We're about to get a vast treasure trove of entire albums that Bruce Springsteen recorded and then never released. Next month, he'll drop Tracks II: The Lost Albums, a box set of seven complete LPs that he recorded at different points in his career, mostly in the '90s. Springsteen has released a handful of early singles -- "Rain In The River," "Blind Side," "Faithless" -- and they all show vastly different sides of his sound. Now, we get a whole new perspective on the man in the form of "Repo Man," a jumped-up honky-tonk number from his as-yet-unreleased '90s country album Somewhere North Of Nashville.
When I say that Bruce Springsteen recorded a '90s country album, I don't mean that me made a Garth Brooks record. That would've been fascinating, but that's not what happened. Instead, Springsteen recorded Somewhere North Of Nashville at the same time that he was making his acclaimed 1995 LP The Ghost Of Tom Joad, and it features all the same musicians. On Somewhere North Of Nashville, Springsteen was inspired by faster old-school country and rockabilly. He and his collaborators recorded live in studio, just as Springsteen did with the E Street Band on Born In The USA. In fact, Somewhere North Of Nashville includes two songs originally slated for that record, "Stand On It" and "Janey Don't You Lose Heart."
I am sorry to report that "Repo Man" is not about the movie -- not directly, anyway. It would've been cool to hear him singing about Emilio Estevez and Harry Dean Stanton. Instead, Springsteen hollers about the trials of life as a repossession agent, which I guess is at least partly what the movie is about. (If he has a line about a mysterious briefcase full of alien technology, I missed it.) But the song is impressively raw and energetic, and you can practically hear him and his band blowing off steam. In a press release, Springsteen says:
What happened was I wrote all these country songs at the same time I wrote The Ghost Of Tom Joad. Those sessions completely overlap each other. I’m singing "Repo Man" in the afternoon and "The Line" at night. So the country record got made right along with The Ghost Of Tom Joad. "Streets Of Philadelphia" got me connected to my socially conscious or topical songwriting, so that’s where The Ghost Of Tom Joad came from. But at the same time, I had this country streak that was also running through those sessions, and I ended up making a country record on the side.
Check out "Repo Man" below.
Meanwhile Springsteen and the E Street Band opened their Land Of Hope And Dreams European Tour at Manchester, England's Co-Op Live on Wednesday night, playing 2020's "Rainmaker" live for the first time and 1995's "Murder Incorporated" for the first time since 2017. "The America I love, the America I’ve written about, and has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration," said the Boss when introducing the 1999 song that gave the tour its name. "Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experience to rise with us, raise your voices against the authoritarianism, and let freedom ring."
Wow #BruceSpringsteen Bruce Springsteen just battered Trump unbelievable moment at start of Manchester tour pic.twitter.com/JYfL4G5KQE
— DORTIE (@TonyDortie) May 14, 2025
Tracks II: The Lost Albums is out 6/27 on Sony Music. This might be a good opportunity to point out that Eric Church topped the country charts in 2011 with a song called "Springsteen."
