July 3, 2025 • 26 mins
Just in time for the 4th of July, please enjoy this bonus Box "Lunch" with Phil & David sharing a tasty #7 sandie from Jersey Mike's and diving hungrily into Bruce Springsteen's totally boss new Tracks 2: The Lost Albums box set. They're joined by David's longtime friend and Rolling Stone colleague Rob Sheffield, also an acclaimed author (Love Is A Mix Tape and the recent Heartbreak Is The National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music) who just reviewed Tracks 2 for Rolling Stone. Here's a short and sweet conversation about a long and amazing Bruce box set by three dudes all Born in the U.S.A. To learn more about building community through food and "Somebody Feed the People," visit the Philanthropy page at philrosenthalworld.com.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Let's build the beans, chew the fat, food for thought,
jokes on tap, talking with our mouths full, having fun,
peace of cake and humble pies, serving up slice live,
leave the dressing homicide. It's naked lunch, clothing optional.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Looking before.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
I never had, I never had, I never had slone
flowers and shave, I never had.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Some long walks in the It's not a preach, not
a preid, a cold.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
I'm Phil. Yeah, I've forced you to eat Jersey Mikes. Yes,
and I think you've fallen in love with Jersey Mikes.
Speaker 5 (01:04):
I think that sandwich was excellent, excellent.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
And we're doing that in part because I am letting
my Jersey Roots show because we're It's sort of an
emergency episode where we have gone full immersion for a
day or so into the brand new Bruce Springsteen breaking news, Yes,
tracks to the lost albums. How overwhelming is it to
(01:29):
have all this Bruce in your life?
Speaker 5 (01:30):
All of a sudden, seven unreleased Bruce Springsteen albums have
been released upon us.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Yes, Now, most careers don't even include that much music.
You know, many artists go an album a few albums.
Bruce has done seven out of nowhere, so.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
We're going to talk about them today. Any initial thoughts
that you.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
Have, Yes, I am so overwhelmingly in love with this
because the artist I love these are as a kid,
the two people I would go for bootleg albums that
go into the city and try to find bootlegs of
Bob Dylan and Bruce Springston, right, and now to have him,
I'm not even breaking the law, and he's giving us
(02:14):
all this music and it's so much to explore. I
think I'll be exploring it for the rest of the year.
But in particular, there's an album called Twilight Hours, which is,
in a weird way, almost a cousin connected to a
record he did a few years ago called Western Stars,
which was sort of him doing his Jimmy Webb Glenn Campbell,
(02:36):
sort of West Coast seventies rhymestone cowboy vibe. And now
he's done this Twilight Hours, which is almost like a
great Loss Frank Sinatra Sing's bird backrack kind of album.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
Yeah, it's incredible, and I just love him trying out
new genres. I mean, this is what you might want,
something from the artists that you have admired for a
long time, But the artist must be allowed to explore
every avenue that they feel is worthy that they want
(03:12):
to explore. How does the artist know if something if
he's going to score in a certain area, if he
doesn't explore that area. So I think what we're getting
are seven full length experiments of him trying different genres
of music, right.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
And at this stage of his life. Think about what
he's done in recent years, like the Broadway show, which
right you saw before me, but I thankfully did get
to see live.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
Well, anyone can see it now on Netflix. They did
a beautiful job of capturing it on film, and.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
That took a lot of the better known songs of
his life, yes, and sort of re contexture, actualize them
in a new light and made them feel new again.
Now he's taken this sort of error because it's largely
the nineties, although I think in eighty mid eighties into
the nineties. Yeah, And he's given us a new insight
into all the music he had in his heart then.
(04:06):
And it's there's some extraordinary music.
Speaker 5 (04:09):
Isn't it astounding how prolific he is and has has
been even when we weren't looking. He said he took
the nineties where when his kids were little, and he
wanted to spend time with them, but look at he
was making seven albums.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
That's crazy. Yeah, because they went to school so he
would have a few hours in the studio. So today
we're gonna be it's not a full, you know, regular episode,
but we are going to.
Speaker 5 (04:35):
Just to talk about this, maybe play a couple.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Yes, we're gonna play some of our favorite thirty seconds
that we are legally entitled to do, I think. And
then we're gonna maybe hear from Rob Sheffield, the great
critic at Rolling Stone where I started out, and he's
a great author and he's written the review of the
album in Rolling Stone, so we wanted to maybe see
if he would check in and geek out about Bruce
with us.
Speaker 6 (05:00):
What family famoid, emoid.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Famid whereas there's just one that you can do, Follow
(05:33):
the Dream where man come on, follow the.
Speaker 6 (05:45):
Fine rob.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Okay, I want to do an introduction Rob Sheffield, please
meet Phil Rosenthal.
Speaker 7 (05:58):
Hi, Rob Phil, A legend an honor to meet check.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (06:03):
It's my pleasure.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
It's so funny. I just yesterday we got and this form.
When we're recording this, I got a link to the
box set, which I have to say listening to seven
albums on a link and trying to figure out what
you're listening to and how to listen to it, especially
for an old man like me, and me it was
(06:25):
it's been nuts. So I then read your review, which
you have always been one of my favorite writers. Even
though I'm older than you, I think I look up
to you. But please, can you just share a little
bit of what the experience was like of reviewing this
Bruce Springsteen Tracks to the Lost Albums and having to
write a review. Did you have I hope you had
(06:46):
more time than we have had to process it.
Speaker 7 (06:48):
Yeah. I actually I've had a couple months with it,
so I time to process it and live with it
and learn it and tell like, which are the albums
that really stand out as albums to me and that
stand up over time? So it is it's a ton
of music to explore in a short time.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Well, it's absolutely a crazy amount of music for a guy.
