LA Garage Sessions ‘83 |
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Released: June 27, 2025 as part of Tracks II box set Recorded: 1983 Peak: -- Sales (in millions): -- Genre: classic rock |
Tracks:Click on a song titled for more details.
Total Running Time: 67:24 About the Album:In 1982, Bruce Springsteen released Nebraska, a collection of demos he made on a four-track recorder in his bedroom. Two years later, Born in the U.S.A. took over the world with its big, booming sound and massive sales fueled by seven top-10 singles. This collection, featured on the 2025 box set Tracks II: The Lost Albums, fills in the gaps, explaining how the Boss could so dramatically change his sound from one album to the next.He was tempted to release this in 1983 on the heels of Nebraska, but manager Jon Landau “had several concerns. One album of lo-fi, acoustic demos might be accepted by the fans and industry as a quirky artistic experiment, but two consecutive albums like that would threaten the loyalty of that fan base.” 33-98 It would “probably only sell a half a million instead of the multiple millions a rock ‘n’ roll album might sell.” 33-98 Springsteen was fine with that. He “sensed that a ‘loud noises’ album at this point in his career would stir up a storm of attention that he wasn’t comfortable with. It would be worse, he knew, than the fan and media hysteria churned up by Born to Run or The River. He hadn’t enjoyed it before and he wouldn’t enjoy it again. But Landau countered by arguing that their common heroes – James Brown, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Otis Redding, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and Elvis Presley – had never shied away from making a big noise, from going after the big audience…That’s what Springsteen had signed up for when he signed with Columbia Records.” 33-99 The LA Garage Sessions ‘83 was shelved. The collection offers “a glimpse into “the insanely prolific and inspired stretch between” SG the two albums. It grew out of several months in 1983 in which Springsteen crafted songs in his home recording station in Los Angeles. His engineer, Toby Scott, set up “a state-of-the-art, eight-track recorder…in Springsteen’s garage.” 33-88 While Springsteen had some help from his then-guitar tech Mike Batlan, these were mostly solo efforts with some added rhythm sections and synthesizers. NJ He also had a drum machine “to give himself a steady rhythm guide.” 33-88 Thematically, “this is an album of hope, heartbreak, memory, and moral reckoning.” NJ The overall sound “didn’t quite fit the stark solitude of Nebraska or the stadium-sized defiance of Born in the U.S.A.” SK They mostly “lean more toward the lo-fi austerity and troubling heartland tales of Nebraska” NJ but “the most interesting stuff is when the scrappy home recording approach starts to gesture toward the big, synth-laden sound Springsteen would eventually adopt for Born in the U.S.A..” SG “Songs like Richfield Whistle, Seven Tears, Fugitive’s Dream, and Black Mountain Ballad show “the same melancholic railroad moan that washes through Born in the USA’s darker passages, most notably Downbound Train.” MJ While fans will continue to beg for the full-electric version of Nebraska, which supposedly exists (and could appear in the recently revealed Tracks III set), this contemplative, harmonica-laden record is a very welcome addition.” NJ The SongsHere are insights into individual tracks. |
Follow That DreamBruce Springsteen |
Writer(s): Fred Wise, Ben Weisman Recorded: 1983 Released: LA Garage Sessions ‘83 (1983/2025) About the Song:“A luminous lost classic from Bruce finally gets its due.” SK This is a reimagined version of the Elvis song released from his 1962 movie of the same name. The original was “tossed off in less than two minutes to a bouncy bossa nova beat; the song was released only on an EP, became a #15 single and then was forgotten by most of the world.” 33-89However, “Bruce heard in the song…that quest for the American dream, a quest so determined that it couldn’t be blocked by any obstacle or opposition.” 33-90 Springsteen did like Woody Guthrie had so often done and took a song from his childhood and reworked it with new lyrics and a new arrangement. Springsteen’s version is “more somber, almost like a lullaby, both lamenting and tender. ‘If your heart is restless from waiting so long / If you’re tired and weary and you can’t go on / If a distant dream is calling you / Then there’s just one thing you can do.’” SK He started playing it live in 1981 – “he’s done it live 51 times according to Brucebase, most recently in 2017.” SK The song was seriously considered for the Born in the U.S.A. album. 33-90 It’s “a perfect opener” SK for LA Garage Sessions ‘83. |
