Bruce Springsteen - The Promise. The Lost Sessions: Darkness on the Edge of Town 2CD

This wonderful collection of songs is an absolute treasure trove of unreleased Springsteen. Here are 21 songs from the sessions for 'Darkness on the Edge of Town' that didn't make it to the final album which was released in 1978.

After the success of 'Born to Run' in 1975 Springsteen was forced into a legal battle with his former manager, Mike Appel, this is a separate story in itself but the result was that Springsteen was unable to release a record for three long years which back in the 1970's was basically career suicide. These days bands take years to get around to making new albums but back then it really wasn't very common (just take a look at the '70's discographies of Bowie, Zeppelin, John Martyn or any other notable artist and you'll see what I mean, they used to knock out a masterpiece most years).

Springsteen in his frustration wrote over 70 songs  and recorded all of them with the E Street Band between 1976 and 1978, after much agonising he then whittled this down to the final 10 songs that ended up on 'Darkness'. What happened to the others? Some turned up on 'The River', others on the 'Tracks' box set, some even changed form and ended up on future albums ('Fire' changed to 'I'm on Fire' on 'Born in the U.S.A')  but many were simply locked away until now.

On listening to this double CD  and having watched the accompanying documentary on HBO it seems incredible that some of these songs were shelved. Steve Van Zandt on an appearance on 'Jimmy Fallon' said that an alternative title to this collection should have been '70 Lost Arguments'. There is some amazing stuff on here, the alternative, far livelier version of 'Racing in the Street' which opens the collection is a very different take on the version we all know and features a beautiful David Lindley violin solo. 'Gotta Get That Feeling' is a wonderful '60's pop song and 'Someday (We'll Be Together) is a sweeping arrangement with echoes of Phil Spector. It's great to finally hear the studio version of 'Because The Night' too, and 'Candy's Boy' is the working version of what ended up as 'Candy's Room' on the final album.

For me the focal point of this collection is the title track, 'The Promise'. Any fan will tell you that this is one of the great lost songs and Springsteen has resurrected it in concert and on record before, but here, finally is the original studio version and it is beautiful.  Another song of interest is 'Come On (Let's Go Tonight)' which fans will recognise as the same melody as 'Factory' albeit with a much lighter vocal lyrically.

As an aside, some of these songs, such as the aforementioned 'Someday (We'll Be Together)' do sound like expert pastiches of other syles of music (Spector, Orbison) and in that respect, for me this collection resembles 'The River' tonally. It also gives the listener a greater understanding of why Springsteen abandoned these songs at the time. 'Save My Love' is a hit that never happened and it's difficult to understand how you could lock away a song like this but you have to admire Spingsteen's reasons for doing so, he wanted a stark, austere album for 'Darkness on the Edge of Town' which sounded like nothing that had gone before it and in order to fulfil his ambition he had to sacrifice songs along the way. Needless to say, he absolutely achieved his ambition as 'Darkness' stands up as one of his great albums. I'm just relieved that even 30 years later we get to hear these lost songs in this fabulous collection, the world is a better place with them in it.

A lot of care has gone into this collection and the discerning ear will pick out the occasional vocal which has been re-recorded or touched up but it certainly doesn't detract from one's enjoyment of the songs.

I can only hope that these 'lost' albums keep turning up and I have my fingers crossed that the fabled alternate, full E Street Band version of 'Nebraska' will surface eventually but this will certainly keep me happy for many months to come.

Disc 1:

1. Racing In The Street ('78)
2. Gotta Get That Feeling
3. Outside Looking In
4. Someday (We'll Be Together)
5. One Way Street
6. Because The Night
7. Wrong Side Of The Street
8. The Brokenhearted
9. Rendezvous
10. Candy's Boy

Disc 2:

1. Save My Love
2. Ain't Good Enough For You
3. Fire
4. Spanish Eyes
5. It's A Shame
6. Come On (Let's Go Tonight)
7. Talk To Me
8. The Little Things (My Baby Does)
9. Breakaway
10. The Promise
11. City Of Night