“You Mean So Much to Me” is a rarity: a Bruce Springsteen Band song that survived well into the E Street Band era, allowing us to trace the evolution of Bruce’s sound from 1971 to 1974. Take a listen inside.
Category: Roll of the Dice
Introduced without fanfare on the Seeger Sessions Tour, Bruce’s immigrant song grew into his summational statement and band tribute. Read the backstory and watch great performances inside.
In the summer of 1970, Steel Mill (featuring a young Bruce Springsteen) performed one of Bruce’s early galvanizing anthems. Take a listen inside.
Originally entitled “Small Town Girl,” this unusual Born in the U.S.A. outtake makes for a fine honky-tonk companion song to “Darlington County.”
At home on a break during the River Tour, Bruce wrote and recorded a charming pop trifle that never saw the light of day–but you can listen to it inside.
Nicknamed “Castaway” by bootleggers, “The Ballad” features a gorgeous Darkness-era E Street Band performance. If only we could get a reliable translation of those lyrics…
“State Trooper” is unrivaled as Bruce Springsteen’s most harrowing and terrifying song, but it can’t match the song that inspired it. Backstory and rare performances inside.
The shoulda-been “Cover Me” that never was.
Abandoned almost as soon as Bruce began it, “In Kansas” provides a glimpse of what might have developed into an early epic.
Bruce’s two-minute character study demo is a fascinating pre-Greetings curiosity.