It's like it's a whole big career that we didn't have.
And one thing that hit me only today was this
is his nineties in large measure, and like the one
thing he doesn't do is do a grunge record like
none of the embarrassing obvious things that like other people
(07:27):
jump on bandwagons. He is going off in some wild directions.
Speaker 7 (07:33):
Yeah, unless he's saving it. Unless he was just it
wasn't quite ready for this box. He's saving it for
tracks three. Okay, I admit I made a Pearl Jam album.
Here it is. That's right.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
Brendan O'Brien produced them both, so it could have happened.
Speaker 7 (07:48):
Remember we used to Jule.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
We used to wait years in between his albums, right,
and it's overwhelming to get seven albums. I'm stumped on
you like.
Speaker 7 (08:01):
This, especially if you're a Bruce fan in the nineties. Yes,
it's a weird time to be a Bruce fan because
you were waiting.
Speaker 5 (08:08):
Waiting because he wasn't with the band.
Speaker 7 (08:10):
Yes, so here he's like, okay, here's my nineties I'm
releasing it in one, one shot.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
Seven albums, some of it. I have to be honest.
I've listened, you know, I haven't heard everything, but I
started the beginning. I'm trying to get through, trying to
get through, and then I realized, Okay, I think I
get what this song is within the first you know,
minute or so, and I don't finish it because this,
to be honest, this sounds a little like a song
I know, right, this sounds a little like so I'm
(08:39):
moving on, I'm moving on. And then something pops up
that's so like, oh, this is a hit. This could
be if he released an album right now with this,
this would be the single. Some of them are just
these jewels in there, So it's worth it just for that.
For I think people are gonna have so much fun
going through and finding new favorites.
Speaker 7 (09:00):
Definitely. It's so funny how different it was from Tracks One,
which was an album that probably, like you guys, I'd
waited years to hear those songs, right, There were songs
on that that I've been waiting half my life to hear,
and so much of the songs have been rumored and
legend and you know, you knew a guy who knew
a guy who knew a guy who had a version
of somewhere, and and this is so different because these
(09:25):
are entire albums where he said, yeah, I recorded this,
I could have released it. It could have been a
number one hit. It just didn't reach my finicky standards.
But do you think that he was going years at
a time without releasing any music at all, and that
he had these albums in the can ready to go.
It just it says something about what kind of lunatic
he is got.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
Well, I'll tell you something that he made me. Wou
this release realize something. Phil and I have been going
to lunch for twenty whatever five years talking about how
great Bruce is at almost every one of those lunches.
But I realized through the Bock set that we have
different angles into our love Bruce, which is like, I
(10:06):
my theory on you is you He's so you were
so into the original impact that Bruce had on you
as a rock and roll performer, that that is, to
a large extent, that's what you look for. The Eastreet
band magic, the greatest backing band.
Speaker 5 (10:22):
The thing that gets you up on your chair dancing
one hundred percent.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
And I think I have a personality quirk or I'm
happy with it, but like I once I love an artist,
I don't want anything that sounds like they're reheating the
souffle or tempting to reheat the soufle. I like to
hear a different thing. And the list gives you that well,
and the real real is like I'm the guy who
loved Western stars beyond any measure, and I love the
(10:49):
Twilight Hours? Is that what it's called? Yeah, Twilight Hours?
I love. And I realized because the exact moment I
was discovering Bruce Springsteen downstairs in my house, my dad
upstairs playing Sinatra. And what has happened is I've gotten
old enough that I want Bruce to be my Sinatra.
And he's done it. He's my burn back rack. And
it might is a bird backrack album. Oh it's so bernbackac,
(11:12):
but it's it's not like, uh, you know. The only
thing comparable I can think of is the Elvis Costello
Burt backrack rend, which I loved this. It achieves some
of those heights.
Speaker 5 (11:22):
But I want to talk to you guys about something.
This is a technical thing that is astounding to me.
People don't talk about this enough. Obviously, he's got the
gravelly rock and roll voice right like a lion, lion's
roar of a voice. How is it physiologically possible to
(11:43):
have that voice and then to turn it off and
have the smoothest voice, as if your throat wasn't torn up?
How is that possible?
Speaker 7 (11:54):
I don't know. The vocals on Twilight Hours, like on
Western Stars, are so beyond what we already knew he
could do. He's been in our lives for over fifty years,
and he's still finding new angles. He's still working on
new tricks to surprise us. Obviously, that's a sick man
we're talking about.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (12:14):
I don't even know how it's physically possible to have
those two instruments inside one throat.
Speaker 7 (12:22):
I think, like a lot of people, I heard that
song Sunday Love, which is yeah, oh I heard that song,
and then I did a double take at my screen.
I was like, I'm listening to the album, right, this
is actually Bruce Springsteen. Right, this isn't like some lost
Johnny mathis outright. It's amazing, It's incredible. I love Western Hours,
(12:42):
and to me, that is an album that I loved
it at the time. It just gets better and better.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
Western Stars, Western Stars, Yes, Oh no. I don't think
Phil has ever given it a full listen, but we had.
We did a different Bruce centric podcast like a year
and a half ago. I think it's the album I
listened to the most.
Speaker 7 (13:00):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
And here's the thing, like I thought about it in
terms of how different our tastes are, Like, I know
you we both love the Rising, right of course. But
my favorite song I go back to in my like phone,
the song You'll is like You're missing I want, I
Want sad, heartbroken after hours. It's sort of like the
posts apocalyptic version of Sinatra with on a saloon song
(13:22):
and you, I think want the Rising instinctively.
