Glory Days Revisited: Bruce Springsteen's Cutting Room Floor

Considering that his ‘Wrecking Ball’ tour recently rocked packed houses around the globe for the best part of two years, you'd think a new Bruce Springsteen album would be a universally cherished surprise. But, 'High Hopes', with its reliance on reworked older tracks and out-takes, has polarised opinions, with some lauding its entertainment value and others bemoaning its lack of cohesion.  

While revisiting previous work has always been a fundamental part of Springsteen's story, does the quality of his unused songs match their mythical reputation, and just why do they form such an integral part of his legacy?

Firstly, Springsteen's unreleased songs are a by-product of his artistic methods, which are shaped by an unflinching belief in his musical vision. Secondly, the effort and devotion he puts in to everything he records - regardless of when, where and how it appears - more often than not produces high calibre material.

In The Promise: The Making Of Darkness On The Edge of Town, Roy Bittan - pianist with the E-Street Band - refers to Springsteen’s accumulation of ideas as being housed in “the magical notebook”, with “an endless stream of songs coming out of it”.  Regardless of their quality, Springsteen regularly casts many of them aside for a variety of idiosyncratic reasons.

In the introductory booklet to 'Tracks', his 1998 retrospective box set, he explained: “My albums became a series of choices – what to include, what to leave out? I based my decisions on my creative point of view at the moment, the subject I was trying to focus on, something musical or emotional I was trying to express.”

During the documentary that accompanies the 'Darkness On The Edge Of Town' box set, he constantly makes reference to the 'sound picture' of a record. He wants his albums to be characterised by a combination of sonic sensibilities, narrative themes and emotional threads, producing a cohesive and meaningful piece of work that's more than the sum of its parts.  

The sacrifices of such a rigorous approach are most evident on 'The Promise', a collection of tracks that didn't make the cut for ‘Darkness...’. Springsteen desired a tighter, tougher sound that reflected the trials and tribulations of the characters in his songs. He'd outgrown the big band aesthetic of 1975’s 'Born To Run', but that didn't stop him penning over 70 wildly diverse cuts, and with his template for 'Darkness...' set in stone, some of the best material of his career hit the cutting room floor.  

While those songs weren't tonally right for 'Darkness...', their class is undeniable. In fact, Springsteen could have released a completely different album and it may have been even more successful, as many of the tracks are exceptional pop gems that could have doubled as radio hits

So, why did he willingly discard them? “The ideas I was interested in concentrating on would have been diluted if I'd made more of a miscellaneous grab bag of music, no matter how entertaining it was at the time,” he said in The Promise doc. This disciplined mindset has repeatedly marked him out as someone who values the artistic process over fame and fortune, which has nevertheless been a happy addition.

E-Street guitarist Steve Van Zandt agreed, saying: “For him to write good songs – possibly could have been hit songs – and to put them aside [takes] an enormous amount of willpower.” Yet, he also readily admonishes his long-time bandleader and admits there's a certain sadness to such decisions: “It's a bit tragic in a way, because he would have been one of the great pop songwriters of all time.”

It's difficult to disagree when listening to 'The Promise', from the sublime balladry of Someday (We'll Be Together), to Ain't Good Enough's playful bounce and the horn propelled Elvis-esque Talk To Me. The decisions are clearly based more on context than quality.

Another song that epitomises that mindset is Because The Night. The track was perfect for 'Darkness...', but Springsteen gave it to Patti Smith after becoming convinced that it would become a hit, therefore undermining the rest of a record, or his wider career.

His long-term manager Jon Landau explained in The Promise: “If he thought something was going to be a hit and he didn't want to be represented by that hit, he'd just leave them off the record.”  In hindsight - particularly after 'Born In The USA' and its seven hit singles - such a notion seems absurd and almost pretentious, but it typifies the level of stubborn commitment the young troubadour had.

Such refinement can be heard throughout 'The Promise', most notably on a version of Racing In The Street that is subtly, but symbolically, different to the one that appeared on 'Darkness...'.  On its own merits, the alternative version is a more impressive piece, with the E-Street band soaring as a wistful harmonica and lush instrumentation add widescreen cinematic textures. Ultimately, though, it's too hopeful and escapist, so Springsteen instead opted for a take boasting a bruised and beaten melancholy.

This is equally apparent on the version of Candy's Room that appeared on 'The Promise'.  A laid-back country tune that's no match for the explosive rattle and roll of the original, it's another example of Springsteen as creator, judge, jury and executioner. Like his oft-revised lyrics, his music is open to re-interpretation in order to fit a greater whole or moment of inspiration.

As he explained to Rolling Stone magazine while promoting 'High Hopes': “If I keep working on things, they turn into something of their own. You may not meet the right person to finish something for a decade, or you may meet them tomorrow.” Tom Morello, the former guitarist of Rage Against The Machine, provided the impetus for 'High Hopes', dragging a few offcuts back into live sets, and later the studio, while deputising for Van Zandt in 2013.

Songs like American Skin (41 Shots) and a re-tooled Ghost Of Tom Joad, both of which get the Morello treatment on ‘High Hopes’, demonstrate that at each stage of Springsteen’s career, different decisions could have resulted in entirely different albums. This is also readily apparent when delving into the mother of all box sets – 'Tracks'.  

Featuring over four hours of music, across four discs, the collection spans his earliest days to the mid ‘90s and is something of a parallel career; a fascinating insight into what might have been. While there are some average cuts, for example the lifeless Cynthia, highlights are plentiful, with Roulette and Rendezvous particularly potent.  

The former is the most aggressively vitriolic rocker of Springsteen's career, while the latter is an effortless pop-rock jewel on which classic E-Street instrumentation adorns a narrative about the escapist romance in a young lover's dream.

Although 'Tracks' is virtually unparalleled in terms of its retrospective depth, it does highlight a flaw in Springsteen's arsenal: the brilliance of his leftovers are often only as good as the sessions from which they came. This can be seen on the final disc, which contains mostly unreleased material from his disappointing early ‘90s albums, 'Lucky Town' and 'Human Touch'.  

These out-takes boast more of the same MOR gloss, played by a bunch of faceless session musicians who possessed neither the genuine soul or spark of the E-Street Band. Creatively, Springsteen was also below his best and it's telling that if he'd used the cream of the unreleased material, alongside the finest from 'Lucky Town' and 'Human Touch', he may have only been able to concoct one fairly strong album.  

Also nestled within ‘Tracks’ is a ‘Nebraska’-era take on Born In The USA that demonstrates keenly the risks associated with revisiting old material. The now famous mega-hit is one of the most misunderstood songs in music history, and it's easy to see why.

The powerful synthesisers and fist-punching refrain are so bombastic they literally drown out the bleak lyrical message about the despicable treatment of Vietnam veterans. Compare it, then, to the original version. Stripped, claustrophobic and with a simmering rage, it may not match the gusto of the bandana-sporting anthem, but it's the right music for the message. For some, it's the definitive presentation of the song and the way it should have remained.

Springsteen's unreleased material brings to mind Thomas Edison: “Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration.” Regardless of the outcome, the blood, sweat, heart and soul Springsteen pours into each and every song has produced not only many of the greatest rock and roll albums of the last 40 years, but also fashioned one of the most important collections of recorded work by any artist, with the possible exception of Bob Dylan. As Springsteen would no doubt tell you, that's good company to keep.

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