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I've always considered this an amazing record.

The one recorded in 1978.

I've been haunted by the images of the said woman and the men who try to reach her from outside into her darkness. There's the Priest who's known her whole life it seems or the cop who visits her or the person from which Bruce writes the song, the one who knows her best the one who's locked inside the jail. She's a ghost much like the lost people from all of "Darkness" and then people who live on "The River".

Then there's the recording itself: distorted, overbright, it's overwhelming the space it inhabits.

I'd like to hear from others who admire this track and the things it reminds you of.

Thanks for reading.
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I think the version you're talking about is from a band rehearsal--from the sound of it, they just had a recorder in the middle of the room. There would be exactly zero chance of Springsteen releasing it in that condition, I would imagine.

After Essentials, there's not much quality left in the vaults. The Way, Cindy, I'm Goin' Back, Little Girl, Preacher's Daughter, Sell It...maybe Sugarland and Follow That Dream. And I wouldn't mind if they released The Promise full band. I always thought Unsatisfied Heart sounded unfinished, but that's just me.

Other than that, it would have to be new stuff for me to get excited.
Originally Posted By: bcpkid
I think the version you're talking about is from a band rehearsal--from the sound of it, they just had a recorder in the middle of the room. There would be exactly zero chance of Springsteen releasing it in that condition, I would imagine.

After Essentials, there's not much quality left in the vaults. The Way, Cindy, I'm Goin' Back, Little Girl, Preacher's Daughter, Sell It...maybe Sugarland and Follow That Dream. And I wouldn't mind if they released The Promise full band. I always thought Unsatisfied Heart sounded unfinished, but that's just me.

Other than that, it would have to be new stuff for me to get excited.


What about Breakout/All Night Long?


One of my favorites.
Originally Posted By: smokeyjoe
Originally Posted By: bcpkid
After Essentials, there's not much quality left in the vaults.


Yeah, there's probably only enough for another two or three Tracks sets.


Or a third disc to "Hardly Essential--Songs Left Off the Last Three Albums Because They Sucked THAT Much". They could fill out the rest of the disc with Seeger outtakes performed in Bruce's bathroom. If you listen close, you can almost hear the flush...
Originally Posted By: smokeyjoe
No, you could fill three discs with the WEISS/BTR/Darkness outakes. You could easily fill another three with stuff from The River, the 82 home demos, the BUSA sessions, and the country pre-TOL stuff. And God knows what else he has locked away.


I get it--you're talking outtakes, I mean unreleased originals. If you open it up to outtakes you've got plenty to fill up discs, but of the **known** originals there's not a helluva lot left.

As a couple of other folks have already alluded to in this thread, the audio of "Janey Needs A Shooter" seems a rogue item among the other material historically grouped as coming from the "Darkness Sessions".

It really sounds like a "Telegraph Hill" Barn Recording - like the large body of pre-Studio rehearsal audio from Telegraph Hill from 1979-80 that is available from different sources.

Hard to trace back where/when the hell this audio of "Janey Needs A Shooter" first "escaped" into the collector market. It seems a real loner snippet of audio with a very mysterious UBER origin.

Springsteen actually lived on that Telegraph Hill property in Holmdel from around late summer 1976 onwards. And Max Weinberg mentioned in an interview a couple of years ago that during the summer 1976 - spring 1977 period, when they were touring but unable (by court decree - re:the Appel lawsuit) to go into a real recording studio....Max confirmed that, on off days between gigs, the ESB would meet at Bruce's house and rehearse for 5-6 hours at a pop....and Max made the intriguing comment that there were a lot of Springsteen songs from those 1976-77 pre-Studio rehearsals that they never recorded (or even tried to record) during the 1977-78 Darkness Studio sessions. shocked

Usually where there is smoke there is fire....it's strange that just that snippet of "Janey" exists but no other audio from that rehearsal. Who is gonna run a recorder for just 6 minutes? Weird, very weird. Something seems missing in this puzzle.

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