Bruce Springsteen Song Thread

[reeve21]

Originally Posted by Glennwillow

Nice job Bob! I enjoyed your cover!

I've been to Youngstown a few times...

- Glenn

Thanks very much for listening, and your encouragement as always, Glenn!

Originally Posted by TheGITM

Noodling on a lazy Sunday with the Martin...

Matt, wonderful arrangement and your performance kills, you are in total control here. This is what is must of sounded like when he was writing it!

Originally Posted by raysachs

Hadn’t checked in here lately. Mr. Paul, Bob, Matt, all really nice stuff. I wasn’t familiar with This Hard Land, but what a great Bruce tune. Mr. Paul, you manage to sound nothing like Bruce and yet capture his spirit perfectly in that tune. BTW, is that a 000-15SM you’re playing,or maybe an 00-17A? Sounds great, in either case… Bob, your vocals are really working well on these sparser Bruce tunes, Youngstown in particular. And Matt, you have an easygoing way of playing and singing that I really aspire to. And you can belt it out too, like on that Neil Young medley from the other thread. Really enjoyed all of these.

-Ray

Ray, great observations from the guy we are indebted to for starting this thread. I hope it continues!

Originally Posted by Mr. Paul

Youngstown and Thunder Road are two of my favorite live tunes by Bruce and I love seeing them stripped of the E Street wall of sound, leaving only two pearls of songwriting.

Nice job on this, Bob, and I enjoyed the images as well.

Matt, I agree with Ray in that your relaxed delivery really helps showcase this song.

And thanks, Ray. How can that tune not be "good enough" to release when it was written? What a songwriter. That is my 00-17A and it does seem to record really well.

Cheers

Hi Paul, well said about hearing the songs stripped of the bombast. As much as I love Nils Lofgren the meaning of the song can kind of get lost in a long guitar solo, and the Tom Morello solos don't really move me. I'll take the studio cut on Youngstown any day, which is rare for me.

Thanks to everyone for contributing and commenting. Remember, there are literally hundreds of more tunes in his canon!

[raysachs]

This is one of the first things I ever posted on the forum, I think a couple of years ago. One of Bruce's funkiest little tunes, off of the second album, which is, always has been, and likely always will be my favorite Bruce album. I just re-recorded it. I think I'm a little better at recording now and I definitely have more confidence in my vocals, warranted or not, but the confidence alone probably helps somewhat.

So here's my newer take on Wild Billy's Circus Story:



-Ray

[Mr. Paul]

Nice job on this hidden little gem, Ray! I can hear the difference in your singing, well done.

And, what a great record that is.

[reeve21]

Originally Posted by raysachs

This is one of the first things I ever posted on the forum, I think a couple of years ago. One of Bruce's funkiest little tunes, off of the second album, which is, always has been, and likely always will be my favorite Bruce album. I just re-recorded it. I think I'm a little better at recording now and I definitely have more confidence in my vocals, warranted or not, but the confidence alone probably helps somewhat.

So here's my newer take on Wild Billy's Circus Story:



-Ray

This is great, Ray! Absolutely my favorite recording of yours. Keep it up!

[raysachs]

Originally Posted by Mr. Paul

Nice job on this hidden little gem, Ray! I can hear the difference in your singing, well done.

And, what a great record that is.

Originally Posted by reeve21

This is great, Ray! Absolutely my favorite recording of yours. Keep it up!

Thanks for the kind words guys. I really enjoy playing this odd little song, for some reason. Just funky and off kilter enough I guess…

-Ray

[rockabilly69]

[raysachs]

Originally Posted by rockabilly69

Nice moody version. Impressive restraint on the electric, really tasteful little figures...

-Ray

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by rockabilly69

Wow, Daniel, that was really cool, really well done. Beautiful combination of acoustic and electric guitars!

- Glenn

[rockabilly69]

Originally Posted by raysachs

Nice moody version. Impressive restraint on the electric, really tasteful little figures...

-Ray

Thanks Ray, this is my favorite Bruce song!

Originally Posted by Glennwillow

Wow, Daniel, that was really cool, really well done. Beautiful combination of acoustic and electric guitars!

- Glenn

Thanks Glenn, I wasn't going to play electric, but at the last second I thought, why not? If ya got 'em, use 'em

[raysachs]

This is no great shakes, but it's something of a towering achievement for me. I've been working on this tune for quite a while. I love the tune, but a lot of the phrasing in the vocals is pretty tough to get right, particularly while playing and singing at the same time. But it's more or less impossible to play and sing separately, and maintain any feel for it, at least for me. I'd given up on it about a month or more ago, just basically walked away from it. Today I started playing it and I got through it pretty cleanly, to my surprise. I guess the time away from it helped me internalize it a bit. So I hit record. A couple of false starts, but then I got through it without any major clams. So here's my humble version of Lost In The Flood from Bruce's first album. It's a long one, kind of a long rambling story...



-Ray

[Glennwillow]

Very nice job on this, Ray!

- Glenn

[reeve21]

Ray, real nice job on a heavy lift of a tune!

[reeve21]

Originally Posted by rockabilly69

Great stuff, really like the delivery and the recording sounds great!

[Mr. Paul]

Really nice job on an overlooked Bruce masterpiece.

[rockabilly69]

Originally Posted by reeve21

Great stuff, really like the delivery and the recording sounds great!

Thanks, I really like the song, and I added it to my live set!