Here's one of the previously unreleased tunes. It's certainly not bad. In fact, I quite like this tune. But, personally, I'd much prefer to have a song like this released as part of a new album as opposed to being marketed as an outtake from the original sessions (even if portions of the track are indeed from the original sessions).
I think the band did a fine job with "Plundered My Soul," "Following The River," and "So Divine" -- but I agree, I would have preferred these remakes as part of a "new" studio album, rather than presented as outtakes. Much like "Tattoo You," going back into the archives to find previous works-in-progress to redevelop and issue as new material on a new album is not unheard of.
It is pretty good, but hardly sounds like an Exile "outtake." One wonders how much of the Plundered master actually contains authentic Exile-era music.
Is there a thread for this? Bruce Springsteen / The E Street Band: The Roxy July 7, 1978 Album Review | Pitchfork
It's being discussed on the Springsteen archives live series thread. But feel free to start a new thread about this famous concert
If we're going to get anotehr release of Trapped I'd prefer a 1981 version as Steve's vocals & guitar are far more in keeping with the nature of the songs than Nils' admitterly excellent work.
Yes. Taking songs in skeletal or sketch form, often without vocals, and fleshing them out decades later--then selling them as ( wink, wink) "from the original sessions" of "from the vault"---is an unfortunate practice undertaken by both The Stones and Springsteen on a regular basis.
Actually, I realised it’s probably also on other officially released shows since Bruce started making recordings of his shows available in 2014. According to Greasy Lake it has been played six times since then: | Bruce Springsteen | Greasy Lake
But at least with Tattoo You they were only going back a few years--and in a couple cases, only to the previous release, which had come out about a year before. At any rate, the Mick Jagger of 1981 sounded like the Jagger of 1973, so it was less jarring. Physical Graffiti was a similar project.
Although it's absolutely not gonna happen, he could divide the Nebraska/BITUSA into two distinct box sets. Here is the first one: MURDER INCORPORATED: THE NEBRASKA COLLECTION Disc One - Nebraska (Remastered) Disc Two - Murder Incorporated (Remastered) Disc Three - Electric Nebraska + Outtakes Disc Four - January '82/April '82 Outtakes With the second disc being, ala "The Ties that Bind", Bruce's May 1982 track sequence for the album: Side One: 01 Born in the USA 02 Murder Incorporated 03 Downbound Train 04 I'm Going Down 05 Glory Days 06 My Love Won't Let You Down Side Two: 07 Working on the Highway 08 Darlington County 09 Frankie 10 I'm on Fire 11 This Hard Land The second box set would span from '83 to '84, and be titled Dancing in the Dark
Another theoretical version of that, including EVERY SONG RECORDED DURING THOSE SESSIONS: DISC ONE - NEW JERSEY HOME DEMOS 01 Nebraska 02 Atlantic City 03 Mansion on the Hill 04 Johnny 99 05 Highway Patrolman 06 State Trooper 07 Used Cars 08 Open All Night 09 Losin' Kind 10 My Father's House 11 A Reason to Believe 12 The Big Payback 13 Pink Cadillac 14 Born in the USA 15 Downbound Train 16 Child Bride DISC TWO - GARY US BONDS SESSIONS 01 Cover Me 02 Protection 03 The Lion's Den 04 Hold On (To What You Got) 05 Out of Work 06 Club Soul City 07 Love's on the Line 08 Rendezvous 09 Angelyne 10 All I Need 11 The Last Time DISC THREE - ELECTRIC NEBRASKA SESSIONS 01 Nebraska 02 Atlantic City 03 Mansion on the Hill 04 Johnny 99 05 Highway Patrolman 06 Used Cars 07 Open All Night 08 Losin' Kind 09 A Reason to Believe 10 Johnny Bye Bye 11 Robert Ford 12 Gun in Every Home 13 Common Ground (Stay Hungry) 14 William Davis DISC FOUR - MURDER INCORPORATED SESSIONS 01 Born in the USA 02 Murder Incorporated 03 Downbound Train 04 I'm Going Down 05 Glory Days 06 Love Won't Let You Down 07 Working on the Highway 08 Darlington County 09 Frankie 10 I'm on Fire 11 This Hard Land 12 Wages of Sin 13 A Good Man is Hard to Find DISC FIVE - MURDER INCORPORATED AND MORE 01 Stop the War 02 Baby I'm So Cold 03 On the Prowl 04 Fade to Black 05 Your Love is All Around Me 06 I'm on Fire (longer fadeout) 07 Born in the USA (complete version) 08 Glory Days (unedited version) 09 Darlington County (longer version) 10 I'm Goin' Down (extended version) 11 My Father's House (extended version) BONUS DISC - COLTS NECK REHEARSALS 01 Your Love is All Around Me 02 Working on the Highway 03 Glory Days 04 Darlington County 05 Stop the War 06 Reason to Believe 07 Baby I'm So Cold 08 TV Movie 09 Bells of San Salvador 10 A Good Man is Hard to Find Obviously not gonna happen, sadly enough. At least I tried
Looks good. It would be nice if you could add the so-called "garage" demos ("Unsatisfied Heart," "The Klansman," "Sugarland," Follow The Dream," etc.). It will be a serious disappointment if that material is not represented on the early 1980's period box set(s).
