{"id":30559,"date":"1988-01-22T11:00:00","date_gmt":"1988-01-22T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/estreetshuffle.com\/?p=30559"},"modified":"2026-02-07T15:29:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T23:29:30","slug":"matr-joe-ely-and-bruce-springsteen-im-a-thousand-miles-from-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/estreetshuffle.com\/index.php\/1988\/01\/22\/matr-joe-ely-and-bruce-springsteen-im-a-thousand-miles-from-home\/","title":{"rendered":"I’m a Thousand Miles From Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

American Babylon<\/em> wasn’t Bruce’s only collaboration with a singer-songwriter named Joe in 1995.<\/p>\n

Around the same time he and Joe Grushecky were putting the finishing touches on Grushecky’s landmark album (which was just released as a 25th anniversary edition, and you should really check it out<\/a>), Bruce also made a side trip to Austin, where he contributed his vocal and keyboard talents to the opening and closing tracks of Joe Ely’s album,\u00a0Letter to Laredo<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It’s the opening track that gets all the attention, and it’s hard to argue that “All Just to Get to You” isn’t deserving of it. (We’ll take a listen to that track sometime in the next year.)\u00a0But the undeservedly overlooked final track merits some love, too.<\/p>\n

“I’m a Thousand Miles From Home” is everything “All Just to Get to You” isn’t: slow, simple, meditative, and world-weary.<\/p>\n