Bruce Springsteen, what you need to know about the 7 “Lost Albums”

Christmas, for the fans of Bruce Springsteen, arrives on June 27: it is the day on which it will finally see the light “Tracks II”, A box with Ben 7 unpublished albums2 of which double. After the teasers of recent days, there is the Official confirmation with details and tracklists: A total of 83 songs, largely unpublished.

But in reality the wait has lasted for years, because of these albums has been in the face for some time. And not only that: Springsteen himself spoke about it on several occasions. “Tracks II”, unlike the 1998 predecessor, does not only include study material and outtakes, but real albums made and finishednever published so much that everyone will have his own cover and his distinctive packaging.

“The ‘lost albums’ were complete records, some even already mixed but never published. I played this music for myself and for some close friends for years,” Springsteen says. “The possibility of recording at home every time I wanted to explore a wide range of different musical directions.”
Yes From the sessions that led from “Nebraska” to “Born in the USA” in 83 to “Perfect World”an album (presumably) engraved with the and street band in 2018, from which the first single extract“Rain in the River”.
All in different formats: a limited edition in 9 LP, 7 CD and digital format and a book bound in 100 pages fabric. “Lost and Found: Selections from the Lost Albums” will also be published, a CD/2 LP version with 20 of the 83 songs.

Springsteen returns to talk to his fans

The operation itself is not brand new, but no artist has ever brought the publication of unpublished archive material to this level. To say, the “Lost Albums” are sometimes recovered by the artists, and Springsteen himself has already published two: “The Promise”, linked to the reprint of “Darkness on the edge of Town”, and “The Ties That Bind”, an embryonic version of “The River”.
In this case, however, the publication is not linked to a reprint, but covers a span of 35 years of a secret career, or almost.

The most avid fans know that some of these records exist, and some songs have leaked in the form of bootleg, in particular those of the 83 period. But never in this form. Springsteen exceeds himself also compared to “Tracks”, the ’98 box, which contained “only” 66 songs.
The point is that Springsteen He returns to speak to his listeners after a series of not very appreciated record outings: Live album (the “No Nkes Concert” and “Road Diary”, the soundtrack of a documentary on the tour, however marked by the controversy on the cost of tickets), collected (a “Best of” of 2024) and still live album.

“In the 90s it was often said that I had crossed a period of stall, but in reality I worked tirelessly. DuringIn Pandemia I took the opportunity to complete Everything I had in my archive “, says Bruce Springsteen in the presentation video:” The lost albums were complete records, some of which had even arrived at the mixing phase without ever being published. For one reason or another, I felt that some of them lacked something or were not entirely accomplished at the moment “.

Here, album for album, the tracklists and what we know about these engravings.

The Garage Sessions ’83

The box begins in 1983 with a double album: the home sessions that led from the “Nebraska” acoustic masterpiece to worldwide success with “Born in the USA”. There is therefore no legendary “Electric Nebraska”, the test of the songs engraved with the band in 81, then discarded in favor of the household demo published in 82.
But there is a lot of more stuff: some songs is known because already played or published in some form (“Follow that Dream”, “Shut Out the Light”, “Johnny Bye Bye”, “County Fair”, even “My HomeTown”), and several go around in the form of a bootleg for some time.

But never in this structured form, which tells a crucial moment in the history of the boss.

1. Follow that Dream
2. Don’t back down on our love
3. Little girl like you
4. Johnny Bye Bye
5. Sugarland
6. Seven Tears
7. Fugitive’s Dream
8. Black Mountain Ballad
9. Jim deer
10. County fair
11. My Hometown
12. One love
13. Don’t Back Down
14. Richfield whistle
15. The Klansman
16. Unsatisfied Heart
17. Shut out the light
18. Fugitive’s Dream (Ballad)

Streets of Philadelphia Sessions

It goes between ’93 (the year in which “Streets of Philadelphia” was engraved, which will then be worth the Oscar in Springsteen) to “Secret Garden” already engraved for “Human Touch” and then Reincisa for the Reunion Greatest Hits with the E Street Band.
It could be the much fable “hip -hop album” – the press release speaks “of sounds of drum loops and synthesizers” – but there is no “missing”, which was published at that time and was believed to be part of it. But there is “Waiting on the end of the world”, a song that fans have been waiting for for some time.

