 11/5/82.

 

Three songs from those April/May 1982 sessions which remain uncirculated, though both ‘William Davis’ and ‘Gun In Every Home’ were evidently songs Springsteen took seriously enough to record at least twice. ‘Common Ground’ was ultimately replaced by ‘This Hard Land’ (the ‘stay hungry’ motif, ‘Stay hard, stay hungry, stay alive if you can’, would re-emerge there). #246 is probably related to an earlier River outtake, ‘A Thousand Tears (William Davis)’ – see #197; while ‘A Gun In Every Home’ may be a synthesis of ‘gun’-song ideas demoed in the past year. It warranted both an Electric Nebraska and a BITUSA outing. ‘Common Ground’ was cut alongside ‘Johnny Bye Bye’ and ‘Baby I’m So Cold’ on what sounds like a dark day at the Power Station. But he gave it up when compiling Tracks, for which it was shortlisted.

 

249. MURDER INCORPORATED

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 3–4/5/82. [GH]

First documented performance: Tramps, New York 21/2/95.

 

With ‘Born In The USA’ already in the can, he recorded this snarling spit at the home of the brave next. But when that 5 July 1982 sequence became another ‘lost’ album, it would be left to the bootleggers to reclaim the song as the title track of their own alternate BITUSA, dubbed Murder Incorporated. The 1999 reunion finally gave him – and a reinvigorated E Street Band – the opportunity to make it an integral part of the live set, where it had belonged all along; and where it nightly proved ’you can’t compete with murder incorporated’.

 

250. MY LOVE WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 5–7/5/82. [TR]

First documented performance: Convention Hall, Asbury Park NJ 18/3/99.

 

`When we first got [back] together [in 1999], the first thing we did was play a lot of unfamiliar material, a lot of things from Tracks  . . . We picked things off Tracks that weren’t particularly familiar, like a song like “My Love Will Not Let You Down”. That should have been on the Born In The USA record; I don’t know why it got left off. It was one of those things we pulled out in the first rehearsal and went, ‘‘Whoa!’’’ Bruce Springsteen, 2001.

 

251. STOP THE WAR

Known studio/demo recordings: Band rehearsal, Colt’s Neck NJ April 1982; Power Station, New York 5–6/5/82.

 

One imagines that the man who in 1985 covered Edwin Starr’s ‘War’ also knew his 1970 follow-up single, ‘Stop The War Now’, a minor hit in its own right. But Springsteen’s ‘Stop The War’, the studio version of which remains uncirculated, turns out to be about marital war, as evidenced by the April band rehearsal. In fact, he begs her to ‘tell me what we’re fighting for, I don’t care anymore/ I just wanna stop the war.’ A replacement of sorts for ‘Cover Me’, it allowed every element of the E Street Band to return fire.

 

252. A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND (PITTSBURGH)

Known studio/demo recordings: Band rehearsal, Colt’s Neck NJ April 1982; Power Station, New York 5–6/5/82. [TR]

 

Rehearsed in the days/week leading up to the Electric Nebraska sessions, this plaintive ballad would certainly have fit on the same album as ‘Fade To Black’ and ‘Baby I’m So Cold’, provided every copy included a free set of razor blades. Instead, the song was attempted at the BITUSA sessions in May, where its country-rock arrangement struck a slightly discordant note. Although it was eventually included on Tracks, placed between two River outtakes, it never quite fits. Only ever recorded with full band backing, this always seemed more suited to an acoustic guise. Much to fans’ delight, it finally got one on the night in May 2005 when Springsteen delivered a gripping solo rendition at a show in St Paul, Minnesota.

 

253. I’M ON FIRE

Known studio/demo recordings: ? Hit Factory, New York January 1982; Power Station, New York 11/5/82. [BITUSA]

First documented performance: Civic Arena, St Paul MN 29/6/84.

 

This song is rumoured to have been cut at the Hit Factory in January 1982, at the same session as ‘Cover Me’. But if so, it was the May Power Station take which got the vote for the 1982 BITUSA sequence. Voted off in 1983, it was back on in 1984, when it also received a promo video that proved Springsteen was not so much a method actor as an actor with no method. He wisely stuck to the day job.

