High Hopes

Released in 2014, High Hopes is a melting pot of cover songs, older tunes that had never been officially recorded and revivified originals. Backed by the E Street Band—including dearly departed members Danny Federici and Clarence Clemons—the album also features extensive contributions from E Street Auxiliary member Tom Morello. “When Tom Morello’s up there, the E Street Band is a pretty big house,” Bruce Springsteen said at the time. “High Hopes”, originally recorded by the Southern California cow-punk band The Havalinas, was a song Springsteen had loved since the mid-1990s. “Just Like Fire Would”, meanwhile, was Springsteen’s take on a song by the pioneering Australian punk band The Saints, and “Dream Baby Dream” is a cover of a 1979 cut by electro-punk noise merchants Suicide. (Springsteen’s connection to Suicide goes back decades: Both artists were working at the Record Plant at the same time in the late 1970s, at a time when Bruce was hanging with the likes of Patti Smith, Lou Reed and the Ramones.) Springsteen’s rendition of “Dream Baby Dream” is slightly warmer than the original, but they’re both ballads at their heart. Tom Morello’s band Rage Against the Machine had recorded their hard funk version of “The Ghost of Tom Joad” in 1997, and in 2008, Morello was invited to perform a rock ’n’ roll version of the song—a hybrid between what Rage had done and the original acoustic recording—with Bruce and E Street at their show in Southern California. Morello and Springsteen became friends, and when Steven Van Zandt had filming conflicts preventing him from joining E Street on tour, Morello was asked to fill in. After playing together for dozens of shows, Springsteen decided that this hybrid version of the song needed to be recorded and released on High Hopes. A similar situation was behind the decision to include “American Skin (41 Shots)”. The song was written and performed live in 2000, when Springsteen and the newly reunited E Street Band were on the road, and