Bruce Springsteen has released “Blind Spot,” the latest song from the coveted box set of lost albums, Tracks II, that he announced this month. “Blind Spot” is the first song ever to be released from the Streets of Philadelphia Sessions, an album to among fans as the “loops record.” Listen below.
Springsteen recorded the 10-song album in the wake of its Oscar-winning title track. Inspired by West Coast hip-hop, he experimented with drum samples before creating his own bank of original “loops” with engineer Toby Scott. As such, Springsteen is the primary player on the whole record, though additional input comes from Patti Scialfa, Soozie Tyrell, Lisa Lowell, and his 1992-1993 touring band. Completed, mixed, and slated for a 1995 release, the album wound up being shelved when Springsteen decided to reunite with the E Street Band.
The song’s lyrics concern doubt and betrayal in relationships, Springsteen said in a press release. “That was just the theme that I locked in on at that moment. I don’t really know why. Patti and I, we were having a great time in California. But sometimes if you lock into one song you like, then you follow that thread. I had ‘Blind Spot,’ and I followed that thread through the rest of the record.”
Of the decision to shelve the record, he went on, “I said, ‘Well, maybe it’s time to just do something with the band, or remind the fans of the band or that part of my work life.’ So that’s where we went. But I always really liked Streets of Philadelphia Sessions… during the Broadway show, I thought of putting it out [as a standalone release]. I always put them away, but I don’t throw them away.”
Tracks II arrives June 27, presenting a trove of seven albums of never-before-heard Springsteen music spanning from 1983 to 2018. With the initial announcement, he shared “Rain in the River,” which appears on the Perfect World collection—the one LP on Tracks II that was not originally conceived as a standalone album. The two songs shared so far are the first of 74 never-before-heard tracks that form the bulk of the bumper box set.