 

254. I’M GOING DOWN

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 12–13/5/82. [BITUSA]

First documented performance: Rosemont Horizon, Rosemont IL 17/8/84.

 

An end-of-tether discourse, its original title ‘Down, Down, Down’ said it best. Recorded in a hurry (over ten takes) on the 13^th with its own punch-drunk arrangement, this was another song on which Springsteen allowed the band to vamp away, only to curtail them in the final mix. Side-one closer on the original 1982 sequence, it was only a last-minute addition to the 1984 album.

 

255. THIS HARD LAND

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 11, 13 –14/5/82; ‘Thrill Hill West’, Los Angeles 3+15/2/83. [TR]

First documented performance: Tramps, New York 21/2/95.

 

While ‘This Hard Land’ still has its champions among fans, it proved beyond any shadow of doubt that the world had no need for a second (or third) Woody in 1982. If he wisely gave the song a hearty shove sideways after the 1983 BITUSA sessions – though only after trying it solo at the winter 1983 home sessions – he returned to it in 1995, as he again fell under the spell of the creator of ‘Tom Joad’. This time he re-recorded it in a faithful but inferior arrangement and released it alongside ‘Murder Incorporated’ (and two minor new songs) on a bogus Greatest Hits. In the album notes, Springsteen claimed the song contained one of his favourite final verses. A little too Brokeback Mountain for my taste, I’m afraid.

 

98a. DARLINGTON COUNTY MK.2

Known studio/demo recordings: Band rehearsal, Colt’s Neck NJ April 1982; Power Station, New York 13/5/82. [BITUSA]

First documented performance: The Stone Pony, Asbury Park NJ 8/6/84.

80A. FRANKIE MK.2.

Known studio/demo recordings: Power Station, New York 14/5/82. [TR]

First documented performance: Continental Arena, East Rutherford NJ 9/8/99.

 

Though there is no circulating 1977 take of ‘Darlington County’ with which to compare the 1982 retake, all indications are that the song survived pretty much intact. It may even have been cut in a single take. What appears to be a slightly longer, slower take on Lost Masters XIX is actually the released version before vocal overdubs, fixed-up intro, and the use of varispeed to speed the track up. The April rehearsal confirms they had already given the song a full service before it left garageland. As for the protagonists in the song, they remained as revved up and randy, reckless and brain-dead as five years earlier. Though both the 1982 ‘Frankie’ and ‘Darlington County’ would make the 1982 sequence for BITUSA, only the latter would make the ‘final’ version . ‘Frankie’ would finally see the light of day on Tracks, where it was the BITUSA version that was served up. Which was also the case when it was restored to live duties the year of the E Street reunion tour. [See discussion in the main text p. 256]

 

256. MY FATHER’S HOUSE

Known studio/demo recordings: Colt’s Neck NJ 25/5/82. [NE]

First documented performance: CNE Grandstand, Toronto ON 26/7/84.

 

Eleven days after Springsteen finished work on an E Street Band album, he again pulled out the Portastudio and cut two versions of ‘My Father’s House’ on separate cassettes. A week later, he devised the final Nebraska sequence, with ‘My Father’s House’ as a prelude to ‘Reason To Believe’. A synthesizer overdub, its one concession to production values, was an unnecessary embellishment; though it was less of an intrusion than that made by the E Streeters on the five occasions ‘My Father’s House’ graced the live BITUSA set. All it needed was an honest man, an attentive audience and an investment in the song’s meaning for this starkly personal song to shine. [See discussion in main text pp. 257–8]

 

XXIII) 257 –264. Songs demoed January –April 1983:

257. THE KLANSMAN

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Thrill Hill West’, Los Angeles ?4/1/83; 10/3/83.

258. SEVEN TEARS

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Thrill Hill West’, Los Angeles ?4/1/83; 15/2/83.