Speaker 5 (13:25):
I want I want to be uplifted, and no one
uplifts me more than him. So when I listen, that's
what I'm that that's my dream. It doesn't mean I
don't like the slower songs, and it doesn't mean I
don't love an artist that I love trying on new clothes,
which is what this is.
Speaker 8 (13:44):
You got but you got.
Speaker 5 (13:45):
I mean, there's so many changes of outfits, so to speak,
on seven albums worth right now that it I think
people should jump around and be dazzled by uh all
the tracks.
Speaker 7 (13:59):
Yeah, that's certainly a lot of fun to jump around.
I just the kind of fan I am. I like
following these as albums just because just because he's always
been so obsessed. He's always the guy who says, yes,
I know this is a hit song. It doesn't fit
on the album. I'm crackting, so I'm gonna leave it
off the album. He's honestly like a sick man that way.
The fact that it can never be overstated that he
(14:20):
had Darkness ready to go and eat and he said, yeah,
fire it's it's a guaranteed number one hit. It's gonna
be my breakthrough throng. It just doesn't fit my concept
for the album.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
It's unbelievable.
Speaker 7 (14:30):
It's the gray hairs he must have given people.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Maybe no, you maybe know you. What's the news if
(14:55):
you listened to you. I never heard you listen to
that before.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
But Rob, it's so ironic you are saying this because
I'm I'm getting on a flight first nationally and then
internationally in the next couple of days, and I can't
wait to that and put together the perfect mixtape. And
you wrote one of the great books of the last
like twenty years. Love is a mixtape life loss in
one song at a time. So I think of my
(15:55):
mixtape as emotionally important. But I will, I guess one
this is maybe on Apple Music. I will be able
to deal with the albums better than at the link.
I literally am just trying to keep the music playing.
Speaker 7 (16:10):
Absolutely well and at a link. Honestly, that's an inhuman
way to listen to music rights. It's especially with an
artist like this With Springsteen, I love how you said
it feel that what he wants to do is uplift
and what we want from him is we want to
hear him be into it. And the time has shown
that the audience, the people who those of us who
love him will go a long way with him. As
(16:32):
long as we know for a fact that he's into it,
we will trust that Nebraska. It's hard to overstate how
like freaking abrasive and unpleasant that album sounded to people
at the time. Now it's one of his most beloved albums.
At the time, it was an album that his biggest
fan said, what is he doing? Is he making fun
of us? Is he just like flatter rejecting us? But
it was a hit anyway because people want to hear
(16:53):
him be into it. And we've heard him sometimes in
the nineties when he sounded a little half arted. He
don like he wasn't into the album he was making
at the time. And what I love about this is
we hear him saying, look, I don't know if this
is a good idea or a bad idea. I haven't
run it past a focus group. I don't try how
it plays and caier. This is what I want to do,
(17:15):
and so part of the fun is going with the
crazy ideas. Honestly, the Mariachi album is one of the
most insane ideas he's ever had anybody in his life
who had any influence over him, which is clearly nobody
would have said, Bruce, maybe a Mariachi album. Maybe that
isn't worth a few It.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
Wasn't it originally called cultural appropriation the original working title, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 5 (17:35):
But an artist should be allowed to try stuff on
and that's what you're getting here.
Speaker 7 (17:40):
You know, I like it.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
I didn't think I would.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
But you don't have to put seven albums at once.
You don't have to like every song.
Speaker 7 (17:51):
Exactly.
Speaker 5 (17:51):
You you have a treasure trove, You find your treasure,
you find the stuff that you like.
Speaker 7 (17:56):
Yeah, everybody's gonna have different ones. So I love like
you David talking about making his mixtape from this, because
there is so much crazy stuff to choose from, and
you could take, you know, bits from say the Mariachi album,
bits from the Loops album, bits from the Country album,
and say, Okay, this is an album he could have
made in nineteen ninety six but didn't. And and yet
(18:17):
part of for me the fun is this guy's always
been obsessed with pacing an album, constructing an album an
album as a statement, and he's totally happy to leave
classic songs off it if it doesn't fit his concept
for the album, which is so maddening but also so inspiring.
And to me, I love this box because it's easier
when you're not going by the streams, but to go
through it album by album and say this is something
(18:39):
he actually thought. It's so weird to think of. You know,
the Mariachi album is something he was thinking about releasing
in nineteen ninety eight. You know, it's like, oh yeah,
you know, this would have been like, you know, in
the release schedule next to you know, Puffy and the
Spice Girls and hands. Yeah, and here's Bruce Springsteen's Mariachi album.
I just I just love We're getting to hear a
sick mind at work. And I'm absolutely.
Speaker 5 (18:59):
Hosy albums are cover for that album.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Well, by the way, you said the sick mind, I
have the same sick mind. In one way, he gave
an interview. I don't know if it was in Rolling Stone,
and I don't know if our friend Brian Hyatt is
writing a book song by song of this tracks too.
I hope he is. But the oh. He gave one
interview where he said, what I think about Born in
the USA. He said, basically, I don't really dig it
(19:25):
as an album. I sort of don't like what I
I don't think I really got there with Born in
the USA as a record, which it's my least favorite.
I have to say it's not when I go back
to I love it, but Downbound Train is my favorite song.
Maybe I have that yearning for a depressive, you know,
sad Bruce.
Speaker 5 (19:43):
He likes depressed.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
But yeah, were you shocked by what he said?
Speaker 7 (19:47):
I was so shocked. I was it was it was?
He said that in Rolling Stone to your friend of
mine Andy Green.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
Andy Green, he said, he I know that he's not
really satisfied with it.
Speaker 7 (19:58):
He said what he is SA it was, Yet it
wasn't the outline vision. These were the songs I had
at the time, the songs he had at that time.