Don’t Back Down on Our LoveBruce Springsteen |
Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 1983 Released: LA Garage Sessions ‘83 (1983/2025) About the Song:This is another song that has been “circulating in bootlegs for years.” SK This one is “more frantic and repetitive” SK than that version. It “is both a throwback and evidence of Springsteen striding forward. He eagerly tinkers with soul, pop and rock while encouraging strength amid struggles.” UT It borrows “a guitar tone from the Beach Boys” UT and serves up “a charmingly repetitive chorus.” UT |
Little Girl Like YouBruce Springsteen |
Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 1983 Released: LA Garage Sessions ‘83 (1983/2025) About the Song:This song about a “dizzying marriage proposal” 33-92 “took on the jittery briskness and high-pitched pop hooks of Buddy Holly.” 33-92 It “is a sweet and frantic track, but nothing special.” SK |
Johnny Bye-ByeBruce Springsteen |
Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen, Chuck Berry Recorded: March 9 and 24, 1983 at Thrill Hill Recording in Los Angeles, California Released: 2/6/85 as B-side of “I’m on Fire,” Tracks (box set, 1998), LA Garage Sessions ’83 (1983/2025), Tracks (box set, 1998) About the Song:Chuck Berry wrote “Bye Bye Johnny” as a sequel to his iconic “Johnny B. Goode” and released it as a single in 1961. “It was the story of a mother sending her musician son off to Hollywood to star in a movie.” 33-90 “It’s a song full of hope, but for someone like Springsteen…it was a story fraught with foreboding. So he rewrote it as a different kind of farewell, as a goodbye to [Elvis] Presley after he died in 1977.” 33-91 “He slowed it down a bit, but it still had the twitchy tang of Berry’s (and Presley’s) hillbilly-blues rockers.” 33-91The version on LA Garage Sessions ‘83 “has some different lyrics and slightly different feel with some nature sounds.” SK It “feels more related to ‘County Fair’ on this set, both of those acting as sonic cousins to ‘Used Cars’ from Nebraska.” SK |
SugarlandBruce Springsteen |
Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 1983 Released: LA Garage Sessions ‘83 (1983/2025) About the Song:This is another bootleg fan favorite similar to songs Bruce wrote at the time that were released on the first Tracks box set. SK It “entered the pantheon of known almost-rans via two performances on the Born in the U.S.A. tour, at 1984 stops in Ames, Iowa, and Lincoln, Neb. These were regarded as particularly great shows, with unofficial recordings circulating broadly throughout the fan community back in the day.” NPRThis is “a finely crafted tale of the human toll of the 1980s farm crisis.” RS It is inspired by “John Ford’s 1940 film adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath.” 33-70 It’s about a married, Midwestern farm couple “besieged with doubt and debt” NPR because the prices of grain are plummeting. “The narrator sits at the Sugarland bar, bemoaning his troubles and his fate.” SK He tells his drinking buddies he’s considering setting his fields on fire. 33-92 “What makes this song exceptional is its concision and compression; Springsteen pared everything about the story down to bone, conveying the sharp edges of desperation. But the images he presents are still vivid, stark and believable, sung over a sparse background of acoustic guitars and some slight keyboard notes that don't sweeten it, but rather highlight the song's inherent bleakness.” NPR The music was recycled from “Seven Tears.” 33-92 “Like most of L.A. Garage Sessions ’83, this version of ‘Sugarland’ lands somewhere between a demo and a full-fledged studio recording, with simple acoustic guitar strumming bolstered by a subtle drum-machine pattern and a bubbling keyboard riff. Later in 1983, Springsteen attempted the song with the E Street Band, and it appeared on at least one proposed track listing for Born in the U.S.A.” RS |
Seven TearsBruce Springsteen |
Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 1983 Released: LA Garage Sessions ‘83 (1983/2025), Lost and Found (2025) About the Song:This one is “too Buddy Holly-esque.” SK It “uses a Holly-ish rockabilly riff to tell the story of a man who had it all – wife, child, home, job – but lost it when he was sentenced to seven years in prison” 33-92 “after an ill-considered hold-up and has his cheek tattooed with teardrops, one for each year of his sentence.” 33-68There are other songs that are “much better representations of the period.” SK “’Cindy’ from the Ties That Bind set is the best track in this style –glockenspiel and ‘50s style guitar riffing.” SK |
