At 75, Bruce Springsteen is right to be thinking about his legacy. He’s had an extraordinary career, endured as one of rock’s legendary figures, something few might have anticipated listening to the brilliant “The Wild, The Innocent, The E Street Shuffle,” a wonderfully eccentric album of joyous show-stopping rockers like “Rosalita” and “Kitty’s Back”, and beautifully tender romantic portraits of New York City like “Incident on 57th Street” or “New York City Serenade.” It was an unusual collection of songs that defied traditional rock and roll standards; clearly great FM radio fare for sure but what about the big time? Would he, could he ever reach a mass audience?
He stripped things down, condensed them with a burning intensity and a roaring band on his next albums, “Born To Run” and “Darkness On The Edge Of Town,” finding a voice, a clarity, an indomitable inner strength that revealed itself in marathon concerts, a live show like no other, recording sessions of hundreds of songs that only a few would survive the cut to actual album life. Surely, someone this focused, this committed, this intense, someone who cared this much wouldn’t last.
But he did. He has. And he ain’t stopping. Now we find out there’s just so much we haven’t heard yet. What?
Not only is he releasing 82 previously unreleased songs, 74 of them supposedly never heard by anybody but Bruce and Patti and maybe a few band members, there’s even more coming. In a couple of days, you’ll be able to hear them, all of them, if you can come up with $349.98 for the vinyl package. Yikes!
There’s also a Tracks III collection of outtakes and never weres that’s already completed, Bruce says it’s “five albums worth” all ready to come out when Bruce’s fans have saved their pennies once again after this $350 buck hit.
If that ain’t enough, the film “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” film about Brice’s “Nebraska” album is due out in October. He’s even talked about going back to Broadway. With all this new material and even more to come, how in the name of Clarence Clemons are we supposed to evaluate, understand, grasp, deal with all this unheard Bruce Springsteen?
Did he, like Bob Dylan, keep back some fabulous music that, by rights, we should have heard? Or is this material just OK, the kind of John Fogerty one-man-band recordings he made while exiled from Creedence Clearwater, music that a rich man with time on his hands threw together just to keep himself busy? Are they outtakes or real releases that, for whatever reason, Bruce didn’t think the time was right to release them? Will these embellish his legacy or wound it?
The cover of the New York Times story on Bruce Springsteen’s unreleased material
An incredibly thorough article by Jon Pareles from the New York Times found a Springsteen full of passion, enthusiasm, a guy who sounded like he was just starting his career not winding it down. And Pareles, a skilled and highly thought-of journalist, treated Springsteen with the measure of respect afforded a great American novelist, not some 75-year-old rock and roller who refused to grow up and was still on the road packing them in.
Springsteen’s willingness to open up and speak freely was unusual. Rock stars don’t usually let us this close. Neil Young, for example, was highly critical of Donald Trump on his website yet recently released a statement inviting him to a show and promising him it won’t be political. Bob Dylan has long ago eschewed any political comment on anyone. Let’s face it, taking a strong political stance can be hazardous to your record sales.
Springsteen didn’t sweat that. He directly denounced the Trump administration as “corrupt, incompetent and treasonous,” calling him “an unfit president” leading “a rogue government.” And that wasn’t all.
“I think that it was the combination of the deindustrialization of the country and then the incredible increase in wealth disparity that left so many people behind. It was ripe for a demagogue,” he added. “And while I can’t believe it was this moron that came along, he fit the bill for some people. But what we’ve been living through in the last 70 days is things that we all said, ‘This can’t happen here.’ ‘This will never happen in America.’ And here we are.”
And it’s probably fair to conclude that his bold political stance has fueled him in some way, to perhaps be part of the resistance, you might say. He may believe that through his music and concert appearances he can help turn the tide in America. It’s a tall order but maybe he can. He certainly seems willing to try and continues to speak out. No, it’s not normal for a 75-year-old to show this much vitality. But Bruce Springsteen can’t be stopped.
So if Bruce’s count is correct, that’s a dozen albums of material we haven’t heard yet. It’s unprecedented. Neil Young, for example, had recorded a number of albums — “Homegrown” and “Toast,” for example — that he didn’t release until a number of years later, along with continuing to release record after record. Bob Dylan’s additional material — “The Bootleg Series” — came out well down the line after many highly coveted recordings (“The Royal Albert Hall 1966” or “The Basement Tapes”) had already trickled out. If there’s not any new material to speak of and the artist has established a strong following over the years, that’s when you see record companies hit the vaults, releasing live performances, extra album cuts, outtakes, etc..
We’ve never seen somebody unload this much material — with more promised — this late in their career. On stage, we certainly recognized Springsteen as someone who never stopped. Apparently that went for off-stage, too.
If he never released another song or did another three-hour concert, his contribution to American popular music is already significant, he’s been one of the most extraordinary performers in rock’s rich history. He’s made his mark and seems hungry for more.
“I feel like I’ve got plenty of work left in me,” he told Pareles. “And our band does, too. Our band’s in great shape and we carry on.”
HERE’S JON PARELES’ ARTICLE IN THE NY TIMES
AND THE LINK:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/arts/music/bruce-springsteen-tracks-ii-the-lost-albums-interview.html
John, reading your columns in the Hartford Courant prompts a question. Did you know Owen Canfield at the Courant? He covered many golf tournaments that I competed in some 50 years ago.
John, did you see my recent reference to Springsteen on the Replacements Facebook group? It generated a lot of dialogue. My point was it was impossible to ignore Springsteen’s influence on all rock at the time.
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