Some of these theoretical box sets would be great, but as I said much earlier on this (or a similar thread), I remain unconvinced that an "electric" Nebraska really exists in the complete form that many people expect--which would lead to the use of modern day vocals and instrumentation to render them releasable......
How do you categorize songs like "Downbound Train," "Born In The USA" and "Working On The Highway"? They originated as Nebraska demos, but they were successfully converted to E Street Band tracks and ended up on BITUSA. Everyone talks about the mythical "Electric Nebraska" -- aren't these three songs technically fruits of that project, hiding in plain sight? Another thing I'd suggest is that we fans always consider the Electric Nebraska sessions to be a "failure" because Bruce scrapped them and released the demo tape. But that just means the songs weren't recorded to BRUCE'S satisfaction, right? The notorious perfectionist, who often rejected brilliant tracks just because he wasn't happy with them? ("This Hard Land" anyone?) I wouldn't be shocked at all if there are great takes of all those Nebraska tracks they tried out with the band in 1982. EDIT: I see my first point was made months ago, so I will second it!
I understand all your points and yes it's true that we've heard many songs originally recorded as demos for what became Nebraska turn up electrified on BitUSA so we know that an "acoustic" BitUSA certainly exists. But if Bruce wasn't satisfied with how some of the songs were turning up with a full band arrangement, how can we be sure that they were completed during 82-84? At what point were these songs"scrapped?" Why should we assume they were finished then discarded? We know that another great song from that period, "Murder Incorporated" has already been released -- on Greatest Hits --but "This Hard Land" showed up on that compilation in a version recorded in 1995. So if Bruce was unsatisfied with the earlier version (widely bootlegged) in 1984 and again in 1995, why should we assume he'd be happy with it now? Look, I really hope the original Electric Nebraska sees the light of day in a complete, ready-to-release form, but I doubt it does. Going by Springsteen's ( and Landau's) M.O. when it comes to compiling archival releases, it won't come out unless it's been radically reworked --that is to say"finished"--in the present.
Does anybody like the 1995 version of "This Hard Land" better than the 1982 version? (the one finally released officially in 1998 on Tracks) Anybody besides Bruce that is?
Does any other artist have so many songs to select from to put on an album? He really takes the icing off the cake.
Tracks had its share of comparatively minor embellishments: Thundercrack is the most obvious example but Hearts of Stone featured new horns at the end, Gave It a Name was an entirely newly recorded track, and every track was newly remixed - with some featuring odd mixes (like using an alternate mix of Johnny Bye-Bye that features a drum machine in lieu of the drum tracks Max Weinberg recorded for the original B-side). The Ties That Bind box set had three newly recorded lead vocals (Whitetown, Night Fire, and Meet Me in The City) with at least one more, Chain Lightning, being a non-vintage lead vocal. Stray Bullet has some anachronistic musical embellishments toward the end of the track. The Promise is, by far, the biggest travesty with more than half of the tracks receiving all new lead vocals: Gotta Get That Feeling, Someday We'll Be Together, One Way Street, Because the Night, Wrong Side of the Street, Rendezvous, Fire, Spanish Eyes, It's a Shame (which should have been the name of the box set), The Little Things My Baby Does, and Breakaway. At least two more have some new vocals mixed with vintage vocals: The Brokenhearted and a tiny bit of City of Night. What baffles me about this set is that, for a fair number of these tracks, perfectly serviceable vintage vocals were recorded and circulate as bootlegs: Gotta Get That Feeling, One Way Street, Rendezvous, Fire, and Spanish Eyes (the vintage vocals for Wrong Side of the Street and Because the Night were both scratch vocals with largely incomplete lyrics). Racing in the Street featured a new violin track by David Lindley (who actually did record some violin parts during the original Darkness sessions), new horns on Talk to Me, and new strings on The Promise (with some key lyrics inexplicably excised from the track). That's not counting Save My Love, which is an entirely newly recorded track and is noted as such in the liner notes. Springsteen's propensity to "finish" vintage tracks decades after the fact is, without contest, my least favorite characteristic of his vault releases and it tempers my enthusiasm for the inevitable Born in the USA deluxe reissue.
Nice work, graveyardboots-- I agree with everything you say, but ironically, I actually enjoyed The Promise and played it a lot when it came out--but I didn't fall for The River box and am perfectly satisfied with my old boot of The Ties That Bind. To me--and I've said this many times on similar threads, perhaps earlier on this thread--it's all about presenting things honestly. If Bruce had said, "Here's some things we worked on while we recorded Darkness on the Edge of Town that we never got a chance to finish....until now. I hope you enjoy it"--that would have made all the difference in the world. No one would be fooled into thinking they were listening to some Holy Grail, timestamped 1977/78 "lost classic"--and we could all enjoy the songs on their merit. But some stellar songs such as "Breakaway" and "The Brokenhearted" are so "new" that they could have been included on Working on a Dream, making that album much stronger. Ditto for "Spanish Eyes", a good song , but laughably anachronistic. There's nothing wrong with passing off old material as "new"---Neil Young used to do that a lot--but there's something seriously wrong with passing of new material as "old." Not to discourage anyone looking foreword to the inevitable Nebraska/Born in the USA project(s), but this is why I'm not optimistic that we'll be treated to some long-lost treasure trove of takes recorded and completed during the Reagan era. And why I don't believe in the myth of Electric Nebraska.
