Ok, this one is terrible. Can’t get past the 5 second mark.
Ok, this one is also pretty bad. Can’t get past the 10 second mark.
Now we’re talking. I recently said Gave it a Name was my favourite song of the 90’s. That may have been an overstatement, but the point remains: it’s beautifully written, composed, performed, sung... It breaks my heart with it’s perfect simplicity.
I remember Sad Eyes coming out as a single with some airplay when I was in high school and I thought it was pretty cool. It’s a pop love song, but a great one. Also, this older girl said she fell in love with me when she heard this song and she knew I was a fan. It wasn’t enough for her to leave her boyfriend, though...
My lover man is an odd Bruce song. It’s written from an unusual point of view. I find it, however, very appealing and mysterious. It’s beautifully sung and has a great melodic line.
It’s easy to accept that the guy who composed 57 channels, also composed Over the Rise. However, if the former is a nice, fun, novelty song, Over the Rise, has some real meaning. “Is a promise that love couldn’t keep the same as a promise broken” may be reminiscent of “is a dream a lie if it don’t come true or is it something worse?”, but it stands as one of Bruce’s best lines.
When the Lights go out is another bass-driven song. Dark, spooky and paranoid. What’s not to like?
Loose change has a beautiful falsetto (reminiscent of Letter to You’s). I love the pace on it, the theme, the singing... I could listen to it forever.
I absolutely hate Trouble in Paradise. Can’t even let him finish the “You” that opens the song. Dreadful.
Happy is probably one of Bruce’s best long songs. I mean, there’s nothing in it that’s not perfect. Actually, I struggle to find a better pure love song in his catalogue.
Part Man, Part Monkey is fun. I’m not very fond of this arrangement though I quite like the D&D tour versions.
Another bass song. I wish Bruce had released the hip hop influenced mid-90s album. I really like this and find it quite similar to stuff like Missing, which I love.
Back in Your Arms is good enough. It doesn’t help it that I think it’s a bit overrated by many fans. It’s a nice song, but I don’t think the vocal take on this version is the best Bruce could have done. It could use some more subtlety, nuance and dynamics.
Brothers under the Bridge I’m not quite sure why it was left off Tom Joad. I’m sure it’s unanimous it would have been a better fit that My best was never good enough. Love it.
And that’s it. I find this disk extremely under appreciated.
1. Leavin Train I never listen to, I don't like the sound of it, it's too much noise. 2. Seven Angels is a bit better, 7 is at least a fairy tale number. 3. Gave It a Name is... mystifying. It's one of his songs from the edge... Am I a good guy, or a bad one? 4. Sad Eyes I love. I love how he sings, the melody, the percussion. Playing hard to get story, with falsetto. I think this might be Cynthia, later on. 5. My Lover Man is another one I love, I like how it sounds, and what it is saying. I think the lyrics are really fine.
Life is short and love's a dirty game Now there's no need for our game to end Come close and we'll begin To find our beautiful selves again 6. Over the Rise is a short intermezzo, I quite like it, the beat is cool. 7. When the lights go out is another one from the edge, but I don't particularly like it. 8. Loose Change... I'm pulling a full Mario here, and am reposting my stuff.
Loose Change is a multilayered gem if doom and gloom is your style. I treasure all Springsteen's songs where the male protagonist is a rootless, numb, probably dysfunctional man. He meets the most ordinary woman, and you instantly know what's going to happen. Despite acknowledging how meaningless encounters will only provide him with feelings of deep alienation and isolation, he always makes the move. On the surface, it appears to be just another song about casual sex, but it is indeed a song about a man who's caught inside his own head. He doesn't possess the strength, or the willingness to get out of that endless cycle. Loose change I think is a metaphor for the void in his life that accompanies him constantly. No serious fan could ignore the lyrical and thematical connection between Loose Change, The Losing Kind, and Highway 29. And on Western Stars, we can again observe the same guy, an older, more died down version of the same man. Musically, the song is interesting, too. It doesn't really go anywhere, it is monotonous, repetitive. The keyboards are distant, the bass and the vocal put in the center, and on the whole, it doesn't sound like a typical Springsteen song, more like 80s alternative pop. Dr. Jekyll's work ended on HT/LT, and Mr. Hyde's on Tracks 4? 9. Trouble in Paradise is like a bad TV commercial, although I like how he switches from concrete house chores to intangible emotions. Back and forth, they intertwine. I love the line And you're sure you've seen the ending twice. 10. Happy I can't stand. I get a rash. I don't like happy Bruce, I don't like happy love songs, they make me nervous. 11. Part man part monkey is a cool song, I love how it sounded live in 88, love his candid acknowledgment of the facts of evolution. Whenever I see men doing stupid things, I simply think to myself, part man, part monkey, what can you do? 😋 12. Goin' Cali I love for its autobiographical value. Some nice lyrics there. I like how he had met his girl in a desert song. 13. Back in Your Arms is not a song I'd often listen to. I guess I wasn't properly heartbroken since Tracks came out, so the song never got to fulfill its cathartic task. And as an aside, there's something about this song that screams Celine Dion. Might be the overuse of pathos. 14. Brothers Under the Bridge, you guys said it all. Amazing song, with one of the best ending lines ever.