 

According to the Sony logs, Springsteen resumed recording solo material for an as-yet-undefined successor to Nebraska on January 18, 1983. However, Lost Masters XVI includes a four-song tape from these sessions – featuring ‘The Klansman’, ‘Seven Tears’, ‘Don’t Back Down’ and ‘Johnny Bye Bye’ – dated January 4. If correct, all four songs would feature again at the sessions. But an error in dating seems likelier. As it is, the only circulating versions of ‘The Klansman’ and ‘Seven Tears’ are on said bootleg CD. Together they provide an apposite indication of the type of song he was looking to record. If ‘The Klansman’ is Bruce channelling Woody (see discussion in main text pp. 263–64), ‘Seven Tears’ tells the strange story of a man whose wife left after seven years, so he had seven tears tattooed on his face. Nicely executed, it has some delightful double-tracked vocals that suggest someone getting the hang of this home-studio lark.

 

259. DELIVERY MAN

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Thrill Hill West’, Los Angeles January 1983.

 

An interesting little number. And the only song on the two volumes of Lost Masters culled from these 1983 solo sessions that is absent from the Sony logs. In fact, the sound is quite distinct from that of the other songs demoed, with the bass/drum track more integrated, suggesting it may come from a stand-alone session. The track itself, another movie-short-in-song, is really quite enjoyable. Set to a rough-hewn rockabilly riff and cut in two takes, it tells the story of a delivery man transporting some chickens from his Pa’s farm to market/slaughterhouse.

 

260. BETTY JEAN

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Thrill Hill West’, Los Angeles 20/1/83.

 

A close cousin of ‘Delivery Man’, ‘Betty Jean’ lists the various reasons the singer has reached the conclusion, ‘Honey, you’re cute, but you sure are mean’. Unfortunately, Alan Vega had already released his own rockabilly album and Bruce could think of no one else to whom he could donate this song.

 

261. ONE LOVE

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Thrill Hill West’, Los Angeles 19/1/83.

262. LITTLE GIRL (LIKE YOU)

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Thrill Hill West’, Los Angeles 20/1/83.

 

These two tracks – strictly B-side fare – were recorded at three consecutive days of home sessions in January, which produced nine tracks. A list made that winter does indeed suggest he intended to use some of the better tracks as potential single B-sides. The album they were intended to ‘promote’ was still the 1982 BITUSA – with a single winter 1983 addition, ‘Johnny Bye Bye’.

 

263. I DON’T CARE

264. THE MONEY WE DIDN’T MAKE

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Thrill Hill West’, Los Angeles 15/2/83.

265. JOHNNY GO DOWN

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Thrill Hill West’, Los Angeles 9,12/3/83.

 

As already stated, not all of Batlan’s tapes passed to the pair who issued the Lost Masters series. A reclusive New York collector purchased most of the paper goods and a healthy portion of the tapes (including, apparently, elements of the Electric Nebraska). He almost certainly has more from these solo sessions. Certainly, the Sony logs indicate at least three songs recorded that have not passed into circulation. ‘I Don’t Care’ and ‘The Money We Didn’t Make’ appear on a February 24-track ‘mix’ tape that also includes a solo version of ‘This Hard Land’ and an (alternate?) take of ‘Seven Tears’. ‘Johnny Go Down’ provides a prelude to the ‘cricket’ version of ‘Johnny Bye Bye’ found on Lost Masters XVI. Initially entitled ‘Johnny Cool Down’, it is marked ‘new idea’ on the March 9 reel, and is clearly not ‘Johnny Bye Bye’. It ended up on a 24-track ‘mix’ tape with three other songs, ‘Don’t Back Down’, ‘Jim Deer’ (i.e. ‘James Lincoln Deer’) and ‘Losin’ Kind’ (presumably a 1983 reworking), and in 1993 was copied to the pre-Tracks rarities reels.

 

XXIV) 266–275 Songs demoed acoustically, then recorded w/ band January–June 1983:

266. SUGARLAND

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Thrill Hill West’, Los Angeles 18–19, 30/1/83; 7–8,14,17/2/83; The Hit Factory, New York [25/5/83; ?1/12/83.]

First documented performance: Hilton Coliseum, Ames, Ia. 16/11/84.

