Bruce Springsteen - "The Promise"

The Boss is back with a new set of previously unreleased songs.  “The Promise” contains 21 tracks that were recorded for “Darkness on the Edge of Town” but were never used. 

Of course, there is a story behind all this…

Springsteen’s first releases, “Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.” and “The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle” did not chart well and Bruce needed come out strong with his next album.  Bruce began recording “Born to Run” which would eventually prove to be his breakout album.  During the recording Bruce was not satisfied with the way “Born to Run” was progressing and replaced Mike Appel, who had produced the first two albums, with Jon Landau.  Appel was also managing Springsteen, a role that Landau would also soon take over.

“Born to Run” was released and became the success that Springsteen needed, but in 1976 Appel sued Springsteen and for the next three years The Boss was tied up in a legal battle that prevented him for recording.  When the case was eventually settled out of court Bruce and the E Street Band went back to the studio with Landau and recorded a number of tracks.  This is what has become known as the darkness sessions.

During the darkness sessions, Springsteen wrote or recorded many songs that he ended up not using on the album.  For “Darkness on the Edge of Town” Bruce used the same philosophy in selecting the tracks and their sequence as he had on “Born to Run.”  Each side (remember, this was before CD’s, when an album actually had music on both sides) began with songs that were generally hopeful and encouraging, but as the side progressed the songs would be come darker and less hopeful. 

“Darkness on the Edge of Town,” released in 1978, was not immediately the commercial success of its predecessor.  There were no high charting singles, nevertheless the album remained on the charts for 97 weeks.  Overtime the album has gained respect, in 2003 Rolling Stone listed it as #151 of the 500 greatest albums of all time and that same year VH1 also named it the 68th greatest album of all time.

Says Springsteen, "Darkness' was my 'samurai' record, stripped to the frame and ready to rumble... but the music that got left behind was substantial."  Some of the unused material became hits for other artists, such as "Because the Night" for Patti Smith, "Fire" for Robert Gordon and The Pointer Sisters, "Rendezvous" for Greg Kihn and "This Little Girl" for Gary U.S. Bonds.  These songs says Springsteen, "could have, should have, been released after 'Born To Run' and before the collection of songs that 'Darkness on the Edge of Town' became." 

“The Promise” is vintage Bruce, a time-traveling trip to the past.   It releases on Nov 17^th, in multiple versions and box sets priced for any budget, but you can listen to the CD, in its entirety for a limited time, on AOL now by clicking here.