I quite like trouble in paradise
The Way.
I even think Girls In Their Summer Clothes, This Life and Kingdom Of Days have some Orbison.
The Brokenhearted! You are so right.
Sad Eyes and Roy Orbison? Yes, yes, yes. Bruce of course was part of the Black And White Night performance, so Bruce falling back into writing some Orbisonesque material (even if actually not for Roy as such) isn't surprising. I Wish I Were Blind has a Roy Orbison ambience to it also.
These aren't my observations, and I can't remember where I read them way back when. Doesn't Sad Eyes sound like it belongs on Roy Orbison's Mystery Girl album? Bruce recorded it a little more than a year after Roy died, and I don't know when it was written. My Lover Man would have fit onto any Tina Turner LP in the 80s. Possibly, maybe, started as demos for those artists? I don't know, but I find the idea interesting.
It's probably fair to call Leavin Train and Seven Angels generic rockers, but I prefer them to their equally generic brethren Gloria's Eyes and All Or Nothing At All.
Gave It A Name is fantastic, I would be interested to hear the 92 era recording which Bruce couldn't find that necessitated the 98 re-recording of this track. Perhaps it was also one of the bass written numbers, it's ominous tone fits with those songs.
Speaking of which, an album built around those sort of songs would've been great. Add the stripped down Soul Driver and Real World in arrangements closer to the Christic ones and we have a very different animal to what Human Touch became. A small combo (guitar, bass, drums, maybe a single keyboard) touring that material and the Lucky Town stuff is an alternate reality worth pondering.
Sad Eyes I've always really liked, although I can't pinpoint why. My Lover Man is interesting in that it's written from a woman's point of view but doesn't seem to attempt to explore or offer any real extra insight that this viewpoint could provide. (Of course, it could actually be a male / male song I guess, might just be my bias assuming it's a female's viewpoint).
Back In Your Arms is a personal favourite... I loved it from the time I saw it on the Blood Brothers documentary and was excited to see it made the Tracks box set. Even more excited to actually get it in person in 2014, given it's a rarity live so the odds of hearing it when I've only attended 6 Bruce gigs are pretty low.
Brothers Under The Bridge, as everyone seems to think, is brilliant. The way the narrator just trails off at the end... one of the great moments in the canon. Absolutely should've been on Joad in place of pretty much anything... aside from maybe Across The Border, this is my most listened to Joad era song.
Disc 3 is the head of the class in the Tracks box for me. But the other three discs are fairly level pegging, and if I'm in the mood for it Disc 4 could easily be my second favourite on any given day.
As great as Disc 2 is, I gotta give the nod to Disc 3.
Without the two generic rockers that open Disc 4 its a coaster for me. Disc 2 and a lot of Discs 1 and 3 were like finding the Holy Grail. What a gift that set was and honestly still is.
I find songs like Loose Change, Over the Rise, Sad Eyes, Gave It a Name, and Trouble in Paradise better than most of Human Touch. Loose Chance especially.
I absolutely love "Part Man, Part Monkey." I think the original live versions were better, as were the Devils & Dust tour versions, but I love this version too.
"Brothers Under the Bridge" is absolutely a stone classic.
I like several of the others but love nothing else on the disc. It's by far my least favorite disc of the set, and I'm somewhat lukewarm on the first disc.
Jeez, I'm kind of a downer, aren't I?
@Jerseyfornia I'm well impressed that you remember that I love this CD! I still do. Ironically, probably around the same time this thread was started this evening, I was sitting putting a Bruce 'anthology' playlist together on a flashdrive for the car tomorrow and realised I had inadvertently put pretty much ALL of Tracks disc 4 on it... I guess that kind of says it all. Yes, I still love Gave it a Name. I absolutely love Seven Angels... Dunno why, it's just one of those songs I have to play very loud. But I do have to agree though, Brothers Under The Bridge may well be a truly underappreciated gem.
