Published on Nov 25, 1998
Already being hailed by some as the Holy Grail of box sets,
Bruce Springsteen’s recent four-disc box set
Tracks comes with the kind of outsized expectations the Boss
has been grappling with since Gerald Ford was in the White
House.
Notoriously stingy with his own output over the course of his
26-year recording career, here Springsteen for the first time
assembles a collection of what he affectionately refers to in the
liner notes as “the ones that got away.” To understand what that
really means, you have to consider that each of his 11 studio
albums has been carefully crafted around specific themes and even
images. Songs that in a less focused (some would substitute the
word “neurotic”) artist’s hands would likely have ended up as
milestones in his recording career instead ended up on the cutting
room floor, because they just didn’t quite fit with the overall
effect he was looking for from that particular set of 10 or 12 (or,
in the case of the double LP
The River, 20) songs.
What you end up with here, then, is a large block of work that
indeed consists for the most part of distinctly individual tracks
as opposed to Springsteen’s normal thematic progressions. There are
naturally bits and pieces of the styles and themes of each of his
various musical personas represented here (the motor-mouthed street
rat, the bombastic romantic hero, the gritty working-man’s rocker,
the introspective explorer of intimacy, and the troubadour of the
downtrodden). But overall, the songs stand or fall on their
own.
As you might expect in an album with nearly four hours of music
that’s never been allowed to see the light of day (bootlegs
notwithstanding), there are a few things present that confirm
Springsteen’s original judgment of their relative merit. But the
total effect is a remarkable overview of a lengthy and musically
diverse career, and individual moments on this set rank with the
best of his recorded output.
Disc One kicks off with the somnolent voice of renowned Columbia
talent hound John Hammond introducing Springsteen’s very first
official recording, his original four-song acoustic audition tape
from May 1972. The tracks are lean and raw, revealing a young,
untested talent pouring his heart into the microphone, but they do
provide a clear picture of the ferociously ambitious approach to
songwriting that won the kid a contract.
The rest of the initial disk covers outtakes from Springsteen’s
first four albums. The clear highlights are “Zero And Blind Terry”
and “Thundercrack,” two sprawling, melodramatic narratives that
compare well, even if they don’t quite match up to, the classic
Springsteen mini-operas “Backstreets” and “Jungleland.” Here, as
throughout these early songs, Clarence Clemons’ burning sax work
and the dueling keyboards of Danny Federici and David Sancious
(soon replaced by Roy Bittan) provide vital texture and continuity
to the radically shifting tempos Springsteen employs.
One of the joys of this set for the Springsteen-phile is seeing
how he latches on to ideas and phrases and keeps playing with them
until he finds the context that will give them maximum impact.
“Seaside Bar Song,” an energetic 1973 cut that suffers under the
weight of a cheesy organ line, nonetheless presages the urgent
drive and much of the thematic content of 1975’s immortal “Born To
Run” (not to mention introducing the phrase “the highway is alive
tonight,” employed to great effect 20 years later in “The Ghost Of
Tom Joad”).
Disc two provides another body of evidence demonstrating just
how prolific Springsteen truly is — virtually an entire album that
got away. The guts of this disc are an LP’s worth of songs written
and recorded in the prodigious spurt of productivity that led up to
1980’s double album
The River.
Here you can find several of the set’s high points, as
Springsteen fuses the breathless rock and roll passion of “Born To
Run” with the urgent desperation of “Darkness On The Edge Of Town”
and comes up with the blistering, harrowing “Roulette.” This smart
bomb of a song was written concurrent with the Three Mile Island
incident and Springsteen’s participation in the No Nukes concerts,
but its paranoia-laced narrative extends to the very heart of
working-class suburban alienation (Chris Carter, are you
listening?).
Less dark but no less driving rockers include the furious
“Dollhouse,” the rollicking power-pop anthem “Where The Bands Are”
and the ringing, growling, irresistible “I Wanna Be With You,”
which coulda/shoulda been a Top Ten single. All feature the E
Street Band (the only bar band ever to play stadiums — and deserve
to) blasting away as hard and loud and dead on the money as they
ever have, particularly the crack rhythm section of Garry Tallent
(bass) and Max Weinberg (drums).