Jesus like everybody had better songs somehow in nineteen eighty four,
right like these are like, these are yours?
Speaker 4 (20:13):
Probably his commercials?
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Right?
Speaker 7 (20:15):
Yes, it seems like putting down this album. It was Honestly,
it was so upsetting and angering to me as someone
who loves that album. Yes I was. I was a
teenager when that album came out. That was my first
summer with the driver's license. I love that album.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
I'll tell you what.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
He is in love.
Speaker 5 (20:30):
This is why he doesn't love it because this footage
of him practicing dancing in front of the mirror.
Speaker 7 (20:36):
I see that album. I see that. To me, it
was it was almost like David, I know you remember
this the nineteen eighty two interview he did in Rolling
Stone with James Hanky where he was very much leaning
into his okay, I'm done with the New Jersey eighties
Springsteen thing, and he actually said being in New Jersey
was like being Santa at the North Pole, right. And
(20:56):
it's like I remember reading I remember that Saturday afternoon,
sitting in my kitchen reading that interview and getting to
that paragraphic thinking, oh my god, he is out to
burn his bridges. He's basically said the most offensive thing
he can think of this is exactly his plastic ono band,
you know, like I don't believe in Jersey. I don't
believe in Clarence Well.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
And the funny thing is I am I've been I'm
from Jersey. I'm literally a ten afly boy.
Speaker 7 (21:23):
And mentioned that a time or two. David, Yes, I apologize.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
Well, my wife makes fun of me for it, so
I have to own it and embrace it. And in fact,
we are finishing our lunch today of Jersey Mike's. This
is as close as we can get in LA to
the New Jersey experience. But I had forgotten that quote.
And James jim Henke was my first boss. He brought
me along with the onwinner to Rolling Stone and I'm
going to go back and read that interview. But by
(21:48):
the way, for people who listen to our podcast, you
should read Rolling Stone. It's very important in my life.
I'm no longer writing for them unless they beg but
the that are there right now and Rob is definitely one,
and it's too dangerous for me to name the men
and women who are now writing there, but there's a
few of the I think the best writing in music
(22:10):
is far and away is going on at Rolling Stone.
And it wasn't always true. Maybe when I was running
it it wasn't as great as it is right now,
and Rob is one of the reasons. And I'm also yeah, like,
so thank you for all you doing for and for
talking Bruce with us for thank you Rob.
Speaker 7 (22:25):
We all look up to you and idolize you. David,
thank you for always wing the north Star to us.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
Uh the is is that? Where is the north star?
Speaker 7 (22:35):
North?
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Paul?
Speaker 4 (22:36):
In any case, thank you Rob, and everyone read Rob
read Rolling Stone, and uh we will be We're going
to have to try to run this episode soon because it's.
Speaker 5 (22:47):
Gonna take albums come out.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
They come out Friday, this Friday, they come out in
two days next week. We could run this, yes, in any.
Speaker 7 (22:56):
Case, like eighteen hours from now.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
Well, and by the way, how long is this eighty
four songs or something? It's three and a half hours
of music.
Speaker 7 (23:06):
It's about five hours of music, five hours I think
three thirty one minutes if I'm counting right.
Speaker 5 (23:13):
Do you think that he does the music a service
or a disservice by releasing so many tracks at once?
Speaker 7 (23:23):
It's it makes it harder. It's a more bloody minded
and stubborn and excessive statement. But that's clearly the kind
of one he wanted to do. Honestly, he could have
doled this out in the nineties when people were actually
buying albums in stores with money, and people guaranteed would
have bought them. This is the way he wanted to
do it. And again I will go with him down
(23:44):
that way. If he says, to listen to this album,
you have to walk down to this pier and be
there a quarter five and there's a fairy that will
take you to the subshop where they're playing this album
in the basement. I will do that with him.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
He should have done that.
Speaker 5 (23:55):
But you and I know, we all know that the
way people are going to consume this for the most part,
will be suddenly. It will all be on your phone,
either on Spotify or iTunes.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
It's just all going to be there.
Speaker 5 (24:11):
Good luck to you.
Speaker 7 (24:13):
Yeah, exactly. I am going to, you know, to rip
it and and burn it onto a CD and put
it on my CD player so I can tape it
onto a cassette so I can listen to it on
this thing. That's right. My wam, oh, my god. You
to listen to Springsteen, my Wakman and my boom box.
Speaker 5 (24:33):
You're you can't be you can't go home again, my friend.
You can't ron can fifteen again. I understand the desire.
Just submit to the digital age so much easier.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
Well, Rob, It's so great to see you and and
and to reconnect over Bruce. Bruce brings people together.
Speaker 7 (24:54):
Yes, he always does, he always does. Thank you for
all you to do.
Speaker 5 (24:58):
Big fans, oh Penny, fans of yours, Thank thank you, Robie, thank.
Speaker 7 (25:03):
You so much.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
The shadow touching your lips, this is the kisses of
you travel. Pull the leather strip from you here and
your black dresses fall upon the dark skinned your shoulder.
Speaker 6 (25:30):
Because eat years off and running with a dime in
mine into the bus stop to pick the buve paper
from my old.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Man and that big old bilk that sit on his.
Speaker 6 (25:50):
Lamp and steers.
Speaker 5 (25:52):
We drove through.
Speaker 6 (25:53):
Time you tasse on my hair and say sign Take
a good.
Speaker 8 (26:03):
Naked Lunch is a podcast by Phil Rosenthal and David Wilde.
Theme song and music by Brad Paisley, Produced by Will
Sterling and Ryan Tillotson, with video editing by Daniel Ferrara
and motion graphics by Ali Ahmed. Executive produced by Phil Rosenthal,
David Wilde and our consulting journalist is Pamela Chella. If
you enjoyed the show, share it with a friend, But
if you can't take my word for it, take Phil's.
