Turn It Up: Tracks II Edition

Charles and David with some favorites from the new Bruce Springsteen box

The recent release of Bruce Springsteen’s Tracks II: The Lost Albums offers Springsteen fans a treasure trove of unreleased music. Across seven albums that were recorded over four decades, the collection contains both familiar and unpredictable moves from an artist who has long pushed against the expectations that have accompanied his rise to acclaim and superstardom. There’s so much to explore across the set’s 82 songs, so we thought we’d pick out a few of our favorites. (And be sure to check out the Bruce-focused “Reading Recommendations” at the end for other choices and voices!) Thanks, Boss.

“Unsatisfied Heart” (from L.A. Garage Sessions, r. 1983)

The LA Garage Sessions ostensibly tell the story of how Nebraska became Born In The U.S.A., with the spare storytelling and droning melodies of the former boosted by the big rhythms and hooks that defined the latter. That’s true, but the Sessions also makes plenty of room for solidly post-New Wave experiments from the jumping rockabilly of “Little Girl Like You” to how the jangly “One Love” recalls Paisleys both Park and Underground. Most effective is “Unsatisfied Heart,” which builds from a gospel-referencing opening verse into a swirling, brooding marination on personal frustration. This is one of Springsteen’s key themes, and this song’s aching chorus – where Springsteen asks “can you live with an unsatisfied heart?” – articulates it even more precisely than did his earlier hit “Hungry Heart.” But the secret’s in the arrangement, all glistening guitars and echoing vocals over a flinty synth drum. Calling both backwards and forwards in the Boss catalog, “Unsatisfied Heart” finds its own distinct and important place in the mix. – CH

“Between Heaven and Earth” (from Streets of Philadelphia Sessions, r. 1993-1994)

After a few listens to Tracks II, I’m ready to declare the moody and gorgeous Streets of Philadelphia Sessions my favorite album of the bunch. Experimenting with the drum loops and wavy keyboards that produced the Oscar-winning song from which this set takes its title (but does not appear on it), Springsteen explores the stories of domestic happiness and unhappiness that had centered his work since Tunnel of Love, the released album to which this bears the most resemblance. The hit here is “Secret Garden” – presented in an alternate version backed by the soft boom-bap of the hip-hop beats that Springsteen (like many of his rock contemporaries) played with in this period – but there are four or five songs here that feel like they could’ve found their own place on Adult Contemporary radio or VH1. My current favorite is “Between Heaven and Earth,” with its gently propulsive beat and Bruce’s angelic falsetto background vocals (a nice counterpoint to the muted growl that he favored in these years). It’s a song about the realities of love and commitment, marked by both deep contentment and the painful realization that it might not last. Like his protagonist and his partner, Springsteen doesn’t let the song settle in either of the title’s destinations. Instead, it floats across the speakers and tries to stay suspended as long as it can. As long as they can. – CH

“Goin’ to California” (from Faithless, r. 2005-2006)

Faithless was intended for a film project, a “spiritual Western,” that ended up not happening. And while I’d push back that every good western I’ve ever seen, and most of the not so good ones too, are all intensely spiritual, I can envision how these cuts might have worked as a soundtrack. As an actual Springsteen album? Not so much. Still, the music here does fit, in its rootsy/folksy/Americana-leaning way with what I’ve long proclaimed as Bruce’s 21^st century best, We Shall Be Free: The Seeger Sessions. “Goin’ to California” works that way best of all. The lyrics work well enough: “Where the redwoods grow so tall / They reach from this dirty earth / Into heaven's halls” is especially charming.” But Bruce mostly treats this one as an excuse to sing the title phrase over and over like he’s stumbled upon a new folk music mantra. Weary and anxious, Bruce sings he’s going to California, a banjo literally on his knee in the studio, and besides that Stephen Foster allusion, the repetitions force us down any number of hopeful if dusty roads: Jimmie Rodgers’s “California Blues” (aka “Blue Yodel. 4”) intersecting with Woody Guthrie’s “Goodbye It’s Been Good to Know You” and with Merle Haggard’s “California on My Mind” and Al Jolson’s “California Here I Come.” I swear Led Zep’s “Going to California” is hiding there in Bruce’s guitar lines, too. All of these fellow travelers were born to run to that place we really want to go and where we’ll walk in the sun. Each of Bruce’s weary, hoarse moans make it plain we’re not there yet. –DC

“Repo Man” (from Somewhere North of Nashville, r. 1995)

The Springsteen that matters most right now is his new live ep, Land of Hope and Dreams, calling out Trump and sounding the alarm for American democracy. (Charles wrote a bit about it here.) But I want to champion this earlier release for a few reasons. From the country-vibing “lost album,” Somewhere North of Nashville, that he reportedly worked on while also recording 1995’s The Ghost of Thom Joad, “Repo Man” is a rock-and-roll blast, the sort of slighter-than-slight but fun-as-hell ramrod that Bruce has mostly steered away from these last decades. You can imagine it as an especially welcome palette cleanser during sessions otherwise focused on downbeat and down tempo socially conscious balladry like “Sinaloa Cowboys” and “Youngstown.” And it’s fun to see Bruce letting himself play with a heel turn—no matter your excuse, his character is taking your car. But why is “Repo Man” being characterized as “country”? Hauling off a behind-on-payments Mercedes or “a “Gran Torino way up in the Bronx” doesn’t read very down-to-earth or suburban either one. The most obvious reason for the “country” label is the pedal steel guitar of Marty Rifkin, who’s playing dominates the track from its first hyper twangy note and who gets a couple whiz-bang solos to boot. Rifkin’s leering-but-light licks lift the record to a place Bruce hasn’t really ventured before—and it seems to have lift his heart. Urgent broadsides aside, we need that right now too. [originally published 6/2/2025] – DC