Hints are here as to the quieter, darker direction Springsteen
was heading as the ’70s closed out, though. In the downbeat “A Good
Man Is Hard To Find,” he specifically previews “the meanness in
this world” that would loom oppressively over the entirety of
1982’s acoustic
Nebraska.
Three gripping outtakes from the latter album are also included,
most notably the long-lost original acoustic rendition of “Born In
The USA.” Here, backed only by a spookily reverbed acoustic guitar
and sung in the shaky, desperate tones Springsteen originally had
in mind, the lyric’s power is magnified tenfold. You can’t rock out
to this version, to be sure, but there’s also no mistaking (or
twisting) its meaning.
Disc three again features virtually an entire unreleased album,
this time 13 outtakes from the sessions that led to the 12-track
Born In The USA album. The chief problem with this, the
weakest of the four discs, lies in the fact that the global
mega-hit
Born In The USA is actually one of the lesser albums in
Springsteen’s exceptional catalogue. Thus, outtakes from it like
the rollicking, anthemic “Brothers Under The Bridges (’83)” mostly
serve to remind you that its replacement — in this case, the
similarly-themed but musically and lyrically superior “No
Surrender” — was the better choice.
Still, there’s plenty to admire: Springsteen’s
uncharacteristically expansive guitar solo on “My Love Will Not Let
You Down,” the fat, sweet horn arrangement that propels “Lion’s
Den,” the infectious melody of “Rockaway The Days,” and the easy,
confident lyricism of quite possibly the best country-folk tune of
his career, “This Hard Land” (a 1995 re-recording of which appeared
on
Greatest Hits).
The
Tunnel Of Love-era songs that close out disc three reflect
the corner Springsteen turned in the mid-’80s toward the more
mature, introspective work he’s produced since. The largely
acoustic songs revolve around love and family, the muted
instrumentation focusing even more attention on the strong
emotional notes he hits in the lyrics. “The Wish” in particular
shines, peeling away the layers of affection spoken and unspoken
between Springsteen and his mother, his number one fan and the
purchaser in the first verse of his first guitar. It’s another very
strong number that just wouldn’t have fit thematically on the album
he released during the period when it was recorded.
Disc four opens with Springsteen rocking out
Human Touch-style on a couple of 1990 numbers that show off
his under-appreciated guitar playing but don’t go anywhere special
lyrically. As he has increasingly done in his later work, he saves
his best ideas for the quieter songs that follow.
“Gave It A Name,” written in ’92 but re-recorded by Springsteen
just this August, adds power to its message about facing up to
guilt with a spare arrangement and his coiled, intense delivery.
“Sad Eyes” is a revelation, with Springsteen’s falsetto vocal on
the chorus propelling this delicate love song onto a whole new
plane of soulfulness (throw this one onto the adult contemporary
charts and my bet is it would find a very happy home…). “Loose
Change,” another of the real sleepers here, offers a deceptively
simple, moving narrative story-song capturing the quiet despair
that envelops the lonely as life wears on toward middle age.
Towards the end Springsteen casually tosses off three more gems.
First is “Happy,” a surprisingly (and correctly) restrained song
that marks the completion of the emotional journey taken by the
restless, wild-eyed romantic street kid who started out this set to
the mature, confident and whole husband and father who closes it.
Second is his deliriously passionate gospel ballad (and
Greatest Hits outtake) “Back In Your Arms.”
Third, and closing out the set, is the 1995
The Ghost Of Tom Joad outtake “Brothers Under The Bridge,”
in which the similarly titled 1983 tune is transformed from a “boys
partying on the highway” rocker into a riveting acoustic portrait
of homeless veterans carving out the tiniest of existences under a
bridge in the desert. How it was beaten out by that album’s
inexplicably lightweight closer (“My Best Was Never Good Enough”),
only the Boss himself could possibly explain.
In the end,
Tracks unfolds like the soundtrack to a career, touching on
every phase Springsteen’s traveled through, revealing new
information about how his creative process works, while reviewing
from a new angle the steady evolution of his stylistic and thematic
approaches. But — as its author surely intended — it does even
more than that. If anyone still needed proof that 1999 Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame inductee Springsteen is one of the great ones,
here it is: taken as a whole, this sprawling 66-song set of
quote-unquote leftovers blows the doors off just about anything
else on the shelves today.