 

According to the Sony logs, the ‘Thrill Hill West’ (i.e. Springsteen’s LA home) solo sessions ran from January to late April 1983 and, aside from the nine songs above (#257 –265) and a handful of songs written earlier which he re-recorded, he would tape ten more songs that received E Street embellishment later in the spring. Of these ten, four would feature on the 26–27 July 1983 BITUSA sequence in their Thrill Hill West guise, two others would appear gussied up by the boys, and four would remain under wraps. ‘Sugarland’, the track he worked on hardest, was assigned opening slot on side two of that ‘album’. That version clocked in at 2:55, so it could be any of the five versions in circulation, all solo. The fourteen takes supposedly recorded the same day as ‘Light of Day’ (May 25) probably merely applied E Street embellishment to one of these. After all, the song had already gone through enough style changes to fill an album – from Cajun to country to rockabilly – but the almost bebop version on Lost Masters XVII would for now get my vote.

 

267. MY HOMETOWN

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Thrill Hill West’, Los Angeles 29–30/1/83; 9, 17/2/83; The Hit Factory, New York 29/6/83. [BITUSA]

First documented performance: The Stone Pony, Asbury Park NJ 8/6/84.

 

The recording of ‘My Hometown’ that made Springsteen’s 1984 multi-platinum platter seems to have been a last-minute decision, the result of spending one final session in late June 1983 seeing if the E Street Band could embellish his latest hometown vision. They could, and did, cutting the song in four takes. The third was preferred, after they trimmed some of the fat off the arrangement (according to the log, each of the first two takes ran over six minutes). An obvious album-closer, it was initially sandwiched between ‘Follow That Dream’ and ‘Glory Days’.

 

268. BODY AND SOUL

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Thrill Hill West’, Los Angeles 20/1/83; The Hit Factory, New York 25/5/83; 2/6/83; 29/11/83.

 

A song which repeatedly crops up during the 1983 session logs, both solo and with the full E Street band, ‘Body and Soul’ has yet to see the light of day, even in the solo guise in which it was first recorded.

 

269. DON’T BACK DOWN (ON OUR LOVE)

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Thrill Hill West’, Los Angeles 4,18,20/1/83; 8–10,14–15/2/83; 10,12/3/83; The Hit Factory, New York 15/6/83.

 

‘Don’t Back Down’ may not be the best song demoed that winter, but Springsteen refused to back down or give up on the song, which features on Lost Masters in no fewer than eleven distinct incarnations, only one of which (take 5) is a false start. The version recorded the same day as ‘The Klansman’, March 10, slower than most of the others and with a synthesizer washing gently over it, would perhaps have been best equipped to be a B-side. But he didn’t linger long with it at the Hit Factory sessions, cutting a single take at the ‘Cynthia’ session.

 

270. COUNTY FAIR

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Thrill Hill West’, Los Angeles 24/3/83; The Hit Factory, New York 23/5/83. [TE]

First documented performance: Performing Arts Center, Buffalo NY 20/9/03.

 

‘County Fair’ was one memory he carried with him from March, cutting it at the Hit Factory the first session in May, its brooding arrangement anticipating a number of live Nebraska arrangements. But when he decided it warranted being included on a ‘rarities’ disc accompanying the otherwise-pointless Essential Bruce Springsteen, it was the acoustic version cut in California he chose. On its live debut on the 2003 tour he got a little help from the one E Streeter who seemed truly comfortable busking at this familiar fairground, Danny Federici.

 

271. FUGITIVE’S DREAM

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Thrill Hill West’, Los Angeles 20/1/83; 24/3/83.

as..........

272. UNSATISFIED HEART.

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Thrill Hill West’, Los Angeles 24/3/83; 16/4/83; The Hit Factory, New York 13/6/83.

