"I was looking for something darker." Bruce Springsteen reveals that he's never been happy with his world-conquering Born In The USA album, and says the 30-million-selling collection didn't "connect" like his other records

Bruce Springsteen, and Born In The USA — (Image credit: Richard McCaffrey/ Michael Ochs Archive/ Getty Images)

Christmas is coming early for Bruce Springsteen fans this year, with the release, on June 27, of Tracks II: The Lost Albums, a set of seven complete, unheard records that the New Jersey superstar committed to tape between 1983 and 2018.

While diehard Springsteen fans will doubtless rejoice in the opportunity to hear 74 never-before-heard songs spread across the box set tracklisting, they may be a little surprised, when perusing the accompanying liner notes, to read that the acclaimed singer-songwriter "weren’t happy” with his hugely-successful, mainstream-crushing 1984 album Born In The USA and his belief that the record didn’t “connect” like his other albums.

Asked, in a new interview with Rolling Stone, why he holds this opinion, Springsteen replies, "It was a record I put out. It became the record I made, not necessarily the record that I was interested in making.

"I was interested in taking Nebraska and making a full record that had somewhat that same feeling. If you hear My Hometown and you hear Born in the USA, they were sort of the bookends I intended. And the rest of the stuff was … just what I had at the time. Those were the songs I wrote. Those were the songs I recorded.

"From conception to execution, it was not necessarily the record that in my mind I had planned on, but that’s the way creativity works. You go in the studio, you have an idea. It’s not necessarily what you come out with. So that was just the situation of that record for me personally."

Writer Andy Greene follows up on this, saying, I’m a little surprised to hear you say that. I always heard Born in the USA as dispatches from various people left behind by Reagan’s America. As a listener, it felt cohesive.

"I guess, it was to a lot of other people too," Springsteen admits. "I suppose maybe I was looking for something darker. But outside of that, the themes of Nebraska are in there - in Downbound Train, they’re in there, they’re disguised somewhat into pop music."

Tracks II: The Lost Albums will be released on Columbia Records.

“The Lost Albums were full records, some of them even to the point of being mixed and not released,” Springsteen has said. “I’ve played this music to myself and often close friends for years now. I’m glad you’ll get a chance to finally hear them. I hope you enjoy them.”

“I often read about myself in the 1990s as having some ‘lost period,'” he adds in a promo video for the box set. “Not really. I was working the whole time.”

The collection includes the lo-fi LA Garage Sessions '83, which is described as “a crucial link between Nebraska and Born in The USA.”

The set is available in limited-edition nine-LP and seven-CD formats, including original packaging for each record, with a 100-page cloth-bound, hardcover book featuring rare archival photos, liner notes on each lost album from essayist Erik Flannigan, and a personal introduction on the project from Springsteen himself.

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.