{"id":35845,"date":"2022-07-01T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-01T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/estreetshuffle.com\/?p=35845"},"modified":"2023-01-03T08:07:01","modified_gmt":"2023-01-03T16:07:01","slug":"roll-of-the-dice-down-in-the-hole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/estreetshuffle.com\/index.php\/2022\/07\/01\/roll-of-the-dice-down-in-the-hole\/","title":{"rendered":"Roll of the Dice: Down in the Hole"},"content":{"rendered":"

The father comes to be near his son. He digs through the smoking steel with a small Army pick and shovel. ”Where are you, boy?” he asks. It has been the same routine for months.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

— Charlie Leduff, “Still Digging for Lost Sons After a Million Tons of Pain,” <\/span>New York Times<\/em><\/span>, January 8, 2002<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the aftermath of September 11th, 2001, a community of retired police officers and firefighters spent months on end searching for their friends and family in the rubble of the World Trade Center.<\/p>\n

Because they’d spent their careers as first responders, they were afforded the privilege of being the ones to discover the remains of their sons and daughters.<\/p>\n

For months, they breathed the ash and smoke and sifted through the smoldering debris, hoping to find some semblance of closure, if not peace.\u00a0“They say the worst thing in life is having to bury a child,” wrote\u00a0New York Times\u00a0<\/em>reporter Charlie Leduff. “Worse, the fathers of ground zero say, is not being able to find that child.”<\/p>\n

Bruce Springsteen undoubtedly read that story, or some of the many others just like it, and he wrote a song about it for his upcoming album\u00a0The Rising<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“Down in the Hole” never made the album, though, because it was too thematically similar to another track he’d written and recorded. “Sometimes you end up with a choice between two things that you like a lot,” Bruce told Rolling Stone <\/em>interviewer Andy Greene, “and I think I had maybe that and ‘Empty Sky<\/a>.’\u00a0 The Rising<\/em> had fifteen songs on it and it felt long enough.”<\/p>\n

So “Down in the Hole” became one of only two known outtakes from\u00a0The Rising,\u00a0<\/em>unknown and unreferenced until Bruce released it without fanfare on his 2014 studio album,\u00a0High Hopes<\/em>. “That\u2019s basically as it was written and mixed at that time by Brendan [O’Brien].” Bruce explained to Greene. “That\u2019s sort of very original.”<\/p>\n

Original indeed. Other than the addition of some 2013 overdubs, what we hear on the\u00a0High Hopes<\/em> track is essentially the original 2002 recording, right down to the spectral backing vocals by the entire Springsteen family, including twelve-year-old Evan, eleven-year-old Jessica, and eight-year old Sam.<\/p>\n