{"id":5534,"date":"2018-11-11T05:00:20","date_gmt":"2018-11-11T13:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/estreetshuffle.com\/?p=5534"},"modified":"2021-12-14T18:21:27","modified_gmt":"2021-12-15T02:21:27","slug":"roll-of-the-dice-the-big-payback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/estreetshuffle.com\/index.php\/2018\/11\/11\/roll-of-the-dice-the-big-payback\/","title":{"rendered":"Roll of the Dice: The Big Payback"},"content":{"rendered":"

Talk about an obscurity: “The Big Payback” is one of the least-known officially released Springsteen songs.<\/p>\n

That’s probably because it was an afterthought of sorts to\u00a0Nebraska<\/em>, recorded (along with “My Father’s House<\/a>“) in 1981, a few months after the rest of the songs that formed Bruce’s first acoustic album.<\/p>\n

It didn’t make the album, but Bruce released it in 1982 as the B-side to the the single for “Open All Night<\/a>” (a great pairing, and yes\u00a0Nebraska<\/em> did spawn singles).<\/p>\n

A decade later, Bruce released it as\u00a0another\u00a0<\/em>B-side–this time for “Leap of Faith.” Why? I have no idea.<\/p>\n

And finally, more than a decade after\u00a0that,\u00a0<\/em>Bruce finally put this dark, deceptively upbeat rockabilly outtake on an album… on the “bonus disc” of the limited-edition version of\u00a0The Essential Bruce Springsteen<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Geez. You’d think the guy was embarrassed about the song or something. It’s not as if it couldn’t have fit on\u00a0Nebraska–<\/em>it’s not even two minutes long! But the most likely reason for “The Big Payback” not making it onto Nebraska<\/em> is that it’s too close in sound\u00a0to “Open All Night.” The two songs start out virtually identically, in fact. Take a listen to the A-side:<\/p>\n