 

Without knowing which of the above versions are on Lost Masters XVI and XVII, there is a distinct possibility that the transition from ‘Fugitive’s Dream’ to ‘Unsatisfied Heart’ occurred between takes on March 24. It is some change – even if the gut-wrenching version of ‘Fugitive’s Dream’ on Lost Masters XVI (sequenced after the January 19 ‘Shut Out The Light’) does come from the January 20 session. Whereas ‘Fugitive’s Dream’ tells its straightforward narrative at a funereal pace, reflecting the heavy burden the fugitive is carrying, ‘Unsatisfied Heart’ interjects a nagging chorus, ‘Can you live with an unsatisfied heart?’. He was convinced enough of the latter’s merits to look at it again at the Hit Factory sessions, when a single 5.38 take served to suffice.

 

273. CYNTHIA

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Thrill Hill West;, Los Angeles 20–21/4/83; The Hit Factory, New York 15/6/83. [TR]

First documented performance: Giants Stadium, East Rutherford NJ 31/8/03.

 

The E Street Band performance finally nailed this song’s sorry ass five months after Springsteen recorded it rockabilly-style on a set of homesick demos. If the band wondered what they were bringing to the majority of these countryesque, character-driven songs their boss brought back from the land of plenty, ‘Cynthia’ temporarily released them from such cares. Cut the same day as ‘Stand On It’, in three takes of which two were complete, the song seemed a cert for the next album, appearing after the title track on the 1983 BITUSA sequence. But by 1984 it was another afterthought. However, Springsteen recorded a song of the same name the day he cut ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’ (May 23, 1995). Finally, the E Street Band got to take her out on the road in 2003, where she surely belonged.

 

274. RICHFIELD WHISTLE

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Thrill Hill West’, Los Angeles 23/4/83; The Hit Factory, New York [27/5/83; 10/6/83.]

 

The only circulating version of ‘Richfield Whistle’ is an eight-track demo from April. Introducing himself as James Lucas, he is James Lincoln Deer in disguise. And as such, an album too late. The song also seems to have been subsequently tackled with the E Street Band, unless it was merely subjected to overdubs on the two Hit Factory dates.

 

275. SHUT OUT THE LIGHTS

Known studio/demo recordings: ‘Thrill Hill West’, Los Angeles 19/1/83 [TR]; The Hit Factory, New York [23+27/5/83.]

First documented performance: Coliseum Arena, Oakland CA 22/10/84.

 

Nothing quite like ‘Shut Out The Lights’ had been attempted to date by Springsteen, who missed a trick when he removed this one from BITUSA, a decision he thought he’d partly rectified when he placed it on the rear of the ‘Born In The USA’ 45. But this was not the sixties – there were no double A-sides. Sharing the same album, the message would have been unambiguous: Viet-Vets need more peace, love and understanding. [See discussion in main text p. 264]

Note: Though the song was worked on at the first and third Hit Factory sessions in May, this was probably the violin overdub by Soozie Tyrell used on the released version.

 

XXV) 276 –286 Other songs recorded w/ E Street Band May–June 1983:

276. GONE GONE GONE

Known studio/demo recordings: The Hit Factory, New York 25/5/83; 31/5/83.

as SEEDS

First documented performance: Wembley Stadium, London, England 3/7/85.

 

‘Gone Gone Gone’ was one song tackled a couple of times at the summer 1983 Hit Factory sessions. Assuming – as I think we can – that Bruce hadn’t developed a proclivity for Everly Bros. covers, the title surely came from the final line of said song, ‘Movin’ on, movin’ on, it’s gone, gone, it’s all gone’. If so, it confirms that one of the stand-out songs on the BITUSA tour was recorded in the studio. Surprisingly – given that the song was still being performed in 2009 – Springsteen never okayed the studio take’s release. It appears he actually rated the overwrought version from the October 1985 LA Coliseum shows; by which time the true spirit of the song was, well, gone, gone, gone.

 

277. KING’S HIGHWAY

Known studio/demo recordings: The Hit Factory, New York 23–24/5/83.

278. INVITATION TO YOUR PARTY

Known studio/demo recordings: The Hit Factory, New York 31/5/83.

279. BAD BOY

Known studio/demo recordings: The Hit Factory, New York 2/6/83.