Speaker 5 (26:25):
And don't forget to leave a good rating and review.
We like five stars.
Speaker 8 (26:28):
You know, thanks for listening to Naked Lunch, a lucky
Bastard's production.
Let's build the beans, chew the fat, food for thought,
jokes on tap, talking with our mouths full, having fun,
peace of cake and humble pies, serving up slice live,
leave the dressing homicide. It's naked lunch, clothing optional.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Looking before.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
I never had, I never had, I never had slone
flowers and shave, I never had.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Some long walks in the It's not a preach, not
a preid, a cold.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
I'm Phil. Yeah, I've forced you to eat Jersey Mikes. Yes,
and I think you've fallen in love with Jersey Mikes.
Speaker 5 (01:04):
I think that sandwich was excellent, excellent.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
And we're doing that in part because I am letting
my Jersey Roots show because we're It's sort of an
emergency episode where we have gone full immersion for a
day or so into the brand new Bruce Springsteen breaking news, Yes,
tracks to the lost albums. How overwhelming is it to
(01:29):
have all this Bruce in your life?
Speaker 5 (01:30):
All of a sudden, seven unreleased Bruce Springsteen albums have
been released upon us.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Yes, Now, most careers don't even include that much music.
You know, many artists go an album a few albums.
Bruce has done seven out of nowhere, so.
Speaker 5 (01:49):
We're going to talk about them today. Any initial thoughts
that you.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
Have, Yes, I am so overwhelmingly in love with this
because the artist I love these are as a kid,
the two people I would go for bootleg albums that
go into the city and try to find bootlegs of
Bob Dylan and Bruce Springston, right, and now to have him,
I'm not even breaking the law, and he's giving us
(02:14):
all this music and it's so much to explore. I
think I'll be exploring it for the rest of the year.
But in particular, there's an album called Twilight Hours, which is,
in a weird way, almost a cousin connected to a
record he did a few years ago called Western Stars,
which was sort of him doing his Jimmy Webb Glenn Campbell,
(02:36):
sort of West Coast seventies rhymestone cowboy vibe. And now
he's done this Twilight Hours, which is almost like a
great Loss Frank Sinatra Sing's bird backrack kind of album.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
Yeah, it's incredible, and I just love him trying out
new genres. I mean, this is what you might want,
something from the artists that you have admired for a
long time, But the artist must be allowed to explore
every avenue that they feel is worthy that they want
(03:12):
to explore. How does the artist know if something if
he's going to score in a certain area, if he
doesn't explore that area. So I think what we're getting
are seven full length experiments of him trying different genres
of music, right.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
And at this stage of his life. Think about what
he's done in recent years, like the Broadway show, which
right you saw before me, but I thankfully did get
to see live.
Speaker 5 (03:39):
Well, anyone can see it now on Netflix. They did
a beautiful job of capturing it on film, and.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
That took a lot of the better known songs of
his life, yes, and sort of re contexture, actualize them
in a new light and made them feel new again.
Now he's taken this sort of error because it's largely
the nineties, although I think in eighty mid eighties into
the nineties. Yeah, And he's given us a new insight
into all the music he had in his heart then.
(04:06):
And it's there's some extraordinary music.
Speaker 5 (04:09):
Isn't it astounding how prolific he is and has has
been even when we weren't looking. He said he took
the nineties where when his kids were little, and he
wanted to spend time with them, but look at he
was making seven albums.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
That's crazy. Yeah, because they went to school so he
would have a few hours in the studio. So today
we're gonna be it's not a full, you know, regular episode,
but we are going to.
Speaker 5 (04:35):
Just to talk about this, maybe play a couple.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Yes, we're gonna play some of our favorite thirty seconds
that we are legally entitled to do, I think. And
then we're gonna maybe hear from Rob Sheffield, the great
critic at Rolling Stone where I started out, and he's
a great author and he's written the review of the
album in Rolling Stone, so we wanted to maybe see
if he would check in and geek out about Bruce
with us.
Speaker 6 (05:00):
What family famoid, emoid.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Famid whereas there's just one that you can do, Follow
(05:33):
the Dream where man come on, follow the.
Speaker 6 (05:45):
Fine rob.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Okay, I want to do an introduction Rob Sheffield, please
meet Phil Rosenthal.
Speaker 7 (05:58):
Hi, Rob Phil, A legend an honor to meet check.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (06:03):
It's my pleasure.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
It's so funny. I just yesterday we got and this form.
When we're recording this, I got a link to the
box set, which I have to say listening to seven
albums on a link and trying to figure out what
you're listening to and how to listen to it, especially
for an old man like me, and me it was
(06:25):
it's been nuts. So I then read your review, which
you have always been one of my favorite writers. Even
though I'm older than you, I think I look up
to you. But please, can you just share a little
bit of what the experience was like of reviewing this
Bruce Springsteen Tracks to the Lost Albums and having to
write a review. Did you have I hope you had
(06:46):
more time than we have had to process it.
Speaker 7 (06:48):
Yeah. I actually I've had a couple months with it,
so I time to process it and live with it
and learn it and tell like, which are the albums
that really stand out as albums to me and that
stand up over time? So it is it's a ton
of music to explore in a short time.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Well, it's absolutely a crazy amount of music for a guy.
It's like it's a whole big career that we didn't have.
And one thing that hit me only today was this
is his nineties in large measure, and like the one
thing he doesn't do is do a grunge record like
none of the embarrassing obvious things that like other people
(07:27):
jump on bandwagons. He is going off in some wild directions.
