Bruce Springsteen Announces Release Date and Track Listing for ‘The River’ Box Set
Bruce Springsteen's landmark The River album is being remastered and expanded for a new box set, The Ties That Bind: The River Collection, that fills four CDs and three DVDs/Blu-rays with what's being billed as a "comprehensive look" at this era in his career.
Due out Dec. 4 and available for pre-order now, The Ties That Bind offers the official debut of the original single-disc version of the album, later supplanted when Springsteen returned to the studio in an effort to give the record "the kind of unity and conceptual intensity I liked my music to have." The box adds 11 previously unreleased outtakes from The River sessions (including "Meet Me in the City," which you can stream above), 11 previously issued non-album cuts, rehearsal footage and a concert film from The River tour, a new documentary, and a coffee table book featuring hundreds of photos and a new essay from Mikal Gilmore.
The hourlong documentary, directed by Thom Zimny, includes a recently filmed interview with Springsteen, as well as acoustic performances of songs such as "Independence Day," "Point Blank" and "Wreck On The Highway." The concert film was shot in Tempe, Ariz. on Nov. 5, 1980 — the day after Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States — and the audio has been widely traded among fans over the years. In fact, the set presented here is a dozen songs and nearly an hour shorter than the bootleg CD version.
Springsteen's fifth album, The River was his first to hit No. 1, and produced his first Top 10 pop hit in "Hungry Heart" — which was just one cut from a sprawling double LP that surveyed modern America while marking the spot where, as he later said, he "first started to tackle men and women and families and marriage."
"I wanted to write songs of breadth that had some depth to them," muses Springsteen in The Ties That Bind. "And I knew I wanted to write about the place I lived and I wanted to write about social forces that I felt played through that history. I devoured quite a few history books at the time trying to get a sense of where everything came from."
Bruce Springsteen, The Ties That Bind: The River Collection
Disc 1: The River
"The Ties That Bind"
"Sherry Darling"
"Jackson Cage"
"Two Hearts"
"Independence Day"
"Hungry Heart"
"Out in the Street"
"Crush on You"
"You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)"
"I Wanna Marry You"
"The River"
Disc 2: The River
"Point Blank"
"Cadillac Ranch"
"I'm a Rocker"
"Fade Away"
"Stolen Car"
"Ramrod"
"The Price You Pay"
"Drive All Night"
"Wreck on the Highway"
Disc 3: The River Single Album
"The Ties That Bind"
"Cindy"
"Hungry Heart"
"Stolen Car" (Version 1)
"Be True"
"The River"
"You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)" (Version 1)
"The Price You Pay"
"I Wanna Marry You"
"Loose Ends"
Disc 4: The River Outtakes
Record One
"Meet Me in the City"
"The Man Who Got Away"
"Little White Lies"
"The Time That Never Was"
"Night Fire"
"Whitetown"
"Chain Lightning"
"Party Lights"
"Paradise by the 'C'"
"Stray Bullet"
"Mr. Outside"
Record Two
"Roulette"
"Restless Nights"
"Where the Bands Are"
"Dollhouse"
"Living on the Edge of the World"
"Take 'em as They Come"
"Ricky Wants a Man of Her Own"
"I Wanna Be With You"
"Mary Lou"
"Held Up Without a Gun"
"From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)"
DVD 1
The Ties That Bind (Documentary)
DVD 2
The River Tour, Tempe 1980 Part 1
"Born to Run"
"Prove It All Night"
"Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out"
"Jackson Cage"
"Two Hearts"
"The Promised Land"
"Out in the Street"
"The River"
"Badlands"
"Thunder Road"
"No Money Down"
"Cadillac Ranch"
"Hungry Heart"
"Fire"
"Sherry Darling"
"I Wanna Marry You"
"Crush on You"
"Ramrod"
"You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)"
DVD 3
The River Tour, Tempe 1980 Part 2
"Drive All Night"
"Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)"
"I'm a Rocker"
"Jungleland"
"Detroit Medley"
"Where the Bands Are" (Credits)
Bonus: The River Tour Rehersals
"Ramrod"
"Cadillac Ranch"
"Fire"
"Crush on You"
"Sherry Darling"
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