This.<\/p>\n
This<\/em> is what should have been on\u00a0Born in the U.S.A.\u00a0<\/em>instead of “Cover Me.”<\/p>\n Even Bruce must have recognized at some point just that “Cover Me” wasn’t ready for prime time, because he continued to work on the song long, long after he recorded the version that’s on the album.<\/p>\n In early June of 1983–almost a year and a half after he recorded “Cover Me,” Bruce went back into the studio with the E Street Band and recorded a much, much<\/em> stronger version of it. While the lyrics were still largely the same, Bruce stripped out the paranoid urgency, dialed up the tenderness, and set it all against one of his best mid-eighties backing tracks (a melody so good, in fact, that he’d nick it a couple of weeks later for “Janey, Don’t You Lose Heart”).<\/p>\n The result: “Drop on Down and Cover Me,” which I’d rank at or very near the top of the still-missing-in-action outtakes crying out for an official release.<\/p>\n Take a listen:<\/p>\n