Speaker 7 (07:33):
Yeah, unless he's saving it. Unless he was just it
wasn't quite ready for this box. He's saving it for
tracks three. Okay, I admit I made a Pearl Jam album.
Here it is. That's right.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
Brendan O'Brien produced them both, so it could have happened.
Speaker 7 (07:48):
Remember we used to Jule.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
We used to wait years in between his albums, right,
and it's overwhelming to get seven albums. I'm stumped on
you like.
Speaker 7 (08:01):
This, especially if you're a Bruce fan in the nineties. Yes,
it's a weird time to be a Bruce fan because
you were waiting.
Speaker 5 (08:08):
Waiting because he wasn't with the band.
Speaker 7 (08:10):
Yes, so here he's like, okay, here's my nineties I'm
releasing it in one, one shot.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
Seven albums, some of it. I have to be honest.
I've listened, you know, I haven't heard everything, but I
started the beginning. I'm trying to get through, trying to
get through, and then I realized, Okay, I think I
get what this song is within the first you know,
minute or so, and I don't finish it because this,
to be honest, this sounds a little like a song
I know, right, this sounds a little like so I'm
(08:39):
moving on, I'm moving on. And then something pops up
that's so like, oh, this is a hit. This could
be if he released an album right now with this,
this would be the single. Some of them are just
these jewels in there, So it's worth it just for that.
For I think people are gonna have so much fun
going through and finding new favorites.
Speaker 7 (09:00):
Definitely. It's so funny how different it was from Tracks One,
which was an album that probably, like you guys, I'd
waited years to hear those songs, right, There were songs
on that that I've been waiting half my life to hear,
and so much of the songs have been rumored and
legend and you know, you knew a guy who knew
a guy who knew a guy who had a version
of somewhere, and and this is so different because these
(09:25):
are entire albums where he said, yeah, I recorded this,
I could have released it. It could have been a
number one hit. It just didn't reach my finicky standards.
But do you think that he was going years at
a time without releasing any music at all, and that
he had these albums in the can ready to go.
It just it says something about what kind of lunatic
he is got.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
Well, I'll tell you something that he made me. Wou
this release realize something. Phil and I have been going
to lunch for twenty whatever five years talking about how
great Bruce is at almost every one of those lunches.
But I realized through the Bock set that we have
different angles into our love Bruce, which is like, I
(10:06):
my theory on you is you He's so you were
so into the original impact that Bruce had on you
as a rock and roll performer, that that is, to
a large extent, that's what you look for. The Eastreet
band magic, the greatest backing band.
Speaker 5 (10:22):
The thing that gets you up on your chair dancing
one hundred percent.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
And I think I have a personality quirk or I'm
happy with it, but like I once I love an artist,
I don't want anything that sounds like they're reheating the
souffle or tempting to reheat the soufle. I like to
hear a different thing. And the list gives you that well,
and the real real is like I'm the guy who
loved Western stars beyond any measure, and I love the
(10:49):
Twilight Hours? Is that what it's called? Yeah, Twilight Hours?
I love. And I realized because the exact moment I
was discovering Bruce Springsteen downstairs in my house, my dad
upstairs playing Sinatra. And what has happened is I've gotten
old enough that I want Bruce to be my Sinatra.
And he's done it. He's my burn back rack. And
it might is a bird backrack album. Oh it's so bernbackac,
(11:12):
but it's it's not like, uh, you know. The only
thing comparable I can think of is the Elvis Costello
Burt backrack rend, which I loved this. It achieves some
of those heights.
Speaker 5 (11:22):
But I want to talk to you guys about something.
This is a technical thing that is astounding to me.
People don't talk about this enough. Obviously, he's got the
gravelly rock and roll voice right like a lion, lion's
roar of a voice. How is it physiologically possible to
(11:43):
have that voice and then to turn it off and
have the smoothest voice, as if your throat wasn't torn up?
How is that possible?
Speaker 7 (11:54):
I don't know. The vocals on Twilight Hours, like on
Western Stars, are so beyond what we already knew he
could do. He's been in our lives for over fifty years,
and he's still finding new angles. He's still working on
new tricks to surprise us. Obviously, that's a sick man
we're talking about.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (12:14):
I don't even know how it's physically possible to have
those two instruments inside one throat.
Speaker 7 (12:22):
I think, like a lot of people, I heard that
song Sunday Love, which is yeah, oh I heard that song,
and then I did a double take at my screen.
I was like, I'm listening to the album, right, this
is actually Bruce Springsteen. Right, this isn't like some lost
Johnny mathis outright. It's amazing, It's incredible. I love Western Hours,
(12:42):
and to me, that is an album that I loved
it at the time. It just gets better and better.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
Western Stars, Western Stars, Yes, Oh no. I don't think
Phil has ever given it a full listen, but we had.
We did a different Bruce centric podcast like a year
and a half ago. I think it's the album I
listened to the most.
Speaker 7 (13:00):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
And here's the thing, like I thought about it in
terms of how different our tastes are, Like, I know
you we both love the Rising, right of course. But
my favorite song I go back to in my like phone,
the song You'll is like You're missing I want, I
Want sad, heartbroken after hours. It's sort of like the
posts apocalyptic version of Sinatra with on a saloon song
(13:22):
and you, I think want the Rising instinctively.
Speaker 5 (13:25):
I want I want to be uplifted, and no one
uplifts me more than him. So when I listen, that's
what I'm that that's my dream. It doesn't mean I
don't like the slower songs, and it doesn't mean I
don't love an artist that I love trying on new clothes,
which is what this is.
Speaker 8 (13:44):
You got but you got.
Speaker 5 (13:45):
I mean, there's so many changes of outfits, so to speak,
on seven albums worth right now that it I think
people should jump around and be dazzled by uh all
the tracks.
