A compilation issued to act as a soundtrack to Springsteen’s biography “Born To Run”. It’s an 18 track album and 12 of those tracks are the kinds of things you’d expect to find on a best of Bruce Springsteen album with some of the writers favourites that fit the narrative thrown in. The gems to be found in here are the the first 6 tracks on side one.

Tracks 1 and 2 are by The Castiles, Springsteen’s first band. ”Baby I” was co-written by Springsteen and is a sprightly 60’s Garage band romp. After listening to a lot of US Garage band comps (Rubble, Pebbles etc.) in my time it’s not the best but I’ve also heard much, much worse. It does owe more than a passing nod of gratitude to Them’s “Gloria”. “You Can’t Judge A Book by The Cover” was recorded a year later in 1967 at a gig at a teen club in a church in New Jersey. It’s been very cleaned up for presentation here but it still screams of why recordings like this are usually confined to bootlegs (hint: they’re not very good!).

Next up is “He’s Guilty (The Judge Song)” by Steel Mill who were Springsteen’s early 70’s heavy rock outfit. Lot’s of loud guitars, unnecessaryily dull soloing and bad lyrics (“speeding, running down his mother, Stabbing his wife then strangling her lover”). Very of it’s time and again, not really very good.

That’s followed by the Bruce Springsteen Bands “Jesse James”. Springsteen’s voice is starting to sound like Springsteen’s voice and the sound has taken on a lot of The Band, there's a hint of what will be come to be known as Americana, slide guitars and the feel of the country. We’re also covering subject matter (the wild west thing) that Springsteen will return to later. The Bruce Springsteen Band is a direct ancestor of the E Street Band featuring as it did Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez, Steve Van Zandt, Garry Tallent and David Sancious. It’s better, we're now headed in a direction we can recognise.

“Henry Boy” is a distant relative of “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” but this time it’s just Bruce and his acoustic guitar ala some tracks on his debut album. The melody from the off is that which we would later come to know as “Rosalita…” hence why we didn’t get to here "Henry Boy" followed up on. It’s the best of these 5 songs but as it obviously morphed into something else it’s not some great undiscovered classic.

Finally the version of “Growin’ Up” presented here is a Bruce and his acoustic take rather than the later full band take on “Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ”. This is a demo recorded the day after Springsteen auditioned for John Hammond at Columbia in NYC on May 1972. It’s a great song and it’s a treat to hear it like this. Weirdly the next record we'll look at opens with an acoustic version of “Growin’ Up”...may the circle be unbroken.

This one is definitely one for the hardcore fans, ya know those of us that would shell out for a double LP just for the six racks on one side ! The other 3 sides do make a very handy Springsteen primer for the casual listener and a great soundtrack while reading his biography.

Henry Boy - https://youtu.be/lbc5Kus_Lkw?si=KC_7deJInE0k0IVF

“High Hopes” is a strange one. Released in January 2014 it is effectively a compilation album, but it’s more than that. It’s a collection of cover versions, studio outtakes and re-recordings of songs from their previous incarnations. It’s also, strangely given its makeup, one of Springsteen’s more consistent albums since “Devils & Dust”.

Personally there isn’t a track I don’t like on “High Hopes” and there  are a couple that have become Springsteen classics. The album starts and ends with a cover version. The title song was originally recorded by LA artist Tim Scott McConnell and also later by his band The Havalinas and was suggested to Springsteen by guitarist Tom Morello (yes, the guy from Rage Against The Machine was playing with The Boss). Last song, Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream”, was something Springsteen had performed on his “Devils & Dust” solo tour and the other cover on the album is Aussie Punks The Saints “Just Like Fire Would”, again suggested by Tom Morello.

The bulk of “High Hopes is made up of previously unreleased studio outtakes. “Harry’s Place” was written during the sessions for “The Rising” and and recorded  during the “Magic” sessions. It sounds like it was unlucky to miss the cut on both. "Down In The Hole" was recorded for The Rising and includes backing vocals by all 3 of Bruce and Patti’s chldren, but it was thought to be too similar to Empty Sky and missed out. “Heaven's Wall" and "Hunter Of Invisible Game" date from 2002 to 2008 (“The Rising” to “Magic”); “Frankie Fell In Love”, Springteen has said, was recorded for “Magic” but studio footage appears to tag it as having been during the “Working On A Dream” sessions. Given the weakness of those two records how it didn’t make it on to either is baffling; “This Is Your Sword” is from 2012, pre “Wrecking Ball”; “The Wall” dates from 1998 and the wall in question is the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. One of the names on that wall would be Walter Cichon, childhood friend of Bruce Springsteen and frontman of The Motifs in mid 60’s New Jersey, of whom Springsteen said “they were gods” when talking about Walter and fellow Motif, his brother Raymond, in “Springsteen On Broadway”. Walter joined the US 4th Infantry Division during the Vietnam war and was killed in action in Kontum, South Vietnam in 1968.

There are a couple  of re-recordings of songs that have appeared in other guises on previous Springsteen records. The controversial “American Skin (41 Shots)” was first released in 2001 on the album “Live In New York City”. It concerns the death of unarmed Amadou Diallo who was shot and killed by 4 NYPD officers in February 1999. The officers were charged with second degree murder but all were acquitted causing huge criticism and accusations of police brutality and racial profiling. When news reached New York that the song was to be played at Springsteen and the E Street Band’s 10 night stand at Madison Square Garden on their 1999/2000 re-union tour former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani spoke out against Springsteen and the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association called for a boycott of the shows and organised a rally of hundreds of police officers at the Garden. Springsteen not only played the song every night but also met with Amadou Diallo’s family.