 

Of these three uncirculated outtakes from the summer 1983 sessions, ‘King’s Highway’ is probably the one which would excite fans the most. A feature of two separate nineties ‘rarities’ compilations, from which most of Tracks would be compiled – one from 1993, the other November 1997 – the song probably takes its title from the traditional robber’s song, ‘Wild and Wicked Youth’. It required seven takes on days one and two at the Hit Factory. ‘Invitation To Your Party’ received at least two takes of its own, one logged as ‘fast’. ‘Bad Boy’ remains for now merely a title on a tape box.

 

280. JUST AROUND THE CORNER TO THE LIGHT OF DAY

Known studio/demo recordings: The Hit Factory, New York 25/5/83.

First documented performance: The Stone Pony, Asbury Park NJ 12/4/87.

 

‘[‘Light of Day’] is just a pretty generic rock song, but it ends up being a little more than that because of the context. It’s ended up ending the show. Partly because it gives itself over to shtick very easily! [Laughs] It’s so basic that you can do anything with it. Start it. Stop it. Do all kinds of routines inside it. It’s one of those all-purpose pieces of material’ – Bruce Springsteen, 2001.

 

281. DROP ON DOWN & COVER ME

Known studio/demo recordings: The Hit Factory, New York 31/5–2/6/83.

 

There are still people who think this oft-bootlegged classic was the prototype for the Donna demo of ‘Cover Me’, when it is obviously an advance on that song’s conceit. The final version, recorded on June 2 1983, originally ran for seven minutes but was pruned to a lean, mean 4:35 then slotted between ‘None But The Brave’ and ‘Shut Out The Light’ (a great piece of sequencing) on the July 27 1983 BITUSA sequence. But still he thought he heard whispering from the other side of the console; finally sacrificing one of his great songs to self-doubt. The song was even omitted from Tracks, despite pulling takes 6, 7, 9, 10 and 11 in June 1998 as final selections were being made. Nor did it slip onto The Essential, along with ‘None But The Brave’. All of which means a generational cassette of the rough mix still has to suffice whenever fans wish to hear what happened when Springsteen dismissed ‘Cover Me’ and came up with something better.

 

282. CAR WASH (SMALL TOWN GIRL)

Known studio/demo recordings: The Hit Factory, New York 31/5/83; 30/11/83. [TR]

First documented performance: Bruno-Plache-Stadion, Leipzig, Germany 13/6/99.

 

Cut the same day they started ‘Drop On Down & Cover Me’, ‘Car Wash’ was logged throughout under its original title, ‘Small Town Girl’. Although Springsteen returned to it in the fall of 1983, it was never part of the July album-sequence. Pleasant pop fare from the perspective of a Jersey girl dreaming on her job at the car wash, it has its moments; notably, ‘Someday I’ll sing in a night club/ I’ll get a million-dollar break/ A handsome man will come here with a contract in his hand/ And say, “Catherine, this has all been some mistake.”’

 

283. NONE BUT THE BRAVE

Known studio/demo recordings: The Hit Factory, New York 6, 13+27/6/83. [TE]

First documented E Street performance: GM Place, Vancouver BC 31/3/08.

 

A song which has something of the flavour of Springsteen’s 1976 liner-notes to the Southside Johnny LP, I Don’t Wanna Go Home. And there’s a touch of Southside Johnny about the arrangement, too; an uplifting roar of affirmation in which the E Street Band go higher and higher. He was still working on the song as the sessions closed down, and mixing began. As good as these sessions get.

 

284. STAND ON IT

Known studio/demo recordings: The Hit Factory, New York 16/6/83. [TR]*

First documented performance: Giants Stadium, East Rutherford NJ 31/8/85.

 

A can-they-still-cut-it workout, ‘Stand On It’ became a B-side, a cut on the Ruthless People film soundtrack, and in its original, fuller guise (with the extra observation ‘Well if you’ve lost control of the situation at hand/ Go grab a girl; go see a rock and roll band’), one of sixty-six Tracks. It also got a handful of belated outings at the scrag-end of the BITUSA tour, where stadium crowds were mostly too busy whooping and buying hot dogs to notice some little doses of humour in there like: ‘Well now, Columbus he discovered America even though he hadn’t planned on it/ He got lost and woke up one morning when he’s about to land on it.’