Speaker 7 (13:59):
Yeah, that's certainly a lot of fun to jump around.
I just the kind of fan I am. I like
following these as albums just because just because he's always
been so obsessed. He's always the guy who says, yes,
I know this is a hit song. It doesn't fit
on the album. I'm crackting, so I'm gonna leave it
off the album. He's honestly like a sick man that way.
The fact that it can never be overstated that he
(14:20):
had Darkness ready to go and eat and he said, yeah,
fire it's it's a guaranteed number one hit. It's gonna
be my breakthrough throng. It just doesn't fit my concept
for the album.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
It's unbelievable.
Speaker 7 (14:30):
It's the gray hairs he must have given people.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Maybe no, you maybe know you. What's the news if
(14:55):
you listened to you. I never heard you listen to
that before.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
But Rob, it's so ironic you are saying this because
I'm I'm getting on a flight first nationally and then
internationally in the next couple of days, and I can't
wait to that and put together the perfect mixtape. And
you wrote one of the great books of the last
like twenty years. Love is a mixtape life loss in
one song at a time. So I think of my
(15:55):
mixtape as emotionally important. But I will, I guess one
this is maybe on Apple Music. I will be able
to deal with the albums better than at the link.
I literally am just trying to keep the music playing.
Speaker 7 (16:10):
Absolutely well and at a link. Honestly, that's an inhuman
way to listen to music rights. It's especially with an
artist like this With Springsteen, I love how you said
it feel that what he wants to do is uplift
and what we want from him is we want to
hear him be into it. And the time has shown
that the audience, the people who those of us who
love him will go a long way with him. As
(16:32):
long as we know for a fact that he's into it,
we will trust that Nebraska. It's hard to overstate how
like freaking abrasive and unpleasant that album sounded to people
at the time. Now it's one of his most beloved albums.
At the time, it was an album that his biggest
fan said, what is he doing? Is he making fun
of us? Is he just like flatter rejecting us? But
it was a hit anyway because people want to hear
(16:53):
him be into it. And we've heard him sometimes in
the nineties when he sounded a little half arted. He
don like he wasn't into the album he was making
at the time. And what I love about this is
we hear him saying, look, I don't know if this
is a good idea or a bad idea. I haven't
run it past a focus group. I don't try how
it plays and caier. This is what I want to do,
(17:15):
and so part of the fun is going with the
crazy ideas. Honestly, the Mariachi album is one of the
most insane ideas he's ever had anybody in his life
who had any influence over him, which is clearly nobody
would have said, Bruce, maybe a Mariachi album. Maybe that
isn't worth a few It.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
Wasn't it originally called cultural appropriation the original working title, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 5 (17:35):
But an artist should be allowed to try stuff on
and that's what you're getting here.
Speaker 7 (17:40):
You know, I like it.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
I didn't think I would.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
But you don't have to put seven albums at once.
You don't have to like every song.
Speaker 7 (17:51):
Exactly.
Speaker 5 (17:51):
You you have a treasure trove, You find your treasure,
you find the stuff that you like.
Speaker 7 (17:56):
Yeah, everybody's gonna have different ones. So I love like
you David talking about making his mixtape from this, because
there is so much crazy stuff to choose from, and
you could take, you know, bits from say the Mariachi album,
bits from the Loops album, bits from the Country album,
and say, Okay, this is an album he could have
made in nineteen ninety six but didn't. And and yet
(18:17):
part of for me the fun is this guy's always
been obsessed with pacing an album, constructing an album an
album as a statement, and he's totally happy to leave
classic songs off it if it doesn't fit his concept
for the album, which is so maddening but also so inspiring.
And to me, I love this box because it's easier
when you're not going by the streams, but to go
through it album by album and say this is something
(18:39):
he actually thought. It's so weird to think of. You know,
the Mariachi album is something he was thinking about releasing
in nineteen ninety eight. You know, it's like, oh yeah,
you know, this would have been like, you know, in
the release schedule next to you know, Puffy and the
Spice Girls and hands. Yeah, and here's Bruce Springsteen's Mariachi album.
I just I just love We're getting to hear a
sick mind at work. And I'm absolutely.
Speaker 5 (18:59):
Hosy albums are cover for that album.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Well, by the way, you said the sick mind, I
have the same sick mind. In one way, he gave
an interview. I don't know if it was in Rolling Stone,
and I don't know if our friend Brian Hyatt is
writing a book song by song of this tracks too.
I hope he is. But the oh. He gave one
interview where he said, what I think about Born in
the USA. He said, basically, I don't really dig it
(19:25):
as an album. I sort of don't like what I
I don't think I really got there with Born in
the USA as a record, which it's my least favorite.
I have to say it's not when I go back
to I love it, but Downbound Train is my favorite song.
Maybe I have that yearning for a depressive, you know,
sad Bruce.
Speaker 5 (19:43):
He likes depressed.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
But yeah, were you shocked by what he said?
Speaker 7 (19:47):
I was so shocked. I was it was it was?
He said that in Rolling Stone to your friend of
mine Andy Green.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
Andy Green, he said, he I know that he's not
really satisfied with it.
Speaker 7 (19:58):
He said what he is SA it was, Yet it
wasn't the outline vision. These were the songs I had
at the time, the songs he had at that time.
Jesus like everybody had better songs somehow in nineteen eighty four,
right like these are like, these are yours?
Speaker 4 (20:13):
Probably his commercials?
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Right?
Speaker 7 (20:15):
Yes, it seems like putting down this album. It was Honestly,
it was so upsetting and angering to me as someone
who loves that album. Yes I was. I was a
teenager when that album came out. That was my first
summer with the driver's license. I love that album.
