STRAY BULLET

Official studio version

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In the tall grass we held hands
Down by the river we made plans
Of what would and would not be
It was impossible to see

Their black boots shone in the sun
They were waiting on the Annandale train when my baby come
Little girl with the long black hair
Do you know what lies 'neath the long coats that they wear

Once I swore you'd ride with me (to some far and distant shore)
Down where this river meets the sea (I'll make you mine forevermore)
Over these dark hills I'd walk along (just to hold you in my arms)
To lie with you on a bed of stone

River blood red with the years
You can flood this valley with a thousand tears
Wash away all that's been found
But you'll never wash away the sound

Of the stray bullet that shot my baby down, (stray bullet shot my baby down)
Of the stray bullet that shot my baby down, (stray bullet shot my baby down)
Of the stray bullet that shot my baby down, (stray bullet shot my baby down)
Of the stray bullet that shot my baby down

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Info

STRAY BULLET is a song written by Bruce Springsteen and released on The Ties That Bind: The River Collection box set in 2015. The above lyrics are for Bruce Springsteen's official studio version of STRAY BULLET as released in 2015.

STRAY BULLET debuted on 25 Nov 2015 on Sirius XM's E Street Radio channel, during "The Ties That Bind Radio Special". The special features snippets from the Thom Zimny's The Ties That Bind documentary, mixed in with about an hour of music previews mostly pulled from various elements of The Ties That Bind: The River Collection box set, including both of Thom Zimny's films.

Studio Recording

According to Sony's logs of Bruce Springsteen's studio sessions, STRAY BULLET was recorded on 24 Feb 1980, 09 Mar 1980, and 10 Apr 1980 at The Power Station in New York City, NY. Only one studio take of the song has surfaced; it's the official studio version (that was released in 2015) and it must have been recorded during one of those three sessions at The Power Station. Some elements of that track may be modern, but the lead vocals are from The River sessions.

The Ties That Bind: The River Collection

The Ties That Bind: The River Collection is a Bruce Springsteen box set released in 2015 on Columbia Records to celebrate the 35th anniversary of The River album. The 10"x12" box set contains four CDs, two Blu-Ray discs or three DVDs, and a hardcover 148-page coffee table book featuring 200 mostly unseen studio and live photographs, pages from Springsteen's notebooks, single covers, images and outtakes from the original album package, and other memorabilia documenting the album, plus a new essay by Mikal Gilmore. The box set was announced on 16 Oct 2015 and released to retail on 04 Dec 2015.

The first two discs consist of the 2014 remastered version of The River album. The third disc contains The River: Single Album, a 10-track album originally planned for release in 1979, under the title "The Ties That Bind". "The songs lacked the kind of unity and conceptual intensity I liked my music to have. So we went back in the studio," Springsteen wrote in his 1998 book Songs. He scrapped the project and went on to rework some of the songs and write and record some others, leading to the double-disc release the following year. All but one of these ten tracks were previously released.

The fourth discs contains The River: Outtakes, a 22-track album collection consisting of outtakes from the 1979-1980 sessions that didn't make the cut for either the single- or double-album versions of The River. The CD is divided into two parts, "Record One" (the first 11 tracks) and "Record Two" (the remaining 10 tracks). The former consists of unreleased songs while the latter consists of previously released songs.

The fifth disc contains the 60-minute documentary, The Ties That Bind, produced and directed by Grammy and Emmy-winning filmmaker Thom Zimny. The documentary features an intimate interview with Bruce Springsteen as he reflects on writing and recording of The River. The film transitions between Springsteen telling the stories behind the music ─ and illustrating them with solo acoustic guitar performances ─ interspersed with period concert footage and rare photos of him and the band in and out of the studio.

The sixth disc (on the Blu-Ray release) or sixth and seventh disc (on the DVD release) feature(s) The River Tour, Tempe 1980, a new professionally shot film consisting of 24 songs from Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band's 05 Nov 1980 concert at Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ. The film uses four cameras and is recorded in multitrack audio and clocks at 2 hours and 40 minutes. The tapes were edited by Thom Zimny and the audio was mixed by Bob Clearmountain and mastered by Bob Ludwig.

The last disc also contains The River Tour Rehearsals, which consists of a 5-song 20-minute bonus footage from Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band's private rehearsals in late September 1980 at Clair Brothers Audio in Lititz, PA. Springsteen and the band can be seen working through live arrangements of what was then unreleased material from the upcoming album.

Live History

As far as it's known, Bruce Springsteen has never performed STRAY BULLET live.

Covers

As far as it's known, no artist has recorded and released Bruce Springsteen's STRAY BULLET.

Request

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Available Versions

List of available versions of STRAY BULLET on this website:

STRAY BULLET [Official studio version]

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Page last updated: 06 Dec 2015