Quick side note: I’m addressing these in their presumed chronological order were they to have been released as the albums they’ve been grouped as rather their ordering in the box.

Aside from being a fascinating look at Springsteen’s working process, Tracks II: The Lost Albums provides an insight into his archival management too. Somewhere North of Nashville is a prime example of both: work on the project that became Western Stars actually began in 2010. That places its genesis between Working on a Dream – his last album with Brendan O’Brien – and Wrecking Ball – his first with Ron Aniello. It’s also the period of time when he was rooting around in his vaults for The Promise and the archival box-set release of Darkness…

Given that theWestern Stars project didn’t reach full fruition until 2019 – the process for which we’ll get to in a few albums time – it’s indicative of how many different projects Bruce had (and, seemingly, has) on the go at anyone time. At the start of that project, in 2010, Springsteen told Aniello “come out here, we have plenty of material to work with” and handed over “a country record [that] was basically cut with musicians in LA – live with a tight band – in the 1990s.”

Quite a find I’d guess…. ish. If we go back again to the Bruce Springsteen Timeline and move the dial back to 1995 we’ll find a pretty busy period. Having popped his ‘loops’ album on the shelf, completed the Greatest Hits material and accompanying promotion, Bruce decided to leave the band to it once again and make a ‘country’ record. With two different recording setups in place and a backing band that included a couple of E Streeters, he’d work on the livelier stuff in the afternoon and save the more sombre material for the evening. The story goes that the Boss was originally making one album before the narrative voice and style of the Ghost of Tom Joad material became the more cohesive of the projects and while the ‘other’ material remained a good way to get the band warmed up, it remained in the vault instead.

All we had, until now, was a smattering of track names that were known to have been recorded at the time like ‘Tiger Rose’ and ‘Poor Side of Town’ that were presumed in the same mould as the ..Joad material. Turns out, they’re very much not. Somewhere North of Nashville wasn’t a complete album. It couldn’t have been, really, given that …Joad soon took other focus. Instead, as part of the archival process, Bruce and Aniello recruited the same players that featured on the original material – including Marty Rifkin on pedal steel guitar (if you’re ever wondering ‘how much pedal steel guitar is too much pedal steel guitar?’ this album has your answer) – and added some songs to the mix that matched the initial clutch. Songs such as ‘You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone’ and ‘Somewhere North of Nashville’ (which would be revisited and retooled again for Western Stars) are among the ‘new’ songs.

This isn’t one of the strongest albums in the set. In fact, there’s a lot of material here that could, really should, have stayed in the vaults and nobody would have minded. While it certainly fleshes out the picture of Springsteen’s output during that era and, again, gives a revealing look at his working process, this isn’t a ‘holy crap, Ghost of Tom Joad should’ve been a double album’ revelation. I don’t have to wrack my mind to chose a weak moment here, I’m afraid….

Least: Detail Man

I could’ve gone with any of the three ‘man’ songs on this set to be honest but ‘Delivery Man’ is perhaps the most redundant thematically and, as the third of the set the prospect of an over-active pedal-steel accompanied “baby I’m a double glazing selling man” or “here comes a British Gas boiler repair man baby” arrives there’s no denying the skip button comes in to play. At least ‘Delivery Man’ is funny.

The other element here is that this plays to the weakest link on the album: a few too many of these songs lean into a very particular style of ‘country tonk’ that would sound more at home soundtracking a film with Clint Eastwood and an orang-utan than they do on an album made in 1995.

But….. but, but but. This is still a Bruce Springsteen album and – as I’ve often pointed out – some of his finest songwriting occurred during this decade so beyond the dross, there’s some real gold here and – once you get past the aforementioned ‘country tonk’ – there’s the inescapable sound of a strong, tight band letting rip. You can practically picture Bruce pulling out his notebook of songs and counting them off as they tear into great versions of older material like ‘Janey Don’t You Lose Heart’ or ‘Stand On It’ (the former working beautifully) and the exquisite ‘Under A Big Sky’ which, though dating back to the ’80s as a song, is wonderful highlight.

Having initially binged through Tracks II: The Lost Albums like an addictive Netflix series, I’ve since been spending more time with them on an album by album basis and letting each one breath in its own right and asking myself ‘would I still want to buy this one if it was a stand-alone release?’

Obviously, while that’s usually a given with Bruce I’ve become a bit more selective of late, which is probably why his soul karaoke album still isn’t on my shelves. The quality of his songwriting is usually enough of a reason to pay the price of admission – even if that price is this much pedal steel guitar – and the ’90s were still fertile ground.

Having initially binged through Tracks II: The Lost Albums like an addictive Netflix series, I’ve since been spending more time with them on an album by album basis and letting each one breath in its own right and asking myself ‘would I still want to buy this one if it was a stand-alone release?’

