Our next taste of TRACKS II: "Repo Man" from the "lost album" SOMEWHERE NORTH OF NASHVILLE
- Letters To You
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
May 14, 2025
Dropping today as Tracks II: The Lost Albums' fourth preview track: "Repo Man," from the "lost album" Somewhere North of Nashville. It's a deceptively upbeat country diatribe against the bane of vehicle-leasers and auto-loan payees everywhere, with its opening lyrical couplet cribbed directly from that of the Johnny Rivers hit "Secret Agent Man."
Today's official press release gives us some more information about Somewhere North of Nashville, as well: "Recorded simultaneously with The Ghost of Tom Joad in the summer of 1995, [the album] features much of the core band at the heart of those sessions — including Danny Federici, Garry Tallent and Gary Mallaber. Adding elements like pedal steel from Marty Rifkin (later a member of The Sessions Band) and fiddle from Soozie Tyrell, Somewhere North of Nashville saw Springsteen spontaneously cutting material live in the studio with a full band, not unlike what he had done for the recording of Born In The U.S.A. a decade earlier. Fittingly, the tracklist for Somewhere North of Nashville includes two songs originally planned for that album, 'Stand On It' and 'Janey Don't You Lose Heart.'"
Springsteen himself goes on to explain, "What happened was I wrote all these country songs at the same time I wrote The Ghost of Tom Joad. Those sessions completely overlap each other. I’m singing ‘Repo Man’ in the afternoon and ‘The Line’ at night. So the country record got made right along with The Ghost of Tom Joad... 'Streets of Philadelphia' got me connected to my socially conscious or topical songwriting. So that’s where The Ghost of Tom Joad came from. But at the same time I had this country streak that was also running through those sessions and I ended up making a country record on the side."
Danny Federici doesn't play on the Tracks II version of "Repo Man," but Charlie Giordano contributes a Jerry Lee Lewis-style piano part. It seems likely that Giordano's piano contribution was added more recently to the original 1995 "live in the studio" recording, but if that's not the case, and Charlie was present and participating during that original '95 session, it would mark his earliest known recording session with Springsteen, more than two years before the initial November 2, 1997 session for what became We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions.
You can listen to "Repo Man" below:
Click here for additional listening options and "Repo Man"/Tracks II: The Lost Albums pre-ordering information.
