
What did we say? We said seven previously unreleased albums was almost bound to bring us seven previously unheard songs – and here’s the latest. ‘Repo Man’ kicks off the unreleased album ‘Somewhere North of Nashville’ and it is perhaps the biggest surprise of all the unheard album releases – it’s Springsteen country. Pedal steel, fiddle and honky-tonk piano…it’s all there. How did this happen? Well, we turn to Springsteen who explains: “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.”