LION'S DEN

Official studio version

You broke my heart, tore it apart
Thought it was cute, thought it was smart
But now I'm back and I've got the strength of ten
So I got a message for you my friend

I'm Daniel waiting in the lion's den
Daniel waiting for that lion to come
Daniel waiting in the lion's den
Dum dum dee dum dum dee dee dum dum

That old lion's mean and long in the tooth
And like you, baby, he's out on the loose
Messing hearts up time and time again
Well it's the time for that messing to end

I'm Daniel waiting in the lion's den
Daniel waiting for that lion to come
I'm Daniel waiting in the lion's den
Dum dum dee dum dum dee dee dum dum
Here we go!

At night I hear you out prowling around
Tearing guys up, scaring 'em down
Now all that growling's gonna come to no end
'Cause I'm just biding my time, my little friend

I'm Daniel waiting in the lion's den
Daniel waiting for that lion to come
Daniel waiting in the lion's den
Dum dum dee dum dum dee dee dum dum
Dum dum dee dum dum dee dee dum dum
Dum dum dee dum dum dee dee dum dum
Dum dum dee dum dum dee dee dum dum
Dum dum dee dum dum dee dee dum dum
Dum dum dee dum dum dee dee dum dum
Dum dum dee dum dum dee dee dum dum

Info

LION'S DEN is a song written by Bruce Springsteen and first released on the Tracks box set in 1998. The above lyrics are for Bruce Springsteen's official studio version of LION'S DEN as released in 1998.

The official studio version of LION'S DEN was included on the 18 Tracks compilation in 1999.

Writing and Recording

Bruce Springsteen's LION'S DEN alludes to the story from the Hebrew Bible's Book Of Daniel. The song was probably written around in 1981.

One home demo take of LION'S DEN is in circulation. It's a short work-in-progress solo acoustic take recorded in 1981 at Springsteen's home in Colts Neck, NJ. See the home demo for more details.

According to the Tracks booklet liner notes, the official studio version of LION'S DEN was recorded on 25 Jan 1982 at The Power Station in New York City, NY. These were Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's sessions for Gary U.S. Bonds' On The Line album. The 1991 reissue of On The Line on the Razor Edge label includes album liner notes by Gary U.S. Bonds himself. He wrote that they "also recorded three additional cuts for the album which were never mixed." LION'S DEN is among those three tracks.

On the official studio version of LION'S DEN, Springsteen handles guitar and vocals, and is accompanied by Gary Tallent on bass, Max Weinberg on drums, Roy Bittan on piano, Danny Federici on organ, Mario Cruz on tenor sax, Ed Manion on baritone sax, Mark "The Love Man" Pender on trumpet, Richie "La Bamba" Rosenberg on trombone, and Mike Spengler on trumpet. The horn section (Cruz-Manion-Pender-Rosenberg-Spengler) was recorded in 1998 and added to the core recording of the song from 1982. The track was recorded by Neil Dorfsman (the engineer for Bruce Springsteen's The River and Gary U.S. Bonds' On The Line), mixed by Ed Thacker, and produced by Bruce Springsteen, Jon Landau, Chuck Plotkin, and Steven Van Zandt.

In 1998, Bruce Springsteen told the Boston Globe: "I should have put that out! Why didn't I put that out? It sounds like a hit now. The band is playing great and the horns come in and it has a great chorus. It was just too much fun to put out, I guess."

Tracks

In the liner notes of his Tracks box set, Bruce Springsteen introduces the box set as follows:

During long intervals between my record releases, as I was spending more and more time in the studio, when I met a fan out on the street I was often asked, "What are you guys doing in there?" I regularly pondered that question myself.

What we were doing in there was making a lot of music, a lot more music than I could use at any one time. As a result, my albums became a series of choices — what to include, what to leave out? I based my decisions on my creative point of view at the moment — the subject I was trying to focus on, something musical or emotional I was trying to express. In certain instances, as on Darkness on the Edge of Town, Nebraska, and The Ghost of Tom Joad, these choices crystallized the album I was making. On some of my other records the reasons I had for choosing one song over another, in hindsight, feel a good deal less significant. One of the results of working like this was that a lot of music, including some of my favorite things, remained unreleased.