Obviously, while that’s usually a given with Bruce I’ve become a bit more selective of late, which is probably why his soul karaoke album still isn’t on my shelves. The quality of his songwriting is usually enough of a reason to pay the price of admission – even if that price is this much pedal steel guitar – and the ’90s were still fertile ground. When he’s not rhyming ‘Tiger Rose’ with ‘Joe Blows’ some of his lyrics on here are on a par with his stronger material.

Most: Silver Mountain

As with any archival release there’s often a track that begs the ‘how was this shelved?’ On Somewhere North of Nashville that track is ‘Silver Mountain.’ It’s pure gold. It’s catchier than anything resigned to the vault has business being, it’s infectious – of all the album’s songs it’s this one that I find myself singing days after hearing – and the combination of joyous, foot-stomping energy in performance with tragic narrative of forbidden love places it more in line with a rootsy Americana than the cringe-and-pedal-steel of, say ‘Poor Side of Town.’

If you look at Springsteen’s discography you’d think that every ten years or so he has an itch to go and write and release a more acoustic leaning, serious album of character-driven narrative. In that respect Devils & Dust – recorded following a short break after touring behind The Rising – fits right in on that schedule.

One important factor to note here, though, is that this isn’t quite the case. While a couple of the songs on Devils & Dust had been heard on his Ghost of Tom Joad tour (often called the ‘Shut the fuck up tour’), the only confirmed new song on here is the title track, the rest had all been recorded by Springsteen between 1995 and 1997, so either during or immediately after Tom Joad but he’d not felt the time was right to drop another acoustic album straight away. Nor, though, did he want these songs to be resigned to the vault either. So Brendan O’Brien was on hand once again to add his enhancements and touches to the core material Springsteen had already recorded, and the new title track.

Whether we’ll ever find out what elements were added or recorded afresh is doubtful. What’s certainly true, though, is that the sonic touches added to the songs on Devils & Dust help it stand apart from Springsteen’s other such albums and lend it a fuller feeling.

So: twelve tracks, all gold? No. There’s a lot of good, solid song craft here as with all Springsteen albums but there are a few tracks that don’t hold up quite as well.

Least: Reno

There was way too much attention given to this song at the time. It’s a bland tune on the musical front and lyrically… well, if we ever wondered how miserable Springsteen thinks getting a hooker in a motel room somewhere would be at least we have the answer here. There’s no need for this song, it’s almost comical how he manages to combine references to the price of anal, blowjobs and a prostitute fingering herself with the oddest with ‘she had your ankles, I felt filled with grace.’ Guy gets a miserable experience with a hooker and distracts himself with reminisces of a former love. Not top of anyone’s wishlist for a Springsteen song.

Best: Devils & Dust

‘Long Time Comin’, ‘All I’m Thinkin’ About’, ‘All The Way Home’ are pretty strong tunes but for my money the newest song on the album is the strongest. The arrangement is probably that which benefits the most from O’Brien’s involvement and it works today as well as it did when the Iraq war was still Springsteen’s focus du jour and the song served as a signpost to wear his songwriting was heading (following a slight detour) on the next full band outing: combining his scathing view of then administration’s decision to lyrics that could be applied out of context and a great tune.

You know how it is with quotes and soundbites – sometimes their origin gets lost even when the quote itself remains pure and valid. I’ve got a sneaky feeling it was Hall of Fame related – possibly while inducting someone else – but Springsteen is on record and oft-cited as saying “I tried it [writing happy songs] in the early ’90s and it didn’t work; the public didn’t like it.”

Now the problem with this is many-fold and as we now lurch into the ’90s with this series, this feels as good an opportunity as any to address this.

Firstly – pretty sure Springsteen’s work of the previous decades is also littered with ‘happy’ songs too. I don’t think anyone is getting a lump in their throat listening to ‘I’m A Rocker’ or ‘She’s The One’ nor would they with the upbeat songs in the decades to come.

Secondly – it wasn’t the emotional nature of the songs that went unliked. It was the quality.

If there is a third point here, and I’m fairly certain of that, it’s that the ’90s were as prolific for Bruce as any other decade. We just haven’t heard most of it as it’s been shelved. I’ve seen mention, at some point, of five unreleased records from the ’90s. Even Van Zandt mentions going down to Rumson to hear a new batch of songs while the Boss fretted about not having a single yet. I haven’t spoken much about ‘Unrequited Infatuations’ yet but you have to take some elements with a pinch of salt as Van Zandt feels to have single-handedly shaped entire careers and global political movements with just a few sage words at the right time. However, given that he claims that havingtold Springsteen to revisit his Nebraska vibe resulting in The Ghost of Tom Joad, that puts this conversation in the early ’90s. Springsteen’s early ’90s seems to be more a period of second-guessing than it does of making happy songs.