Fugitive’s DreamBruce Springsteen |
Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 1983 Released: LA Garage Sessions ‘83 (1983/2025) About the Song:Josh Kitchen calls this “a true lost classic” SK and the “undeniable standout of the Tracks II box set.” SK He argues that if it had been released in its time “it would no doubt be considered a career highlight and a fixture on every definitive hits collection he’s ever released.” SKIt’s a “slow, brodding song” 33-89 about “a classic Springsteen figure: a man who’s transgressed – whether through criminal acts or moral failings – and is now trying to build a life in the wreckage.” SK He left “his family to escape his unsavory past deeds” NJ but now a stranger threatens to expose the narrator’s secrets, which may be “a repressed love – a same-sex connection the narrator can’t understand or express,” SK as suggested by the lines “One night I rose from a dreamless sleep and I went to his bed / I watched as he lay sleeping / I reached out and touched his cheek… I tried to understand why I felt these things that I felt.” This isn’t just about the narrator’s “fear of being exposed – it’s about the pain of denying one’s truest self.” SK “Musically, ‘Fugitive’s Dream’ rides a hypnotic, nervous guitar riff – like a more aggressive cousin to Nebraska’s ‘State Trooper.’ A tense synth solo slices through the middle of the track, and the whole thing pulses forward with a sense of urgency and dread.” SK “The tune also appears to interpolate the Civil War-era song ‘When Johnny Comes Marching Home.’” NJ This “is a brilliant glimpse into Bruce’s fragile psyche during one of the most creatively fertile and emotionally exposed periods of his career.” SK “Anyone familiar with where Springsteen was emotionally at the time can hear the weight in this song. In the early ‘80s, Bruce was battling intense depression tied to his upbringing, his fraught relationship with his father, and the looming pressures of fame. He was, by many accounts, on the edge – and this song feels like it.” SK With “its haunting power” SK this is a song that “demands to be returned to, re-read, re-felt.” SK |
Black Mountain BalladBruce Springsteen |
Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 1983 Released: LA Garage Sessions ‘83 (1983/2025) About the Song:“Like so many songs from this era, Black Mountain Ballad is another where Bruce wears the depression and anxiety he was feeling at this time on his sleeve. ‘I wanna weep but the tears won’t run / I wanna sleep but the sleep won’t come’…Luckily, he got help, and he is who he is today, but the art he made during that period is outstanding, and ‘Black Mountain Ballad’ is another sweet sounding song about what makes him great. It would have worked on The River.” SK |
Jim DeerBruce Springsteen |
Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 1983 Released: LA Garage Sessions ‘83 (1983/2025) About the Song:Tracks like “Richfield Whistle and Jim Deer pick up where Nebraska left off.” SG This one is “an acoustic stomper, with just Bruce, his guitar, and harmonica.” SK “It’s a track akin to ‘Johnny 99’ from Nebraska about a guy who is in prison, recounting the life he once had. It’s not bad, but definitely feels like a throwaway. It has fun lyrics, ‘I stole from the law / I stole from the poor / I probably stole from you, sir!” SK |
County FairBruce Springsteen |
Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 1983 Released: LA Garage Sessions ‘83 (1983/2025), The Essential (2003) About the Song:Springsteen offers “desolate folk balladry” MJ on this “evocative, exceptional composition” NPR that was first released in 2003 on three-disc version of The Essential Bruce Springsteen. The version appearing on LA Garage Sessions ‘83 “is cleaned up and crisp.” SK This is “a lovely country song with gentle, pastoral music to match its lyrics.” 