The River

Last night in Hartford:

"Be True," the great "Fade Away" B-side, had Bruce reflecting back 30 years to when he was narrowing down songs for The River: "When you look back at the choices you've made, some of them are hard to understand. This one should have gone on—it came down to this or 'Crush on You.' We would have had to leave 'Crush on You' off... Steve says, 'Whaddaya mean we?'"

Fucking christ. Years ago I wrote my "definitive" The River sequence; now several email addresses ago, it's been lost to time. But I at least touched on it in this radio show on E Street Radio about 16 minutes in to the mp3 below (a GREAT example of what shoulda made it: Take 'Em as They Come!!!) If I had sequenced The River, only slightly more than half of it woulda made it - and that's not a slight on the album itself, but a comment on how remarkable the outtakes were (Roulette/Dollhouse/Livin On the Edge of the World/Take 'em as They Come/Be True/Mary Lou/I Wanna Be with You.)

I will also go to my grave pissed that my "What shoulda been on Born in the USA" bit here got cut off. Grrr. Enjoy anyways!

whole show.mp3 -