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Almost ever since Bruce Springsteen released his “Tracks” boxed set of unreleased material in 1998, fans have clamored for a followup volume. Twenty-seven years later, they’ll get it. On Thursday morning, Springsteen unveiled the full mouth-watering details for “Tracks II: The Lost Albums,” a long-awaited collection that includes recordings made between the years of 1983-2018 and sports 83 previously unreleased songs, 74 of which have never come out in any form before.
There is one interesting wrinkle that distinguishes “Tracks II” from the first set more than a quarter-century ago. This is not a random assemblage of loose ends that got left on the cutting room floor at the end of the making of the familiar albums fans know and love, as the original “Tracks” was. Rather, it is billed as being comprised of seven complete albums, each of which was recorded and abandoned, all of which will have their own titles and covers as part of the larger collection.
“Tracks 2” comes out June 27 through Sony Music and will be available in configurations including a 7-CD set and a 9-LP vinyl collection. For those who don’t want to wade through all 83 songs, Springsteen will also release a distilled edition, “Lost and Found: Selections From the Lost Albums,” with 20 highlights culled from the larger set. That abridged volume will come out the same day in physical formats as a single CD and double-LP.
The seven heretofore unheard albums coming out in the boxed set, in order of their periods of origin, are “LA Garage Sessions ’83,” “Streets of Philadelphia Sessions.” “Faithless,” “Somewhere North of Nashville,” “Inyo,” “Twilight Hours” and “Perfect World.”
A teaser track, “Rain in the River,” came out concurrently with the announcement of the full details of the set Thursday. Moreover, Springsteen and Sony also put up a two-minute video trailer that includes not just footage of Springsteen talking about the set, but also short flashes of the cover art for each of the seven distinct albums and descriptions of those recordings’ origins.
He explains in the trailer that he embarked on finishing some of the incomplete material while under lockdown earlier this decade. “I often read about myself in the ’90s as having some lost period or something, and not really; really, I was working the whole time,” he says in the video. He continues, “During the pandemic, what I did for that period of time was I finished everything I had in my vault. So this is ‘Tracks II.’ The ‘Lost Albums’ are records that were full records, some of ’em even to the point of being mixed and not released for one reason or another, (because of) something I felt was missing from some of them, or they just didn’t feel complete at the time.”
Some of these “lost” albums have been reported or heavily rumored over the years, with Springsteen having loosely characterized a few of them in past statements, and some of the musicians involved offering their recollections in other cases. The albums are a mixture of completely self-made material, songs cut with the E Street Band, and tracks recorded with players Springsteen was working with in the ’90s during the long interval when the E Street Band was inactive. Not until the material is heard will the public be able to fully judge whether stylistic descriptors that fans have used, like “Bruce’s country album,” truly apply to any of them.
It is possible to get a head start on at least thinking about the different personalities of the seven albums, between some descriptive language used in the project’s press release and further thumbnail descriptions that flash by in the video. Some details:
“LA Garage Sessions ’83.” Here’s where several of the nine tracks that have been released in alternate versions reside, like the familiar titles “My Hometown” and “Shut Out the Light.” The press release describes it as a “lo-fi exploration” that “serves as a crucial link” between the solo-acoustic “Nebraska” and the fully produced, more celebratory “Born in the U.S.A.”
“Streets of Philadelphia Sessions.” The style here leans into “drum loop and synthesizer sounds.” Interestingly, the album does not actually include a version of “Streets of Philadelphia,” but rather it’s suggested that Springsteen couldn’t stop writing and recoding in that vein when he was cutting the theme song for the Jonathan Demme movie.
“Faithless.” It’s touted as a film soundtrack… for “a movie that was never made.” Further details on whatever the scotched film might have been may or may not be forthcoming.
“Somewhere North of Nashville.” Although Springsteen has rarely delved into anything that could legitimately be called country music, get ready for “country combos with pedal steel.” (The title seems to be an echo, deliberately or otherwise, of an influential collection of ’80s L.A. country-rock acts, “A Town South of Bakersfield.”)
“Inyo.” “Richly woven border tales.”
“Twilight Hours.” Apparently a more fully produced album than some of the others, it’s characterized as “orchestra-driven, mid-century noir.” Could it have been a dry run for the unusually lush, if not-so-noirish, orchestration of “Western Stars”?
“Perfect World.” While the styles of some of the other albums may be more for specialized tastes, this one will intrigue rank-and-file fans for being described as carrying “arena-ready E Street flavor.” The song that came out Thursday, “Rain in the River,” comes from this project.
The boxed set will include a 100-page hardcover book with archival photos, liner notes on each album from writer Erik Flannigan and a personal introduction to the overall project penned by Springsteen.
A full track list for “Tracks II”:
LA Garage Sessions ’83
Follow That Dream
Don’t Back Down On Our Love
Little Girl Like You
Johnny Bye Bye
Sugarland
Seven Tears
Fugitive’s Dream
Black Mountain Ballad
Jim Deer
County Fair
My Hometown
One Love
Don’t Back Down
Richfield Whistle
The Klansman
Unsatisfied Heart
Shut Out The Light
Fugitive’s Dream (Ballad)
Streets of Philadelphia Sessions
Blind Spot
Maybe I Don’t Know You
Something In The Well
Waiting On The End Of The World
The Little Things
We Fell Down
One Beautiful Morning
Between Heaven and Earth
Secret Garden
The Farewell Party
Faithless
The Desert (Instrumental)
Where You Goin’, Where You From
Faithless
All God’s Children
A Prayer By The River (Instrumental)
God Sent You
Goin’ To California
The Western Sea (Instrumental)
My Master’s Hand
Let Me Ride
My Master’s Hand (Theme)
Somewhere North of Nashville
Repo Man
Tiger Rose
Poor Side of Town
Delivery Man
Under A Big Sky
Detail Man
Silver Mountain
Janey Don’t You Lose Heart
You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone
Stand On It
Blue Highway
Somewhere North of Nashville
Inyo
Inyo
Indian Town
Adelita
The Aztec Dance
The Lost Charro
Our Lady of Monroe
El Jardinero (Upon the Death of Ramona)
One False Move
Ciudad Juarez
When I Build My Beautiful House
Twilight Hours
Sunday Love
Late in the Evening
Two of Us
Lonely Town
September Kisses
Twilight Hours
I’ll Stand By You
High Sierra
Sunliner
Another You
Dinner at Eight
Follow The Sun
Perfect World
I’m Not Sleeping
Idiot’s Delight
Another Thin Line
The Great Depression
Blind Man
Rain In The River
If I Could Only Be Your Lover
Cutting Knife
You Lifted Me Up
Perfect World
