One time only: a starstruck Bruce Springsteen joins Roy Orbison and an all-star band on Orbison’s very first self-written song.
Author:
Ken Rosen (2080)
Listen to the E Street Band cover the Stax classic “Green Onions” in a rare instrumental performance.
Today’s roll of the dice: a tantalizing glimpse of a song still very much lost in the vault… if it ever got recorded at all.
From March 2018, the X Ambassadors prove their fandom by delivering a fantastic, moody cover of Bruce’s “Stolen Car.”
A curiosity of a song with an unusual release history. “A Night with the Jersey Devil” is an exercise in clever misdirection, and a sly wink from Bruce.
One time only: At a 1988 soundcheck in Tacoma, Bruce covered The Everly Brothers’ 1962 hit, “Crying in the Rain.” Listen to it inside.
A lost home demo, “Love Will Get You Down” offers us a window into Bruce’s songwriting process–but the final song (if there is one) is still locked away.
This remarkable folk arrangement of “My Lucky Day” reveals the beauty and tenderness of the song more than Bruce’s original arrangement ever did.
The ultra-rare “Man at the Top” (performed only three times ever) has surprising depth beneath its simple lyrics. Written when Bruce was on the precipice of mega-stardom, the song grapples with the nature and cost of ambition.
“Ballad of a Self-Loading Pistol” is a lost gem from the Greetings era, a precursor to “Highway 29” decades later. It deserves wider attention.