The song itself has 3 verses, 1 concerning Amadou and the second sees a mother telling her child what to do if he’s stopped by the police, “promise Mama you’ll keep your hands in sight”. It’s a sad truth that for black men in America that is still good advice.

The version of “The Ghost Of Tom Joad” here on “High Hopes” is, to my mind, very close to being the greatest thing Springsteen has ever recorded. Yes that’s hyperbole and I’m not even sure I’m down with it myself even though I just said it, but c’mon! Listen to it, it’s astonishing. Rage Against The Machine had covered the song (badly) and RATM’s Tom Morello was invited to guest on the song at a “Magic” tour show at Madison Square Garden in 2008. Morello sang a verse and took two guitar solo’s that sounded nothing like anything you would expect from the E Street Band. When Morello temporarily replaced Steve Van Zandt on an Australian tour in 2013, this version was recorded the night before they flew from LA to Aus. I’ve opined elsewhere that this song is one of Springsteen greatest creations and much to the chagrin of a number of my Springsteen fan friends I bloody love this version of it.

“High Hopes” collects together some flotsam and jetsom but at the same time turns out to be one of Bruce Springsteen’s better albums.

The Ghost Of Tom Joad - https://youtu.be/qUhtdAOn4k0?si=ura87fn1WTjOCmdT

It’s now 2012 and, after a couple of less than stellar records, “Wrecking Ball” sees The Boss reunited with his mojo…There are some real standouts, songs that tell you The Boss is back on it, “Rocky Ground”, “Land Of Hope And Dreams”, “Jack Of All Trades”, the title track…

“Jack Of All Trades” is built out of what Springsteen calls his “magic trick”. In his “…On Broadway” solo show he explained how he wrote all those song about cars and girls and escaping and everyone ate it up and…he couldn’t even drive, that’s the magic trick. He’s so locked into and understanding of his audience that he can write about their hopes and fears and dreams, their lives, that he can work his magic with words. This “Jack Of All Trades” will mow your lawn and mend your roof, he’ll harvest your crops and strip your engine down and rebuild it ‘til it runs sweet again, he gets angry at the world but he can mend and make do, he and his will be alright. Springsteen can’t/doesn’t have to do any of those things but he sings it so convincingly you think he can, like the cars and the girls, the magic trick…and that’s why his audience, why I, love him.

“Rocky Ground” is quite unusual, it’s heavy on religious imagery again (“Forty days and nights of rain have washed this land, Jesus said the money changers in this temple will not stand”), features a gospel choir (the Victorious Gospel Choir) along with excerpts/samples from "I'm A Soldier In The Army Of The Lord", a gospel song by the Congregation of the Church of God in Christ and recorded by folklorist Alan Lomax in 1942 and, for the very first time on a Springsteen song, a section of rapping. He allegedly attempted the rapping himself (!), but, dissatisfied with his attempts, left it to backing singer Michelle Moore. 

“Land Of Hope And Dreams” was written as far back as 1998. It was played on the 1999 “Reunion Tour” with the E Street Band, it’s on the 2001 live album “Live In New York City” and a version was recorded in 2002 during the sessions for “The Rising”. I’m not sure when this version was recorded but it was definitely prior to June 2011 as it features The Big Man, Clarence Clemons, on Sax. It is a Springsteen, nay, an E Street Band classic. There ain’t many bands that can bring this huge panoramic sound to a song but the best little bar band from New Jersey really can! When Bruce hits the section that starts with “This train, Carries saints and sinners…” and at the end Clarence makes his presence felt its eye wateringly wonderful. It’s also one of Bruces’s great road songs, he’s still travelling just like he was in “Born To Run”, there are still wheels, this time they are “Big wheels rolling through fields where sunlight streams”, but now he knows where he’s going even if that place is the undefined land of hope and dreams. It was in the set when we saw them at Nowlan Park in Kilkenny in 2013 and it felt like righteous modern day gospel music, something to make you believe…in something.

The title track is a tribute to The Meadowlands or to give it it’s actual name, Giants Stadium, an 80,000 seater football stadium in East Rutherford New Jersey (“I was raised out of steel here in the swamps of Jersey, some misty years ago”) that was originally home to the NFL’s New York Giants from 1976 and later shared with the New York Jets from 1984 to 2009 when both teams moved next door to the purpose built MetLife Stadium. Springsteen and the E Street Band played many, many shows at what came to be known as The Meadowlands and there are recordings from the stadium on “Live/1975-85” from the “Born In The USA” tour. As a Jets fan I’ve never been a fan of the lyric “Here where the blood is spilled, the arena's filled, and Giants played their games” but it’s a bloody great song.

There’s more, “Shackled And Drawn” and “Death To My Hometown” and the shockingly honest "This Depression" in particular. The Wrecking Ball tour was a joy to see when we had a great weekend away in Ireland for it. The gig itself featured video tributes to Clarence Clemons and Danny Federici who both had passed away. 

Some fans regard "Wrecking Ball" as being right up there with Springsteen's classics of the '70's...it's good but to these ears not quite that good. But from here on Bruce Springsteen is back and on a creative high. His next three albums are absolutely superb and in between those he manages to squeeze in a solo residency on Broadway. Let’s get into it shall we…

Land Of Hope And Dreams - https://youtu.be/KHpJhS99Q60?si=s12QWb8o-oeA0fBN