Never Before Heard Springsteen Outtakes to Accompany “Darkness” Re-release

As Bruce Springsteen prepares to re-release one of his seminal works, fans can get ready to jam out to a massive collection of never-before-heard tunes.

On November 16, a deluxe version 1978's "Darkness on the Edge of Town" will hit stores with two full discs of unreleased material, reports Rolling Stone. Some of the songs will be familiar to listeners of popular music as several were given to other musicians to use, among them "Because the Night", popularized by a spirited "MTV Unplugged" performance by 10,000 Maniacs and  "Fire," which was written for Elvis Presley but became a big hit for the Pointer Sisters in 1979. Other tunes, such as "Candy's Boy" and "Wrong Side of the Street" were reworked into other songs.

Over 70 tracks were recorded during the original "Darkness" sessions, but only ten made the released album, so Springsteen and his team had a treasure trove of material to sift through. Since discovering the outtakes, the Boss and his band have gone back to add vocals and instrumentation to fragments that were never completed.

In addition to the two discs, the re-release also includes a remastered version of the original album and three DVD's of live footage recorded between 1976 and 1978. A full performance of the album with the E Street Band captured in 2009 will also be in the package.

And if Springsteen fans are still left wanting after all of that, they're in luck: "The Promise", a full-length documentary about the making of the album, was released last month.

Selected Reading: Rolling StoneNPR, NJ.com

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