Roll of the Dice: In Kansas

This one’s for the completists (like me).

For all the many songs Bruce has recorded or performed over the years, there are so many more that never saw the light of day.

Some of them have surfaced in old, yellowing notebooks over the years, often through on-line auctions that provide fans  with a peek into Bruce’s early songwriting process. The most notable of these are the ones Bruce transcribed in his “1968 Notebook,” many of which I’ve blogged about here (and the rest of which are topics for later essays). Those early, pre-label compositions feature mostly or fully fleshed-out lyrics, and some even have chord notations.

But here’s one that Bruce seems to have abandoned almost as soon as he started. With nothing to go one–no title, no chords, no date, barely even a verse–it’s a curiosity at best. I wouldn’t even know if its existence had this photograph not found its way to Brucebase.

Bruce seems to be teeing up some kind of environmental message, but that’s pure speculation, since we have nothing else to go by.

In Kansas, a dust storm was raging
In West Virginia, the dam was breaking
In Arizona, a million dollars in desert was being blown into the sky
And in heaven, clouds were shifting

And while the composition is undated, I would peg it circa 1971-1972, based purely on the paper itself–the rounded corners, three-hole punch, and unperforated pages match closely snapshots of the notebook(s) Bruce wrote in during that time. (If you have any additional background on this composition, I’d love to know it.)

In Kansas
Never recorded
Never performed 

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