 

285. JANEY DON’T YOU LOSE HEART

Known studio/demo recordings: The Hit Factory, New York 16/6/83. [TR]

First documented performance: Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles 27/9/85.

 

If, as Max Weinberg has suggested, the June 16 session was the occasion when they finally cut an E Street ‘Pink Cadillac’ – though the logs say it was captured a fortnight earlier – then this really was The Night of The Lost B-Sides. ‘Janey Don’t You Lose Heart’, like ‘Stand On It’, would not be attempted again at the remaining BITUSA sessions (though a session in summer 1985 allowed Nils Lofgren to dub new backing vocals on there). Originally the closing track on the 1983 BITUSA, it took a couple of lines apiece from ‘Baby I’m So Cold’ and ‘True Love Is Hard To Come By’, and added a spirit of affirmation those tracks denied.

 

286. BOBBY JEAN

Known studio/demo recordings: The Hit Factory, New York 28/7/83; 10/10/83. [BITUSA]

First documented performance: Civic Arena, St Paul MN 29/6/84.

 

On 26 and 27 July 1983 Springsteen, Landau and Plotkin made a ‘rough mix’ assembly of the next E Street Band album, which clocked in at a hefty fifty minutes. The following day, Springsteen brought the band in and cut eight takes of a new song, ‘Bobby Jean’; which they probably knew was Brucespeak for the album’s on the backburner again. The point at which he stopped saying anything new at these sessions.

 

XXVI) 287–300. Songs recorded for Born In The USA September 1983–February 1984:

287. BROTHERS UNDER THE BRIDGES

Known studio/demo recordings: The Hit Factory, New York 14–16/9/83; 10/10/83. [TR]

 

On its official release in 1998, what took everyone hearing this oft-rumoured song by surprise was the pugnacious performance it received, notably a sassy sax solo from the Big Man. All somewhat at odds with the song’s sentiments, which would not have been out of place on Nebraska.

 

288. NO SURRENDER

Known studio/demo recordings: The Hit Factory, New York 25–27/10/83; 29/11/83. [BITUSA]

First documented performance: Civic Arena, St Paul MN 29/6/84.

 

Recorded in late October in the form later released, Springsteen looked at the song again on November 29 and, according to the tape notes, made ‘an acoustic remake with Chuck Plotkin’. Though he ultimately reverted to the more bellicose original, it took Little Steven to all-but-demand its inclusion on an eleven-track BITUSA. Still undecided, Bruce took both arrangements on the road with him.

 

289. GLORY OF LOVE

Known studio/demo recordings: The Hit Factory, New York 16/9/83.

290. SHUT DOWN

291. 100 MILES FROM JACKSON

Known studio/demo recordings: The Hit Factory, New York 26/10/83.

292. ROLL AWAY THE STONE

293. SWOOP MAN

294. UNDER THE BIG SKY

Known studio/demo recordings: The Hit Factory, New York 30/11/83.

295. REFRIGERATOR BLUES

Known studio/demo recordings: The Hit Factory, New York 16/2/84.

296. IDA ROSE (NO ONE KNOWS)

Known studio/demo recordings: The Hit Factory, New York 20/2/84.

 

Ever the optimist, Springsteen thought that when he resumed recording in September 1983 he’d be done in a matter of days. Five months later, when doing final mixes on the eleven or twelve tracks that constituted the latest version of the album, he was still bringing new things to the party. The February day he brought some last-minute tweaks to ‘Dancing in the Dark’, he also produced ‘Refrigerator Blues’. Four days later, mixing ‘My Love Will Not Let You Down’, he produced ‘Ida Rose (No One Knows)’. Born too late to make BITUSA, ‘Ida Rose’ was deemed worthy of inclusion on the 1993 ‘rarities’ reels, as was ‘Glory of Love’, a song recorded the previous September.

