Springsteen "The River" single album

If you could cut down Bruce Springsteen's 20-track double album The River to single album, what would the track listing look like? As great as some of the outtakes from this album are I'll limit this to album-only tracks just so there's a narrower field to choose from (and to make it easier!). Since it's a single album, probably 10 songs is the goal, no more than 11.
Mine would probably be something like this:

Side 1
Ties That Bind
Out In The Street
Jackson Cage
Crush On You
Independence Day

Side 2
Sherry Darling
Hungry Heart
The River
Ramrod
Drive All Night

Sorry Fade Away!!

 

Side 1
The Ties That Bind
Sherry Darling
Independence Day
Out in the Street
The River

Side 2
Point Blank
Fade Away
Stolen Car
The Price You Pay
Drive All Night
Wreck On The Highway

 

Of course Bruce first planned a single album with this track listing:

side one
1. The Ties That Bind
2. Cindy
3. Hungry Heart
4. Stolen Car
5. Be True

side two
1. The River
2. You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)
3. The Price You Pay
4. I Wanna Marry You
5. Loose End

It works really well. I don't know why he left Loose End off the double LP version and included Crush On You and I'm A Rocker

 

Right, but i'm curious about what fans would do only with songs that made it to the final project

 

The Ties that Bind
Hungry Heart
Independence Day
Ramrod
Stolen Car

The River
Cadillac Ranch
Fade Away
The Price You Pay
Wreck on the Highway

 

Personally I'd go with:
side one
1. The Ties That Bind
2. Hungry Heart
3. Jackson Cage
4. Two Hearts
5. Independence Day

side 2

1. The River
2. Point Blank
3. Cadillac Ranch
4. Ramrod
5. The Price You Pay

 

...I feel like I’m not eligible to respond, since I cannot recall all 20 tracks by memory...?

 

I think he mentions this in the book, albeit not explicitly regarding these specific songs. I think those two songs, among others like "Sherry Darling," were Bruce's attempt to have more original tunes that could replace some of the covers he used to do to bring up the energy level of a show.

 

Can't leave off Jackson Cage! One of his toughest rockers!

 

1. The Ties That Bind
2. Sherry Darling
3. Jackson Cage
4. Independence Day
5. The River

1. Point Blank
2. Fade Away
3. Stolen Car
4. The Price You Pay
5. Drive All Night

 

You could always review the LP and select tracks from there. (shrugs)

 

Any track listing that leaves off Hungry Heart and Sherry Darling, and includes Two Hearts, The Ties That Bind, Ramrod, Cadillac Ranch, Out in The Street, Independence Day, and The Price You Pay would work for me.

 

If only someone would invent a way to look up such information on the computer.

 

I will say, "Drive All Night" would be the first thing to get the ax. I really don't get the appeal of that one at all...like, he was trying to replicate the sprawling epics of "Racing" and "Backstreets," but the song just wasn't there. I genuinely think if The River hadn't been turned into a double LP, it probably wouldn't have seen the light of day till Tracks.

 

Even though it's not hard to improve upon the final listing, The River is a rare example of an album that needed to be a double-album, in my opinion. The sessions contain too much great work to be cut down to a single album, and - more importantly - the throwaways complement the serious tracks, and vice-versa.

If it *had* to be a single album, Bruce's original The Ties That Bind tracklisting is actually pretty damn good. About the only change I'd make would be to cut the rockabilly version of You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch) and replace it with Cadillac Ranch.

Using just the tracks from the original album? I'd go with something like:

The Ties That Bind
Sherry Darling
Jackson Cage
Two Hearts
Hungry Heart

Point Blank
Ramrod
Fade Away
I Wanna Marry You
The River

 

Great choices for an LP but it may work less well on cd with The River following Independence Day.

 

The Ties That Bind
Sherry Darling
Hungry Heart
Out in the Street
Crush on You
I Wanna Marry You

Ramrod
Point Blank
Cadillac Ranch
I’m a Rocker
The River

 

Side 1

The Ties That Bind
Sherry Darling
Jackson Cage
Hungry Heart
The River

Side 2

Point Blank
Fade Away
Ramrod
The Price You Pay


19:01 for side 1 and 20:26 for side 2...if I remember correctly that would work for a single album...

 

The Ties That Bind
Jackson Cage
Independence Day
The River
Point Blank

Cadillac Ranch
Ramrod
Hungry Heart
Drive All Night
Stolen Car
Wreck On The Highway

 

Well, at work, I can only pretend so much that I’m viewing a Very Important Text on my phone...

...let alone Googling the River track-list on a desktop.

 

Tough to narrow all the session material down to a single disc. That said, I very much like the single disc concept, and love the aborted The Ties That Bind album.

Side A:
Cadillac Ranch
The Man Who Got Away
Night Fire
You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)
Fade Away
Cindy

Side B:
The River
Hungry Heart (TTTB mix)
Ramrod
Stolen Car
Loose Ends (TTTB mix)

 

So, please wait for my response, until after I turn 65...

Or 67...

 

In no particular order:

The Ties That Bind
Sherry Darling
Jackson Cage
Two Hearts
Hungry Heart
Out in the Street
You Can Look
Cadillac Ranch
Ramrod
The Price You Pay

Sorry, OP - I'm not a ballad fan.

 

I guess that may be possible...

But, usually I have a tendency to post on threads wherein additional research is not involved.

Is it asking too much for the OP to provide the list of songs...? I guess so...

Perhaps others have that luxury to research elsewhere, relish that, or just have better retention than I do. I am envious.
YMMV

(shrugs)

 

I can, but I won’t respond because I can’t cut anything. That’s because I don’t think it’s bloated at all. Heresy, I tells ya!