33-89 While it was actually an outtake from Born in the U.S.A., “if there’s ever a song that screams Nebraska, it’s this one.” MM“It’s a simple song about a small town’s county fair, and how ‘everybody in town will be there.’” MM “Springsteen perfectly describes a summer memory…capturing it like a small child running after a firefly and catching it in a bottle. There’s the sound of crickets, a lightly swinging bass line and a gentle organ motif while he narrates the sights and sounds and what they mean to someone who lives there and waits for this event every year.” NPR This is Springsteen’s “purest example of…musical set dressing” MM in which he uses “sound effects to create a feelilng.” MM He sings, “‘You can feel somethin’ happenin’ in the air,’…and he’s right – you absolutely can. It’s simple, vivid, perfect and somehow heart-rending, the music and lyrics working together to create a believable tableau.” NPR Just like the subject matter, there’s a hometown intimacy to the recording. Bruce plays the guitar, bass, keyboards and drums on this one, and he intentionally doesn’t clean up the recording to make it sound more professional.” MM “It feels just like hearing a band playing at the local county fair, perhaps the made-up James Young and the Immortal Ones who are name dropped in the song. You can smell the funnel cake and feel the breeze on your face as the sun sets. As the song slows down and the fair has ended, the narrator sits in the car with his girlfriend and says ‘Oh I wish I never had to let this moment go.’ It’s a brilliant little snapshot of nostalgia.” MM |
One LoveBruce Springsteen |
Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 1983 Released: LA Garage Sessions ‘83 (1983/2025) About the Song:The Garage Sessions can be a mixed bag since “some of the songs sound unfinished and more like demos. Where tracks like ‘County Fair,’ ‘Unsatisfied Heart,’ and ‘Richfield Whistle’ feel fully realized and fleshed out, a song like One Love feels half-baked – mediocre compared to the rest of songs of the time. Nice riff though.” SK |
Don’t Back DownBruce Springsteen |
Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 1983 Released: LA Garage Sessions ‘83 (1983/2025) About the Song:Most of the songs on this collection “seem perfectly placed in the spare, one-man-band approach Springsteen took in recording them—something between the austerity of Nebraska and the over-the-top, stadium-ready tack of Born in the U.S.A.” UCR Don’t Back Down, though, with its “cool heartland rock vibes” SK “could definitely use a band to more fully flesh out its sound.” UCR It “could’ve been a classic if filled out the way other songs on Born in the U.S.A. are.” SK“Aside from that quibble, it’s just a way-cool early-‘80s Bruce Springsteen song – sort of a cross between ‘I’m Goin’ Down’ and ‘Pink Cadillac,’ with an insistent monotone melody in the verses and the occasional drum/vocal breakdown that slides into the chorus. Perhaps some day he’ll dust this one off live and we’ll get to hear it as it should be heard, powered by the E Street Band.” UCR He actually recycled the rockabilly riff (sped up here) from “From Small Things Big Things Come,” a song recorded during sessions for The River that he gave to Dave Edmunds. 33-92 |
Richfield WhistleBruce Springsteen |
Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 1983 Released: LA Garage Sessions ‘83 (1983/2025) About the Song:At nearly seven minutes, this is “sort of a mini epic.” SK It is “a fantastic song that could have been on Nebraska. It feels like a perfect bridge between that record and Born in the U.S.A.” SK With an “extend outro [that] reminds of ‘Drive All Night’” SK it also feels like it could have been on The River. SKSpringsteen originally wrote “James Lincoln Deere” about a character who is “thrown out of work when his Indiana factory shuts down, so he takes to holding up grocery stores with his brother-in-law Sill. He shoots a kid at a Stop & Shop and winds up in Richfield Prison.” 33-67 Springsteen rewrote the song as “Richfield Whistle” about a protagonist “named James Lucas, and he’s been paroled from Richfield Prison. He gets a job on a loading dock but can’t resist the temptation to steal from the inventory. He gets fired and is soon tempted to rob a late-night liquor store.” 33-68 |
The KlansmanBruce Springsteen |
Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 1983 Released: LA Garage Sessions ‘83 (1983/2025) About the Song:This “ominous number” BB circulated via bootlegs for years and many fans assumed it would never see the light of day. SK “The song is an indictment of racism and the way it has always been prevalent in American history and culture.” SK It “took its title from Terence Young’s 1974 film adaptation of William Bradford Huie’s book.” 33-71It is a “disquieting first-person song about a racist who dreams of raising his son in the KKK.” UP “The song ends without a resolution for the boy. Will he defy his father and brother and walk away from the white supremacy that controls his family? We never know – and it’s that unknowing that makes ‘The Klansman’ an important cautionary tale in Bruce’s catalogue.” SK It “captures the demented logic of a racist as chillingly as ‘Nebraska’ captured [the twisted mind of serial killer] Charle Starkweather.” 