Speaker 5 (20:28):
I'll tell you what.
Speaker 4 (20:29):
He is in love.
Speaker 5 (20:30):
This is why he doesn't love it because this footage
of him practicing dancing in front of the mirror.
Speaker 7 (20:36):
I see that album. I see that. To me, it
was it was almost like David, I know you remember
this the nineteen eighty two interview he did in Rolling
Stone with James Hanky where he was very much leaning
into his okay, I'm done with the New Jersey eighties
Springsteen thing, and he actually said being in New Jersey
was like being Santa at the North Pole, right. And
(20:56):
it's like I remember reading I remember that Saturday afternoon,
sitting in my kitchen reading that interview and getting to
that paragraphic thinking, oh my god, he is out to
burn his bridges. He's basically said the most offensive thing
he can think of this is exactly his plastic ono band,
you know, like I don't believe in Jersey. I don't
believe in Clarence Well.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
And the funny thing is I am I've been I'm
from Jersey. I'm literally a ten afly boy.
Speaker 7 (21:23):
And mentioned that a time or two. David, Yes, I apologize.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
Well, my wife makes fun of me for it, so
I have to own it and embrace it. And in fact,
we are finishing our lunch today of Jersey Mike's. This
is as close as we can get in LA to
the New Jersey experience. But I had forgotten that quote.
And James jim Henke was my first boss. He brought
me along with the onwinner to Rolling Stone and I'm
going to go back and read that interview. But by
(21:48):
the way, for people who listen to our podcast, you
should read Rolling Stone. It's very important in my life.
I'm no longer writing for them unless they beg but
the that are there right now and Rob is definitely one,
and it's too dangerous for me to name the men
and women who are now writing there, but there's a
few of the I think the best writing in music
(22:10):
is far and away is going on at Rolling Stone.
And it wasn't always true. Maybe when I was running
it it wasn't as great as it is right now,
and Rob is one of the reasons. And I'm also yeah, like,
so thank you for all you doing for and for
talking Bruce with us for thank you Rob.
Speaker 7 (22:25):
We all look up to you and idolize you. David,
thank you for always wing the north Star to us.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
Uh the is is that? Where is the north star?
Speaker 7 (22:35):
North?
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Paul?
Speaker 4 (22:36):
In any case, thank you Rob, and everyone read Rob
read Rolling Stone, and uh we will be We're going
to have to try to run this episode soon because it's.
Speaker 5 (22:47):
Gonna take albums come out.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
They come out Friday, this Friday, they come out in
two days next week. We could run this, yes, in any.
Speaker 7 (22:56):
Case, like eighteen hours from now.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
Well, and by the way, how long is this eighty
four songs or something? It's three and a half hours
of music.
Speaker 7 (23:06):
It's about five hours of music, five hours I think
three thirty one minutes if I'm counting right.
Speaker 5 (23:13):
Do you think that he does the music a service
or a disservice by releasing so many tracks at once?
Speaker 7 (23:23):
It's it makes it harder. It's a more bloody minded
and stubborn and excessive statement. But that's clearly the kind
of one he wanted to do. Honestly, he could have
doled this out in the nineties when people were actually
buying albums in stores with money, and people guaranteed would
have bought them. This is the way he wanted to
do it. And again I will go with him down
(23:44):
that way. If he says, to listen to this album,
you have to walk down to this pier and be
there a quarter five and there's a fairy that will
take you to the subshop where they're playing this album
in the basement. I will do that with him.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
He should have done that.
Speaker 5 (23:55):
But you and I know, we all know that the
way people are going to consume this for the most part,
will be suddenly. It will all be on your phone,
either on Spotify or iTunes.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
It's just all going to be there.
Speaker 5 (24:11):
Good luck to you.
Speaker 7 (24:13):
Yeah, exactly. I am going to, you know, to rip
it and and burn it onto a CD and put
it on my CD player so I can tape it
onto a cassette so I can listen to it on
this thing. That's right. My wam, oh, my god. You
to listen to Springsteen, my Wakman and my boom box.
Speaker 5 (24:33):
You're you can't be you can't go home again, my friend.
You can't ron can fifteen again. I understand the desire.
Just submit to the digital age so much easier.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
Well, Rob, It's so great to see you and and
and to reconnect over Bruce. Bruce brings people together.
Speaker 7 (24:54):
Yes, he always does, he always does. Thank you for
all you to do.
Speaker 5 (24:58):
Big fans, oh Penny, fans of yours, Thank thank you, Robie, thank.
Speaker 7 (25:03):
You so much.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
The shadow touching your lips, this is the kisses of
you travel. Pull the leather strip from you here and
your black dresses fall upon the dark skinned your shoulder.
Speaker 6 (25:30):
Because eat years off and running with a dime in
mine into the bus stop to pick the buve paper
from my old.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Man and that big old bilk that sit on his.
Speaker 6 (25:50):
Lamp and steers.
Speaker 5 (25:52):
We drove through.
Speaker 6 (25:53):
Time you tasse on my hair and say sign Take
a good.
Speaker 8 (26:03):
Naked Lunch is a podcast by Phil Rosenthal and David Wilde.
Theme song and music by Brad Paisley, Produced by Will
Sterling and Ryan Tillotson, with video editing by Daniel Ferrara
and motion graphics by Ali Ahmed. Executive produced by Phil Rosenthal,
David Wilde and our consulting journalist is Pamela Chella. If
you enjoyed the show, share it with a friend, But
if you can't take my word for it, take Phil's.
Speaker 5 (26:25):
And don't forget to leave a good rating and review.
We like five stars.
Speaker 8 (26:28):
You know, thanks for listening to Naked Lunch, a lucky
Bastard's production.
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