Original Tim Scott McConnell version
(Got high hopes)
(Got high hopes)
(Got high hopes)
Well (got high hopes)
Monday mornin' runs to Sunday night
Screamin' slow me down before the new year dies (got high hopes)
It (ooh)
Won't take much to kill a loving smile
Says every mother with a baby cryin' in her arms
Singin' give me help, give me strength
Give a soul a night of fearless sleep, yeah
Give me love, give me peace
Well, don't you know these days you pay for everything (ooh)
Comin' from the city, comin' from the wild
I see a breathless army breakin' like a cloud (got high hopes)
It's gonna (ooh) smother love, it's gonna shoot your hopes
Before the meek inherit, they'll learn to hate themselves
Singin' give me help, give me strength
Give a soul a night of fearless sleep, yeah
Give me love, give me peace
Well, don't you know these days you pay for everything
(Got high hopes, ooh)
(Got high hopes)
So (ooh)
Tell me someone, now, what's the price (got high hopes)
I wanna buy some time and maybe live my life (got high hopes)
I wanna have a wife, I wanna have some kids (got high hopes)
I wanna look in their eyes and know they're gonna stand a chance
Singin' give me help, give me strength
Give a soul a night of fearless sleep, yeah
Give me love, give me peace
Well, don't you know these days you pay for
(Got high hopes)
(Got high hopes)
(Got high hopes)
(Got high hopes)
(Ooh!)
(Ooh, ooh, ooh ooh)
(Got high hopes)
Whoa!
Sing it!
(Got high hopes) High hope, high hope, high hope
(Got high hopes) High (ooh)
(Got high hopes)
Whoa!
(Give me help)
Baby
(Give me strength)
(Got high hopes)
(Give me, oh, give me)
(Got high hopes)
(Give me love, give me peace) (ooh)
(Got high hopes)
Give me, give me
(Got high hopes)
Hah! (Give me help, give me strength)
(Got high hopes)
Oh, oh, give me, give me strength (ooh)
(Got high hopes)
(Give me love, give me peace)
Aaaah (Got high hopes)
(Got high hopes)
(Give me help, give me strength)
Why don't you, why don't you, why don't you, why don't you help me?
HIGH HOPES is a song written by Tim Scott McConnell who originally released it on his 1987 solo album The High Lonesome Sound (Geffen Records). During his career he has used his full name, "Tim Scott McConnell", as well as just "Tim Scott". The High Lonesome Sound album is credited to "Tim Scott". The above lyrics are transcribed from the original Tim Scott McConnell version, as sung on The High Lonesome Sound album.
HIGH HOPES was also recorded and released by Tim Scott's band The Havalinas in 1990. See The Havalinas' version for more details.
Bruce Springsteen recorded HIGH HOPES in 1995 and released it in 1996 on the Blood Brothers promo EP (see the 1995 studio version). He recorded it again in 2013 and released it on his 2014 album High Hopes (See the album version for more details). Springsteen's cover version of HIGH HOPES is based on The Havalinas' version, and not the original Tim Scott McConnell version.
In November 2013, Rolling Stone's James Sullivan conducted an interview with Tim Scott McConnell shortly after Bruce Springsteen released the new recording of McConnell's HIGH HOPES as a single. The interview was conducted from Norway, where McConnell has lived since 1993 raising his four children in their country of birth. He found out the previous day through his manager, who saw the news on Twitter, that Springsteen has recorded his song for the second time. McConnell explained that the first time, when Springsteen released the 1995 recording on the Blood Brothers EP, he found out about it in the newspaper. He said that he's never seen any royalty statements from the 1995 Springsteen version, and he's not complaining — he was happy with the recognition.
McConnell first met Springsteen in 1991 in Los Angeles, backstage following the former's show at Wiltern Theatre. Springsteen showed up backstage unannounced. "I appreciated that," McConnell told Rolling Stone. They talked backstage for about an hour, mostly about Springsteen's praise for HIGH HOPES and McConnell's interest in Springsteen's Nebraska. "It had this real lowdown sound," McConnell said. "I'm a southerner — I grew up on that rootsy country-folk stuff. He was talking about how he walked around with [the Nebraska demo] in his back pocket for a month before he decided to do something with it."
In a December 2013 interview for Rolling Stone, Bruce Springsteen told Andy Greene: "[The Havalinas] were a great group that kind of went under the radar, but they were in Los Angeles and I always really liked them. They were kind of an acoustic rock group, with a stand-up bass player and mainly acoustic guitar and a drummer, and I liked the way they sounded and what they wrote about. I was drawn to the song because it's very good lyrically without being sort of didactic or too direct. It's got a really good lyric about struggling. And also it's got a great chorus. It's got a fantastic chorus, which has a lot to do with it."
Thanks Jake (ol'catfishinthelake at BTX and Greasy Lake) for the lyrics help.
List of available versions of HIGH HOPES on this website:
HIGH HOPES [Album version]