Back to point 2 though…. listening back through the albums in sequence again for this series has been great. It’s also given me a different perspective on this album. I can’t remember the point in my collecting that I originally purchased Human Touch (and probably Lucky Town at the same time) but I know it wasn’t in release order. It makes it all the more evident that quality control suffered a big drop off with Human Touch. There were always lesser songs on Springsteen’s albums but Human Touch feels like the first time in which – rather than give such tunes to other artists or assign them as b-sides – the minor material makes up the bulk of the album and, while it’s not all bad, the good songs feel like outliers. After waiting four and a half years for a new Bruce Springsteen album and getting just shy of an hour’s worth of this lesser material, it’s understandable that it wasn’t well liked.

It could be that there’s a lack of chemistry between Bruce and ‘The Other Band’ that means the weaker elements of the songs can’t be carried over by great playing, but it’s not like he picked up of people that only knew a few chords. The songs are simply ineffective. There’s a song about TV, ffs. There’s also a song about feeling like a Real Man with his girl that actually contains the line “Rambo he was blowin’ ’em down”. It’s come to something when ‘Pony Boy’ isn’t the worst thing on an album.

Least: Cross My Heart

‘Cross My Heart’ is a pretty unforgettable and unremarkable tune. It doesn’t even sound like Bruce is that enthused about it and he’s the one singing it. Listening to Tracks it feels like he had half a dozen that were pretty much the same song as this and may just as well have chosen one at random to put on the finished disc. It tries to lift the beat and find momentum at points but it honestly feels more like a backing track and really sits amongst his lesser material for me.

Most: With Every Wish

Yeah, for all the mountain of filler there are some pretty good songs here that feel exactly how you’d want Springsteen to sound at the start of the ’90s. The title track is a bit of a gem. ‘Roll of the Dice’ – written with Roy Bittan – feels like it could have made a good E Street rave up given a chance.

‘With Every Wish’, though, is the rarest of things on these albums: it feels like a natural Bruce Springsteen song. The gentle nagging melody, the cautionary tale of love, the sweep of strings and a horn (courtesy of Mark Isham’s muted trumpet) that make it feel like it comes from a different, better album. It feels as close to a natural follow on from Tunnel of Love‘s material as you can get. It had me hooked the first time I heard Human Touch and still holds my attention throughout. The fact that it’s more sedate in its pace and accompaniment means not only is the production less overwrought and feel of session players absent but it suits Springsteen’s more mature songwriting themes that little bit better too.

While he’s never pulled a Landing On Water style curveball, it’s not as though Springsteen has ever really repeated an album formula since he broke through. From the success of Born To Run he dialled the production down for the leaner, meaner Darkness… while Nebraska‘s stark, acoustic desperation was an equally far cry from the sprawl of The River. Following Born In The USA‘s success with a similar stadium-pleasing muscle-bound punch would have been an easy call and the ’80s were full of similar ‘dial it up a notch for more dosh’ examples. Bruce, however, was ready to move on and look inward instead.

Tunnel of Love is one of Springsteen’s finest albums. Where he’d undoubtedly written about men and women before, this time the voice felt real and the vocabulary didn’t feel borrowed. Just as Springsteen himself got off the road and started to look at his own married life and the issues he was dealing with, he took his characters out of their cars and sat them at the table to take a long hard look at each other. As genuine and nuanced a set of songs as he’d ever release with a gorgeous sound and production.

So is there a least favourite lurking among yet another stellar collection of songs? Yup…

Least: I Ain’t Got You

I guess this is here to say ‘this isn’t another ‘rock’ album’ but ‘I Ain’t Got You’ is an odd choice for Springsteen. By all accounts it lead to the second of Springsteen’s three fights* with Steven Van Zandt when he played it for him. As SVZ put it, when Bruce played it to him: “People depend on your empathy!” I said. “It’s what you do best. They don’t want advice from Liberace or empathy from Nelson Fucking Rockefeller! You shouldn’t be writing shit like this!” While it wouldn’t be the last time Bruce wrote in this style (see Better Days’ ‘a life of leisure and a pirate’s treasure’) it’s more jarring thanks to it’s almost entire lack of musical accompaniment.

Most: One Step Up

This one’s easy for me. ‘One Step Up’ is not only an album highlight but one of my favourite Springsteen songs. A pensive ballad with haunting production that’s got just the right amount of that late-’80s vibe and a simple but effective melody that ticks away throughout that’s possibly the most on-the-nose reference to a marriage breakdown as the album would contain: ‘another fight and I slam the door on another battle in our dirty little war.’ It represents not only a break with the past – Springsteen played every instrument on the track himself with Patti Scialfa adding vocal harmonies – but a clear indication as to where his song writing would move him next, only he’d never quite the balance as perfect as this.

*For those keeping score: Fight 1 was over creative and decision making input around the sessions for Born In The USA which led to SVZ’s departure. The third was down to Springsteen’s induction into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame without the E Street Band.