This collection contains everything from the first notes I sang in the Columbia recording studio, my early and later work with the E Street Band, through to my music in the 90s. It's the alternate route to some of the destinations I travelled to on my records, an invitation into the studio on the many nights we spent making music in search of the records we presented to you. I'm glad to finally be able to share this music; here are some of the ones that got away.

- Bruce Springsteen, September 1998

Bruce Springsteen's albums were thematically linked even if they were not strictly concept albums; so some tracks that didn't fit the theme of the album ended up orphaned, not necessarily because they didn't meet his high standards, but because, he says, they didn't fit in with the tone or themes he mined for each set. Many of these unreleased studio outtakes got under the hands of bootleggers. Discussing that issue in 1984, Springsteen told Rolling Stone's Kurt Loder, "We record a lot of material, but we just don't release it all. [...] I always tell myself that some day I'm gonna put an album out with all this stuff on it that didn't fit in. I think there's some good material there that should come out. Maybe at some point, I'll do that."

During a break in The Ghost Of Tom Joad Solo Acoustic Tour, Springsteen thought that "if it's gonna be a year or longer in between records, I have all this music that I know is very good that I never released and I should release some of it whether it was just a CD or something. In that period of time, I should put something out because people would like to have it and I'd like to see it get out." He told Toby Scott (his audio archivist and recording engineer), "send me all the archives, send everything that we recorded". Scott then went to work gathering the potential material from Springsteen's massive audio library (located, along with Sony's sound archives, in the high-tech Iron Mountain facility near Buffalo, NY). "For a week or so," he told Billboard in a Nov 1998 interview, "I just listened to everything that I'd done that we hadn't put out. I made some very brief notes in a notebook, and then I just put it away. It was something that I could do at some point when I get to that place in a new project where I'm not sure how long it's going to take and it would be nice to sort of fill the gap so the fans wouldn't be so long without hearing any music from me".

Springsteen told Mark Hagen in an interview for Mojo magazine published in January 1999, "So it began just with that idea and we listened to about 250 songs, maybe more, I made quick notes in a notebook and put it away. A year went by, more maybe, and I came off the Tom Joad tour and I began to write acoustically again and I wrote about half a record. Then I got stuck and said, 'Well, I'm going to put this aside for a while.' Then I wrote half of an electric record, and hit the same place. So I thought, instead of waiting for another year to put something out I'll put some of this music together. So once again I went back to the archives." According to interview comments made by engineer Toby Scott (Springsteen's audio archivist and recording engineer), it was in February 1998 during solo sessions being conducted at Thrill Hill Recording (Springsteen's home studio) in Colts Neck, NJ, that Springsteen told Scott that the time was right to proceed with the long-anticipated box set of archived, unreleased studio takes. Thrill Hill Recording served as the main operational center for all Tracks project activities. Note that the "Thrill Hill Recording" name is used for whatever home studio Springsteen is recording at, whether it's in Rumson, NJ, Colts, NJ, or Beverly Hills, CA.

Springsteen told Billboard that the songs were culled from between 200 and 300 tunes. According to Toby Scott, the number was down to about 128 songs by late June 1998. It was then narrowed down yet again in July to about 100 songs that were prepped for the Tracks release. Although the project was originally projected to be a 6-disc set, there was a commercial decision made later in the summer to reduce the size of the release to a 4-disc (66-track) set. The package was delivered to Sony in mid-September in order to facilitate the mid-November 1998 release schedule.

Unreleased songs from the Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ sessions were not included on the box set due to ongoing and still-unresolved court proceedings involving most of these unreleased 1972 recordings. The court battle wasn't resolved until in 2001 (April 2001 in the UK and June 2001 in the U.S.), and those recordings are now free for release at any time. The opening four tracks of the box set — which were culled from Springsteen's 03 May 1972 Columbia Records audition — were not part of the court proceedings.

On 16 Jul 1998, Springsteen attended a convention for Sony Music Entertainment Inc. in Miami, FL, where he officially announced that a box set was the works and he played a tape of three songs: WHERE THE BANDS ARE, LOOSE ENDS, and I WANNA BE WITH YOU.