“Janey, Don’t You Lose Heart” (from Somewhere North of Nashville, r. 1995)

The songs recorded in 1995 and released as Somewhere North of Nashville are a breath of fresh air. Ultimately shelved in favor of the more somber Ghost of Tom Joad, these sessions are some of the most vibrant music Springsteen made in this period, from the horny romp of “Detail Man” to the neo-traditionalist pastiche “Blue Highway” and beyond. He even breathes new life in a couple songs that had been around for a while, including this lovely reworking of “Janey, Don’t You Lose Heart,” a Born in the U.S.A. B-side that also found its way onto the first Tracks set in its fiery (and fantastic) E Street version. Here, the big-hearted love song settles into a quieter, mid-tempo two-step that foregrounds the sweet yearning at its core. With Springsteen’s tender vocal answered by swooning steel guitar from Marty Rifkin and a lonesome fiddle solo by Soozie Tyrell. As often happens when rockers go country, “Janey” sounds a bit more grownup here, but there’s no mistaking the rock ‘n’ soul heart pounding within. – CH

“Poor Side of Town” (from Somewhere North of Nashville, r. 1995)

As I rank Johnny Rivers’ “Poor Side of Town” among the most perfect recordings I’ve ever heard, and as I also love Nick Lowe’s more tender yet low-key angrier cover of the song, I was poised to be underwhelmed by Springsteen’s country sessions version. But I’ve quickly become enamored of it for a few reasons. First, both thematically and musically, it’s easy to imagine that he’s been singing this one since he first heard it and, nearly as long, since he taught it to his fellow Castiles, in 1966. I appreciate the ways it spotlights what makes Bruce’s voice and phrasing so singular, particularly as a ballad singer; what a master he’s become at mixing mournful tones with hopeful sentiments; and how effectively he has always been at deploying the history of his own catalog to multiply meanings in any new work. Class issues are built into the lyric, of course, but listening to great earlier versions, I had never felt prompted to read “With you by my side, they can't keep us down” in political terms beyond the romantic. Listening to Bruce sing it, I feel pushed into hearing the line as referring not only to a partnership but to a collective. I know Rivers and his co-writer/producer Lou Adler never intended the song to go there, understand. But Bruce’s whole career insists I’m not wrong. – DC

“Dinner at Eight” (from Twilight Hours, r. 2010-2018)

Of all the surprises on Tracks II, Twilight Hours is the biggest revelation. In 2017 and 2018, alongside Western Stars, Springsteen recorded an album of songs drenched in the Bacharach-and-David elegance of Dionne Warwick or Dusty Springfield. It’s remarkably effective, allowing Springsteen to sing with a clarity he’d rarely indulged over melodies as sophisticated as he’d ever explored. The richness of the sound – with strings and horns, rather than guitars, holding the place of prominence – befits a collection of songs that explore love in all its phases, including the exquisite sadness when it’s gone. “Dinner At Eight” is a stunner, a recounting of going through the motions without a reason to do so. The tick-tock rhythm and muted vocal on the verse gives way to a sobbing climax in the chorus, with orchestrations and flugelhorn (so beloved by Bacharach and David) filling in the emptiness that surrounds the singer as he makes it through another day. Taken as a whole, Twilight Hours is easily as good as Western Stars or either of the albums that followed it. More than any other set on Tracks II, I cannot figure out why he hasn’t released it until now. – CH

“Lonely Town” (from Twilight Hours, r. 2010-2018)

Cut presumably while prepping for his Springsteen on Broadway run “Lonely Town” finds him, appropriately enough, seated at the piano, and backed by a grimly glorious string arrangement that’s dominated before it it’s done by baroque violins and brooding cellos—and singing changes that push him to the top of his range. The song sets a dreary isolated scene that owes more to Tin Pan Alley than to arena rock and that summarizes the action like a good Broadway show tune about a place no one wants to go. Bruce Springsteen sings for only the lonely. – DC

“Another Thin Line” (from Perfect World, r. 1994-2011)

After the various experiments that precede it, the return of booming drums and big guitars on the concluding Perfect World feel like the palate-cleansing homecoming that Springsteen likely intended it to be. The only album to be pieced together from separate projects, Perfect World is a rock-solid collection that works the classic “Boss time” modes to very pleasurable effect. The set opens with three straight cowrites with his stalwart Houserocker collaborator Joe Grushecky, including the restless “Another Thin Line,” which cops both riff and sensibility from “We Gotta Get Outta This Place.” Grushecky cut the song himself in 2009, with Springsteen showing up to duet, and Springsteen’s solo version doesn’t deviate much, although he slows the tempo slightly in a fashion that emphasizes the pounding crush of the backbeat as he sings of the everyday struggles that make the perseverant call that “we’ll get by” seem both assured and deeply sad. The fluttering “Eight Miles High” solo and brief “Be My Baby” callback at the end further grounds “Another Thin Line” in the pop-rock ‘60s that remain Bruce’s center. It’s a good place to begin, and to end. – CH

Recommended reading:

-Caryn Rose with a listening guide to Tracks II, for NPR

-Caryn Rose with an additional “notebook dump” on the box, for her Radio Nowhere

-Steven Hyden on Tracks II, for The Ringer

-Steven Thomas Erlewine on Tracks II, for his So It Goes

-Brian Hiatt and Andy Greene pick “20 must-hear songs” from Tracks II, for Rolling Stone

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