In fact, in the months that separate these two wholly forgotten songs, Springsteen recorded enough tracks for another E Street album, had he not already got two albums’ worth in the can. At least this time he kept a lid on these songs. Not one of the eleven songs recorded at these sessions but omitted from BITUSA have passed into the world of collectors. Three of them would, however, be slotted onto Tracks. None of the others would be heard of again, although ‘Under The Big Sky’, a song he seemingly rediscovered in the process of compiling Tracks, was apparently recorded afresh in April 1998 (as ‘Under A Big Sky’).

 

297. MAN AT THE TOP

298. ROCK AWAY THE DAYS

Known studio/demo recordings: The Hit Factory, New York 12/1/84. [TR]

First documented performance [#297]: Alpine Valley, East Troy WI 12/7/84.

 

Not sure how he wanted ‘Man At The Top’ to sound, Springsteen tried it ‘fast acoustic’ and ‘slow acoustic’ on January 12. The former, which almost qualifies as country-rock, is presumably the one on Tracks. The slow version provided the template for the couple of times he gave such feelings rein on the BITUSA tour, two of his best acoustic performances of the era. A pro-shot video of the 1985 Washington performance circulates and is worthy enough, but it is the first live performance at Alpine Valley in July 1984 which really suggests someone fully cognisant with the dangers of brandishing that double-edged sword. ‘Rockaway The Days’, a more affirmative song, cut the same day, also seems to have come surprisingly easily (the February 3 date attributed to it on Tracks was presumably a mixing session). [See discussion in main text pp. 272–73]

 

299. DANCING IN THE DARK

Known studio/demo recordings: The Hit Factory, New York 14/2/84. [BITUSA]

First documented performance: Civic Arena, St Paul MN 29/6/84.

 

Guy gets up in the evening. Got nuthin’ to say. But says it anyway. His manager, the schmuck, can’t hear a single hit single on an album that will generate seven of ‘em, every one Top Ten. So he gets to work. Turns on the radio – a Classic Rock station. They’re playing last year’s model – The Police, ‘Every Breath You Take’. Hey, I can do that. Clipped lines, repetitious riff, synth wash, go schmoozing in the dark, Cyd and me. The next day, back in the studio, time to spring it on the band, and his co-producers. Whaddya think? Well, it ain’t gonna make no dove cry, but what the hell! They try it six times, extended intro, extended outro, are we done? Fifty-eight mixes later, they are. It’s March 8 now, and the album needs to be put to bed. Oh, you know what, we need a promo video, ‘cause with the right MTV coverage, y’know, sky’s the limit. . . .

 

300. BENEATH THE FLOODLINE

First documented performance: The Spectrum, Philadelphia PA Soundcheck 17/9/84.

 

According to Brucebase, ‘Beneath The Floodline’ was ‘one of the final tracks recorded at the [BITUSA] sessions.’ Not according to the Sony logs, it wasn’t. The first time the song popped up was at a coupla soundchecks in the summer of 1984, one of which, at the Philadelphia Spectrum, some enterprising taper caught. But, aside from the title phrase and a strong melody line, it is almost impossible to discern what the song is actually about. Nor was the song attempted at the Tunnel of Love sessions, as also rumoured. However, just like ‘Cynthia’ and ‘Under The Big Sky’, it was considered ripe for resurrection in the mid-nineties, a song of the same name being recorded at several solo sessions between November 1997 and January 1998, before the E Street Band were reconstructed and the song was quietly sidelined, along with the album he was then working on.

 

[Note: Since mention is made a few times of a 1993 compilation for an archival project (which presumably became Tracks), the (mouth-watering) track-listing is as follows:

A Love so Fine, Sha La La (live from C.W. Post). New Spanish. Hearts of Stone. Give The Girl A Kiss. Dollhouse. Night Fire. The Man Who Got Away. King’s Highway. Triangle Song. Do (You) Want Me To Say All Right. Arnie. I Will Be The One. [From Small Things,] Big Things [One Day Come]. Take ’Em As They Come. Johnny Go Down. The Glory of Love. Ida Rose (No One Knows). Bring On The Night. Under The Gun. Where The Bands Are. Loose Ends. Living On The Edge of the World. Angelyne. That’s Okay.]