Roll of the Dice: Whitetown

We obsessive fans think we know it all.

We scour and collect and download and trade; we immerse ourselves in a sea of unreleased outtakes and demos; we pride ourselves in our ability to trace the lineage and cross-breeding in Bruce’s catalog.

And then every once in a while, Bruce completely fakes us out.

Case in point: “Whitetown.”

When Bruce and Co. announced The River anniversary box set complete with a bonus disc of unreleased outtakes, I was excited to hear finished versions of songs I was intimately familiar with in demo versions.

I was curious, too: the track list showed that both “Whitetown” and “Mr. Outside” would be included, and based on the bootleg demos, I considered the latter to be an offshoot of the former. Listen to the 1979 demo below–not only will you hear essentially the same melody as “Mr. Outside,” (along with another never-released outtake, “You Gotta Be Kind“), you’ll also hear him namechecked.

Most of the released outtakes sounded like more polished versions of the demos (some more than others), but not “Whitetown.” I’m not sure what I was expecting, but definitely not this:

If I didn’t know better, I’d peg this version of “Whitetown” as an outtake from Working on a Dream rather than The River. It certainly has the lush sound and the growing-old theme of WOAD, and that’s has modern-day singing voice too–which makes me suspect that Bruce significantly rewrote and recorded this song sometime in the last decade. Check out these lyrics–some lines are retained from the old outtake (which was never very cohesive lyrically), but it’s now a very different song, almost a re-write of “Glory Days” (set in northeast Philly to boot–the Kensington and “el” (elevated train) references give that away).

Mary Ann on the avenue
Girl all dressed up in Kensington blue
Down where the hammer falls
She’s born and bred within Whitetown walls

Each and every thing slowly passes away
She moves alone along the narrow street
From a passing car she hears the music play
Beneath the El she starts to sway

Down in Whitetown

Johnny’s just trying to make his way
He’s got a job but mister it don’t pay
He sits and counts the scars
On a stool down the end of a Whitetown bar

And the old men here piss their lives away
Drinking and joking about their cop-fighting days
Ain’t no answers here, just the past and fear
Of spending the rest of your days

Down in Whitetown

So color me surprised. And delighted: Bruce turned “Whitetown” into a wonderful song that would have been a delightful addition to Working on a Dream. It’s easily one of my favorite tracks in the River box set.

Whitetown
Recorded: ?
Released: The Ties That Bind: The River Collection (2015)
Never Performed

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