1. Blind Spot
2. Maybe I Don’t Know You
3. Something in the Well
4. Waiting on the end of the world
5. The Little Things
6. We fell down
7. One Beautiful Morning
8. Bethaneen Heaven and Earth
9. Secret Garden
10. The Farewell Party

Faithless

Little is known about this album for now, except that “the work for the soundtrack of a film never made”, so much so that it contains three instrumental and a “theme”. Probably engraved in the second half of the 90s.

1. The Desert (Instrumental)
2. Where you goin ‘, where you from
3. Faithless
4. All God’s Children
5. A Prayer by the River (Instrumental)
6. God sent you
7. Goin ‘To California
8. The Western Sea (Instrumental)
9. My Master’s Hand
10. Let me laughs
11. My Master’s Hand (Theme)

Somewhere North of Nashville

These are songs related to the period of “The Ghost of Tom Joad”, but the sound world moves precisely to Nashville, so much so that the press release reads “country songs with Pedal Steel”; We are always in ’95 and some songs are known: “Tiger Rose” was engraved and published by Sonny Burgess in 1996, while “Stand On It” and “Janey Don’t You Lose Heart” are songs from the “Born in the USA” period, in a new version.

1. Repo Man
2. Tiger Rose
3. Poor Side of Town
4. Delivery man
5. Under a big sky
6. Detail man
7. Silver Mountain
8. Janey Don’t You Lose Heart
9. You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone
10. Stand on it
11. Blue Highway
12. Somewhere North of Nashville

Inyo

Also on this album there is little information, if not a post of about ten years ago by Patti Scialfa who named “The Lost Charro”. For now we speak “stories rich in details set on the border with Mexico”. The titles (in a very large part never heard by the fans) suggest a Tex-Mex album: Inyo is a County of the state of California, on the border with Nevada, where the mountains that bear the same name are located.
1. Inyo
2. Indian Town
3. Adelita
4. The Aztec Dance
5. The Lost Charro
6. Our Lady of Monroe
7. El Jardinero (Upon the Death of Ramona)
8. One False Move
9. Ciudad Juarez
10. When I Build My Beautiful House

Twilight Hours

Here we move to the early 2000s. The known song is “I’m stand by you”, which Bruce wrote in the late 90s inspired by the books of Harry Potter (true story!) And then engraved in 2001, proposing it to Chris Columbus, the director of the saga films. It was rejected because by order of JK Rowling the films did not have to have songs and Bruce published it in 2019 for the soundtrack of “Blinded by the light”.
The press release speaks of “half -century noir -sano atmospheres” – it is possible that these recordings have been discarded to make room for the much more urgent “The Rising”, its response to 11 September.
1. Sunday Love
2. Late in the Evening
3. Two of us
4. Lonely Town
5. September Kisses
6. Twilight Hours
7. I’m stand by you
8. High Sierra
9. Sunliner
10. Another you
11. Dinner at eight
12. Follow the Sun

Perfect World

The title track is a song that Springsteen then “sold” to her friend John Mellencamp for “Orpheus descense” of 2023. “Idiot’s Delight” was written in the 90s by Springsteen with Joe Grushecky and then engraved with the E Street Band around the 2000s (and in this version played on the radio in 2020). The first single “Rain in the River” was engraved – more likely completed – with the producer Ron Aniello, who plays several tools.
1. I’m Not Sleeping
2. Idiot’s Delight
3. Another Thin Line
4. The Great Depression
5. Blind man
6. Rain in the River
7. If i couuld only be your lover
8. Cutting Knife
9. You Lifted me up
10. Perfect World