Part One - Overview
Springsteen reached a final settlement in his year-long litigation with Mike Appel on May 28, 1977. Effectively this meant that for the first time in a year Springsteen was able to go into a studio and record. He wasted no time. Recording sessions for the fourth album began just four days later, on June 1, 1977 at Atlantic Studios in New York City. That first night Springsteen laid down at least eight songs, including a take of "Something In The Night" that actually made the final album. Springsteen had a considerable amount of new material – but the songs were in various stages of writing completion. Consequently, many of the songs were shaped over the course of numerous sessions spanning several months.
The sessions at Atlantic Studios were only two or three weeks old when problems surfaced. Bruce didn't like the sound he was getting from the studio (particularly the drums). On top of that, Atlantic did not offer a particularly comfortable or livable environment for the musicians. So there was a decision taken to shift operations to the nearby Record Plant (where most of the Born To Run album had been recorded). However, they’d already made financial commitments to Atlantic Studios, plus on such short notice they were unable to find much un-booked studio time at the popular Record Plant. Consequently, the period through August into September 1977 saw Springsteen and the band recording at both studios – but mostly Atlantic. However, from mid-September thru late December all recording seems to have taken place at The Record Plant – where all but one the recordings issued on the original album emanate from.
The actual recording sessions for Darkness On The Edge Of Town were completed by early January 1978. The mixing sessions began in early January 1978 and dragged on until late March – there were a tremendous amount of different mixes considered, with Springsteen changing his mind on the mix of one song (“The Promised Land”) as late as early April. From March 1978 to the start of the Darkness Tour in late May Steve Van Zandt and Max Weinberg were very busy at nearby Secret Sound Studios with Southside Johnny’s Hearts Of Stone album (released early October 1978). Springsteen donated two non short-listed songs from the Darkness sessions to the Southside LP project.
According to comments by Darkness sessions recording engineer Jimmy Iovine about thirty songs were recorded to a completed state and available for inclusion on the Darkness album. There were an unknown number of additional songs not fully completed. What “not fully completed” means is uncertain. At this stage thirty-two songs have been officially released (the ten on the original album, four on Tracks and eighteen on The Promise) but several of these have modern vocal takes, and their 1978 state remains unknown. There is also an unknown amount of not fully finished recordings. The list below contains fifty-four songs from the period that likely encompass all or nearly all of the thirty songs Jimmy Iovine was alluding to, as well as most of the ones never completed.
The audio from the Darkness sessions that has surfaced unofficially over the years has been of rather disappointing quality. During the late 1970s and 1980s most of it was of very weak quality. However, over the past twenty years lower generation audio specimens have emerged and the CD-era boots of this audio have been a noticeable improvement over their vinyl era counterparts. Yet in many cases it has become apparent that there were flaws in the way the original source individuals taped these studio sessions. There certainly appears to have been some hidden “fly-on-the-wall” type tapings. The other problem is that much of the leaked audio is of early studio workouts of these songs, rather than later, fully realized renditions. Most of the leaked studio material emanates from the June-October 1977 period, so the later November 77-January 78 sessions may include several other songs that remain undocumented, even after the release of The Promise.
The 2010 release of The Promise is somewhat of a double-edged sword. We now have a slightly better understanding of the Darkness sessions, as well as access to several tracks that were previously unknown to us such as "Save My Love" and "Breakaway". However, the wonderful notebook facsimile included in the box lists titles of many songs (see Part Four below) that are totally new to us. It is unknown how many of these songs actually exist; many may not be songs at all - just titles. Jimmy Iovine mentions in the making-of documentary that Springsteen wrote seventy songs for potential use on "Album IV". It remains a possibility that even the seventy songs referred to by Iovine is a conservative estimate of Springsteen's true output at this time. A case of three steps forward, two steps back?
| BADLANDS | 4:01 | DARKNESS |
| SOMETHING IN THE NIGHT | 5:08 | DARKNESS |
| RACING IN THE STREET | 6:51 | DARKNESS |
| STREETS OF FIRE | 4:02 | DARKNESS |
| PROVE IT ALL NIGHT | 3:54 | DARKNESS |
| FACTORY | 2:15 | DARKNESS |
| ADAM RAISED A CAIN | 4:31 | DARKNESS |
| CANDY'S ROOM | 2:43 | DARKNESS |
| THE PROMISED LAND | 4:25 | DARKNESS |
| DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN | 4:23 | DARKNESS |
| DON'T LOOK BACK | 2:56 | TRACKS |
| HEARTS OF STONE | 4:27 | TRACKS |
| ICEMAN | 3:13 | TRACKS |
| GIVE THE GIRL A KISS | 3:47 | TRACKS |
| RACING IN THE STREET ('78) | 6:47 | PROMISE |
| GOTTA GET THAT FEELING | 3:15 | PROMISE |
| OUTSIDE LOOKING IN | 2:16 | PROMISE |
| SOMEDAY (WE'LL BE TOGETHER) | 5:32 | PROMISE |
| ONE WAY STREET | 4:16 | PROMISE |
| BECAUSE THE NIGHT | 3:22 | PROMISE |
| WRONG SIDE OF THE STREET | 3:31 | PROMISE |
| THE BROKENHEARTED | 5:16 | PROMISE |
| RENDEZVOUS | 2:35 | PROMISE |
| CANDY'S BOY | 4:31 | PROMISE |
| AIN'T GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU | 3:59 | PROMISE |
| FIRE | 4:05 | PROMISE |
| SPANISH EYES | 3:47 | PROMISE |
| IT'S A SHAME | 3:12 | PROMISE |
| COME ON (LET'S GO TONIGHT) | 2:16 | PROMISE |
| TALK TO ME | 4:17 | PROMISE |
| THE LITTLE THINGS (MY BABY DOES) | 3:15 | PROMISE |
| BREAKAWAY | 5:26 | PROMISE |
| THE PROMISE | 5:47 | PROMISE |
| CITY OF NIGHT | 2:56 | PROMISE |
| THE WAY | 3:40 | PROMISE |
| SAVE MY LOVE | THRILL HILL VAULT | |
| PREACHER'S DAUGHTER | complete | |
| I'M GOIN' BACK | complete but mix flaw | |
| BREAK OUT | complete but mix flaw | |
| CRAZY ROCKER | rough | |
| DOWN BY THE RIVER | rough | |
| FRANKIE | rough | |
| INDEPENDENCE DAY | rough | |
| SHERRY DARLING | rough | |
| DRIVE ALL NIGHT | rough | |
| RAMROD | rough | |
| DON'T SAY NO | rough | |
| I WANNA BE WITH YOU | rough | |
| CASTAWAY | very rough | |
| OUR LOVE WILL LAST FOREVER | uncirculating | |
| CHEAP THRILLS | uncirculating | |
| TRIANGLE SONG | uncirculating | |
| I GOT MY EYE ON YOU | uncirculating | |
| AFTER DINNER | uncirculating | |
| KING'S BIG CHANCE | uncirculating | |
| BLUE MOON | uncirculating | |
| (I LOVE) EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU | uncirculating |
Much of the studio session detail below is courtesy of Clinton Heylin's book E Street Shuffle - The Glory Days of Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band.
