(Note: This is the second post in a series in which I am reviewing the seven albums in Bruce Springsteen’s “Tracks II: The Lost Albums” boxed set, separately. The set will come out on June 27.)
Of the seven albums in Bruce Springsteen’s Tracks II boxed set, Streets of Philadelphia Sessions was the one he came closest to finishing and releasing at the time when it was made (1994). A spring 1995 release was being considered.
“The problem I had then was I had made Tunnel of Love, I had made Human Touch, I had made Lucky Town: three albums about relationships in a row,” says Springsteen in the boxed set’s liner notes. “It was the early nineties, and that was a very volatile and different time in the music industry. So a fourth album — particularly a fourth, really dark album about relationships — is something that I didn’t know if the audience was ready for. So I didn’t put it out.”
The song “Streets of Philadelphia,” from the 1993 movie “Philadelphia,” had been a major hit for him. Streets of Philadelphia Sessions (which doesn’t include “Streets of Philadelphia” itself) finds Springsteen continuing to utilize the “Streets of Philadelphia” musical technique of building songs around drum loops, the way hip-hop artists do, with synthesizers often adding moody atmosphere. (Though it is not, as some have described it, a hip-hop album.)
This isn’t the flashiest type of music. Think of “Streets of Philadelphia,” or “Secret Garden” (which Springsteen later recorded with The E Street Band, but which he includes, here, in its original, very similar form). Those are songs that didn’t reach out and grab me the way some other Springsteen music has. But they did grow on me, with repeated listenings bringing their subtleties into focus. It is the same way with most of Streets of Philadelphia Sessions.
Springsteen started these recordings himself but, on many of them, added contributions from members of his 1992-93 touring band (guitarist Shane Fontayne, drummer Zachary Alford, bassist Tommy Sims) plus, on “One Beautiful Morning,” singers Patti Scialfa, Soozie Tyrell and Lisa Lowell. Viola player David Campbell and cellist Larry Corbett also contribute to “Something in the Well.”
In the liner notes, critic Erik Flannigan sums up the lyrical content, accurately, as “matters of doubt and betrayal in relationships.” In the opening track, “Blind Spot,” Springsteen establishes the territory by singing:
We inhabited each other
Like it was some kind of disease
I thought that I was flyin’
But I was crawlin’ on my knees
Everybody’s got a blind spot that brings ’em down
Everybody’s got a blind spot they can’t get around
Yet there is more to the album that that. “One Beautiful Morning” effectively evokes a moment of spiritual transcendence, and I consider “Between Heaven and Earth” to be one of Springsteen’s greatest love songs, period — and a portrait of the domestic bliss he was starting to find in his own life, during this time period. He sings:
That’s us, sunlight drifting through the house
Your hand as you smooth your blouse
That’s us, the kids in the kitchen eating
‘midst all the noisy clatter of the evening
We fall, in each other’s arms, between heaven and earth
There are, of course, connections to Springsteen’s previously released songs to be made.
“The Little Things” is a snapshot of a brief romantic encounter — a type of song Springsteen would later try out, less successfully, with “Reno” (2005), and more successfully, with “Moonlight Motel” (2019).
In the album-closing “The Farewell Party,” an ex-lover of his, with whom he had an exciting but rocky relationship, has died. He and others have come together to have some drinks, and honor her.
“I loved her like it was a disease/I came crawlin’ on my knees,” Springsteen sings, nearly repeating the album-opening lyrics of “Blind Spot.”
He keeps thinking about “you, me, and what might’ve been.”
As he rides away, on her old motorcycle, he sings that the “wind in the mesquite comes rushing over the hilltops straight into my arms.” It is a image of hope, and healing, just as it was when Springsteen used it again, in 2005 — the wounds of his past more fully healed — in “Long Time Comin’.”
The songs on Streets of Philadelphia Sessions are:
“Blind Spot”
“Maybe I Don’t Know You”
“Something in the Well”
“Waiting on the End of the World”
“The Little Things”
“We Fell Down”
“One Beautiful Morning”
“Between Heaven and Earth”
“Secret Garden”
“The Farewell Party”
For more information, visit lostalbums.net.
HERE is my review of the boxed set’s first album, “LA Garage Sessions ’83.”
HERE is my review of the boxed set’s third album, “Faithless.”
HERE is my review of the boxed set’s fourth album, “Somewhere North of Nashville.”
HERE is my review of the boxed set’s fifth album, “Inyo.”
HERE is my review of the boxed set’s sixth album, “Twilight Hours.”
HERE is my review of the boxed set’s seventh album, “Perfect World.”
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