| ROLL OF THE DICE – V1a | 4:34 | private cdr |
| ROLL OF THE DICE – V1b | 4:14 | HUMAN / 1992 single |
Note: Suffering from writer's block, Bruce shared his troubles one December, 1989 evening with his Malibu neighbor Roy Bittan, who played him some music he had been working on. Inspired, Bruce returned to his Benedict Canyon garage studio, wrote the lyrics, and was so excited, he ran into the house and woke up his fiancée Patti Scialfa at 3 a.m. and forced her to listen to the tune. Recorded a few days later at Soundworks West, Los Angeles. Springsteen handles lead guitar and vocals and his four-man backing band on this recording is Randy Jackson (bass), Roy Bittan (keyboards), Jeff Porcaro (drums), and Tim Pierce (rhythm guitar). Background vocals courtesy of Bobby King. V1a is a significantly different mix than the album version and may possibly be a different recording altogether. It includes an additional twenty seconds of duet singing between Springsteen and King not found on the official version. According to comments by King, he was called into the studio in January, 1990 to overdub background vocals onto an already completed core recording.