The Tracks box set was released on Columbia Records on 10 Nov 1998. It was issued on both compact disc and audio cassette formats. It's a 4-disc (or 4-cassette) set consisting of a total of 66 tracks (almost 4.5 hours long), 10 of which were heretofore unavailable single B-sides, 6 were demos and alternate versions of already-released material, and 50 (48 studio and 2 live) were never-before-released songs recorded during the sessions for Springsteen's many albums. Some tracks were treated with a recent touch-up here or there to give the older recordings a fresh polish.

• Disc 1 consists of material from 1972 to 1980, including Springsteen's very first Columbia Records audition for legendary A & R executive John Hammond. This disc also features additional songs most of which recorded for (but never released on) Springsteen's first four albums.
• Disc 2 consists of material from 1979 to 1983, taken primarily from the recording sessions of The River, Nebraska, and Born In The U.S.A.. Springsteen describes this disc as "almost the completely other album from 'The River'."
• Disc 3 consists of material from 1982 to 1987, taken primarily from the recording sessions of Born In The U.S.A. and Tunnel Of Love.
• Disc 4 consists of material from 1989 to 1998, taken primarily from the recording sessions of Human Touch.

Bruce Springsteen -- Tracks

18 Tracks

18 Tracks is a Bruce Springsteen compilation album released on Columbia Records in 1999. The album compiles 15 tracks from the Tracks box set, plus 3 previously unreleased recordings. The collection release was intended for the more casual fans who didn't purchase the pricey 4-disc box set. It also served the purpose as a promotional tie-in for the E Street Band's The Reunion Tour that was announced at the same time of the sampler's release.

Bruce Springsteen -- 18 Tracks

18 Tracks was released on 13 Apr 1999 on Columbia Records. It features 18 Springsteen compositions and clocks at 71:12. The album was released on CD, cassette tape, MiniDisc, and vinyl.

Other Official Releases

In addition to its release on Tracks and 18 Tracks, the official studio version of LION'S DEN was also included on Tracks Sampler and one promotional EP.

Bruce Springsteen -- Tracks Sampler

CD - Columbia (CSK 41561) - USA, 1998

This is a single-disc advance promotional sampler compiling 15 tracks from the Tracks box set. It was issued in the USA, Australia, and Germany, with the same track list.

Tracks Sampler track list

01- GROWIN' UP
02- RENDEZVOUS
03- HEARTS OF STONE
04- RESTLESS NIGHTS
05- WHERE THE BANDS ARE
06- LOOSE ENDS
07- I WANNA BE WITH YOU
08- BORN IN THE U.S.A.
09- LION'S DEN
10- JANEY, DON'T YOU LOSE HEART
11- SAD EYES
12- TROUBLE IN PARADISE
13- SEVEN ANGELS
14- HAPPY
15- BACK IN YOUR ARMS

Bruce Springsteen -- Tracks Sampler

CD - Columbia (CSK 41561) - Australia, 1998

Bruce Springsteen -- Tracks Sampler

CD - Columbia (CSK 41561) - Germany, 1998

Bruce Springsteen -- Tracks

CD EP - Columbia (CSK 41555) - USA, 1998

Promotional EP issued exclusively as a bonus with both the U.S. and UK editions of Bruce Springsteen's book Songs.

01- I WANNA BE WITH YOU
02- LION'S DEN
03- PART MAN, PART MONKEY

Live History

LION'S DEN was performed 3 times during what is known as The Reunion Tour (132 dates, April 1999 to July 2000). On this tour, the song was played in its full-band arrangement.

LION'S DEN was performed twice during the Wrecking Ball Tour (133 dates, March 2012 to September 2013). On this tour, the song was played in its full-band arrangement.

Covers

At least one artist has recorded and released Bruce Springsteen's LION'S DEN.

Graziano Romani -- Soul Crusader Again: The Songs Of Bruce Springsteen

CD - Route 66 Music (RT612017004) - Italy, 2017

This is a Bruce Springsteen tribute album.

Available Versions

List of available versions of LION'S DEN on this website:

Page last updated: 16 Feb 2018