33-93 This is another song built off the riff of “From Small Things Big Things Come,” although this time its slowed down. 33-93 “This harrowing, piercing look at generational hate” BB that best “serves as a proper bridge between the acoustic immediacy of Nebraska and the nascent synth explorations on Born in the U.S.A.” BB This is “sung by a young boy in his daddy’s kitchen who finds the recruitment pitch by a Ku Klux Klansman very seductive, because he has no context. But we have that context and that makes the seduction very creepy indeed.” 33-62 “’The Klansman’ is a fascinating snapshot of Springsteen working in the space between those two classics, exploring the dark underbelly of America while tinkering with drum machines and synths.” UP “Given the fervid current US political climate and Springsteen’s place therein, it will be interesting to see how this one lands.” MJ |
Unsatisfied HeartBruce Springsteen |
Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 1983 Released: LA Garage Sessions ‘83 (1983/2025) About the Song:That song and “the astonishing Unsatisfied Heart, an arpeggiated drone rocker,” MJ “tussle with the best things he’s ever released.” SG This is another track that has been available as a bootleg for years and built a cult following. In 2018, the War on Drugs even covered the song. SK “It’s hard to see why this one went without an official release for so long.” SK It’s perfectly Brucey” SK and could have even been a single. SK This version features “a great backing band, drums, guitar, and the rest.” SKIt features a “riff that feels like it grew into Downbound Train from Born in the U.S.A.” SK and “stands alongside ‘Stolen Car’ and ‘Cautious Man’ in its unsparing depiction of a man in existential crisis.” RS “This noir-ish tale of a man haunted by his past” RS tells the same tale as depicted in “Fugitive’s Dream,” even including some of the same lyrics. RS Here, though, it sounds “less defeated and more restless.” 33-92 The song strangely anticipates the plot of the movie A History of Violence.” RS In addition, it “cuts close to the core of the personal issues Springsteen was grappling with in 1983.” RS “Newly in therapy, Springsteen was finally facing the darkness of his childhood.” RS “In essence, Springsteen had to think about his entire life…before he could allow himself to release the big rock anthems he’d already recorded for Born in the U.S.A.” RS |
Shut Out the LightBruce Springsteen |
Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 1/19/1983 at Thrill Hill Recording in Los Angeles, California, and May 1983 (?) at the Hit Factory in New York Released: 10/30/84 as B-side of “Born in the U.S.A.,” LA Garage Sessions ‘83 (1983/2025), Tracks (box set, 1998) About the Song:Shut Out the Light is “a meaningful and poignant song” MM that “tells the story of Johnson Leneir, a returning Vietnam solider whose story is not unlike that of Mike Vronsky (Robert De Niro) in The Deer Hunter Johnson returns home, but he lies awake at night motionless, afraid of the dark. Everyone tries to welcome him back and pretend like things are how they used to be, but he knows they never will be.” MM“The song’s final verse is one of the most haunting Bruce has ever written, but also one of the most beautiful…‘Well deep in a dark forest, a forest filled with rain / Beyond a stretch of Maryland pines there’s a river without a name / In the cold black water Johnson Leneir stands / He stares across the lights of the city and dreams of where he’s been.’ Can you imagine any other artist writing a verse that beautiful and deciding to leave the song off an album?” MM “It’s left ambiguous whether or not Johnson goes through with drowning himself, but things sure aren’t looking good. The longer bootleg version that circulated before the Tracks release does in fact confirm that he goes through with it, and also includes a verse about drug use, so if you didn’t think this song could be even darker, you’d be wrong.” MM |
Fugitives’s Dream (Ballad)Bruce Springsteen |
Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 1983 Released: LA Garage Sessions ‘83 (1983/2025) About the Song:This is a “less exciting and more plodding version” SK of the song appearing earlier on this collection which Josh Kitchen called the best song on the entire Tracks II box set. |
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