An odd memory is that in 1999 in a bid to conquer my really bad vertigo I had taken up indoor rock climbing. I recall these indoor climbing gyms being a big thing back then. I was 3 stories up a 75 degree face, hanging essentially by my fingertips, when Sad Eyes came on the radio playing on the sound system. When I realised it was Bruce I got such a surprise I forget to keep my grip and plummeted to the bottom of the harness... My testicles never forgave me. And no, I still get scared shitless in high places and looking over the edge of something so it didn't work.
I don't think much of "Leavin' Train", though I think the opening guitar riff is canny - ;
"Seven Angels" is sound, not one I go back too often. Might be fun revisiting the Uncasville 2014 live debut in a few months;
"Gave It A Name" is good, but another one I rarely play;
I've also heard "Sad Eyes" on the radio before. It's got a really strange vibe to it that I don't necessarily love, but it makes me feeling something, so I'll give it that;
"My Lover Man" has a nice melody to it...;
Bruce's vocals in "Over The Rise" are very nice, but guess, what it's another one I rarely play (At the end of this I'll list how many times I've played these songs since I uploaded them to my MacBook in November 2013);
"When The Lights Go Out" from Christic is class, proper unsettling as out and on a day when I've really wanted to rewatch All The President's Men, playing this album track is definitely emphasising that craving. Saying that, if I'm saving and losing one, I'm getting rid of this studio version;
My thoughts on "Loose Change" are the same as "Gave It A Name", a good song with an interesting story to it, but similarly to track #3 I never play it. Also, is it just my left earphone breaking or is there a crackling throughout the song?
I. LOVE. "TROUBLE IN PARADISE". It's on the level of "Without You", maybe even above it;
I don't like "Happy", but I'd opt for it over the Pharrell Williams song;
The Archive versions are slowly getting me to enjoy "Part Man, Part Monkey", but man it can be boring sometimes. At least in this studio version he sings "monkey SUIT!" in that wild man tone;
Not a fan of "Goin' Cali", but I'm happy to know there's genuine meaning to it after reading The Book;
"Back in Your Arms" is a gem, and if anyone doubts it I'll always happily direct them to the Dublin 2016 version;
For "Brothers Under The Bridge" I'm going to do a me thing and add what I wrote about the song in my review of Belfast '96: "the song’s defining moment begins with “Come Veteran’s Day” at 3:45 and lasts until 4:28 (my advice would be to listen to 0:00 – 3:44 beforehand as well) and I always can’t help but think about the lost opportunity of the Joad album ending this way." I'm glad Bruce is including the likes of "Janey Needs a Shooter", "If I Was The Priest" and "Song For Orphans" on LTY, because "Brothers" is clear evidence that some songs shouldn't be reduced to (the last song on the last disc of) a boxset.
As for how many times I've played these songs over the last 7 years:
"Leavin' Train" (3)
"Seven Angels" (6)
"Gave It A Name" (4)
"Sad Eyes" (9)
"My Lover Man" (4)
"Over The Rise" (4)
"When The Lights Go Out" (4)
"Loose Change" (4)
"Trouble in Paradise" (5... I'm boycotting the studio until I get a live version 👀)
"Happy" (4)
"Part Man, Part Monkey" (4)
"Goin' Cali" (7)
"Back in Your Arms" (11)
"Brothers Under The Bridge" (16)
What can I say? I'm a Tracks disc 2 guy 😁
@SteveInJoburg loves Disc 4.
I think the two opening rockers are very generic and I just never could get into Sad Eyes the way most others seem to love it. Gave It A Name is fantastic.
My Lover Man is great and I wish Patti had recorded it in the 90s. His singing and the instrumentation on it remind me a lot of the Rumble Doll songs.
Over The Rise, When The Lights Go Out and Loose Change are great Human Touch era songs and might have replaced some of the lesser tracks on the album quite nicely. I'll trade Gloria's Eyes, Real Man and Pony Boy.
Trouble In Paradise is as bad as Real man, maybe worse.
Happy is great, but My Beautiful Reward is better.
Part Man, Part Monkey is one of my favorite outtakes and I searched hard back in the day to get the Europe-only CD single with this song on it.
Goin' Cali is cool.
Back In Your Arms is nice and when I'm in the mood for it, I really love it, but it's not one of his greatest heartbreak songs.
Brothers Under The Bridge. This is probably the best song left off an album since Roulette, but where Roulette might have seemed out of place on The River, Brothers Under The Bridge fits The Ghost Of Tom Joad's thematic narrative perfectly and would have been a great album closer, bringing the whole thing back to the homeless in the title track.