Official studio version
Last night I went to the Coronado
I bought my ticket and I found my seat
It was a new adventure straight from Hollywood
Lights went down as I felt the heat
They went tearing from the final scene
Burning rubber, spilling gasoline
As the credits rolled away
They were still chasing the man who got away
Well, every night for weeks and weeks now
I beat the traffic, I beat the heat now
For two hours I can believe now
The man who got away was me
I went tearing from the final scene
Burning rubber, spilling gasoline
As the credits rolled away
They were still chasing the man who got away
Drove into Stockton, my radio went dead
That's when I heard what the newsman said
Said, "armed robbery on the ten-hundred block
Was two men involved and one man shot
Well, while his accomplice made the payday
With a 45 he blew the cashier away way
Last seen headed on the State Highway
Driving a late model Chevrolet"
I went screaming from the final scene
In a hail of bullets and flaming gasoline
As the credits rolled away
They were still chasing the man who got away
Man that got away
Man that got away
Man that got away
Whoa!
THE MAN WHO GOT AWAY 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 THE MAN WHO GOT AWAY as released in 2015.
THE MAN WHO GOT AWAY is among 25 songs compiled for a 1993 project that never came to fruition. See the "1993 Concept Album" section below for more details.
According to Sony's logs of Bruce Springsteen's studio sessions, THE MAN WHO GOT AWAY was recorded on 13 Jun 1979 and 05 Jul 1979 at The Power Station in New York City, NY. Only one studio take of THE MAN WHO GOT AWAY is in circulation ─ the one released on The Ties That Bind: The River Collection box set in 2015. That version seems to have been entirely recorded in 1979, and not partially or completely re-recorded for the 2015 release. It's unknown whether it was cut on the first or the second of the two aforementioned dates, or if one part (the backing track) was cut on the first and another part (the vocals) was cut on the second.
Prior to cutting it in studio, Springsteen and the band practiced THE MAN WHO GOT AWAY during rehearsal sessions at Springsteen's Telegraph Hill Road property in Holmdel, NJ. There are three known such rehearsal takes of THE MAN WHO GOT AWAY, all recorded on 30 Mar 1979.
Two home demo recordings of THE MAN WHO GOT AWAY are also in circulation. They were recorded at Springsteen's home in Holmdel, NJ, sometime between January and June 1979.
THE MAN WHO GOT AWAY was considered for release on Springsteen's 1979 album had it seen the light. See "The Ties That Bind" section below for more details. The song also appears (crossed-out) in a Springsteen handwritten song list seen in Thom Zimny's The Ties That Bind documentary.
Bruce Springsteen wrapped up the Darkness On The Edge Of Town Tour on the first day of 1979. For the next few months, he altered between composing and practicing solo demos at his home in Holmdel, NJ (between January and June 1979), rehearsing with the band at his Telegraph Hill Road property in Holmdel, NJ (between March and May 1979), and recording in studio at The Power Station in New York City, NY (from late March to late August 1979).
By early August 1979, enough quality material had been recorded at The Power Station. According to The Ties That Bind documentary, a total of twenty-four songs had been recorded. According to Clinton Heylin's 2012 book It was looking like Springsteen's fifth album might be released in Christmas 1979. E Street Shuffle: The Glory Days of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Springsteen's initial track sequence for the album was as follows:
Side 1:
Side 2:
By mid-September 1979, Springsteen replaced RICKY WANTS A MAN OF HER OWN, LOOSE ENDS, and THE MAN WHO GOT AWAY by CINDY and THE RIVER. Soon after, he removed RAMROD, restored LOOSE ENDS, and added YOU CAN LOOK (BUT YOU BETTER NOT TOUCH). A title, "The Ties That Bind", was selected for the album and wheels put in motion to produce artwork for the cover. Around September, at least ten tracks were mixed to completion. On 04 Oct 1979, the ten selected tracks were dubbed to two half-track reel-to-reel tapes at The Power Station, and labeled "side one" and "side two". As written on the reels, the producer was Jon Landau and the engineers were Neil Dorfsman and Bob Clearmountain, assisted by Jeff Hendrickson. The new track sequence for the album was as follows:
Reel #1:
Reel #2:
Mock covers with "The Ties That Bind" title were roughed out early in the planning. The cover shot was to be a picture of Bruce Springsteen in front of a barn, with the back cover being a shot of his face behind a screen door. In late September 1979, The Ties That Bind single album was scrapped as Springsteen's writing process continued.
In his 2012 book E Street Shuffle: The Glory Days Of Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Clinton Heylin revealed that in 1993 a 25-song compilation was produced for an archival project, which presumably became the Tracks box set released in 1998. According to Brucebase, the archival concept "album" was produced in-house, presumably following the conclusion of World Tour 1992-1993, perhaps to demonstrate the quality of Springsteen's unreleased archive.
Many of these 25 songs have been subsequently released, either on the Tracks box set or as part of other projects, and some others are known outtakes that are yet to circulate among fans. However, two are only known from this 25-song list: ARNIE and THAT'S OKAY.
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.
| 1. | THE TIES THAT BIND | Different version previously released on The River |
| 2. | CINDY | Previously unreleased |
| 3. | HUNGRY HEART | Previously released on The River |
| 4. | STOLEN CAR | Previously released on Tracks |
| 5. | BE TRUE | Previously released as a B-side and on Tracks |
| 6. | THE RIVER | Previously released on The River |
| 7. | YOU CAN LOOK (BUT YOU BETTER NOT TOUCH) | Different version previously released on The River |
| 8. | THE PRICE YOU PAY | Different version previously released on The River |
| 9. | I WANNA MARRY YOU | Previously released on The River |
| 10. | LOOSE ENDS | Previously released on Tracks |
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.
| 1. | MEET ME IN THE CITY | Previously unreleased |
| 2. | THE MAN WHO GOT AWAY | Previously unreleased |
| 3. | LITTLE WHITE LIES | Previously unreleased |
| 4. | THE TIME THAT NEVER WAS | Previously unreleased |
| 5. | NIGHT FIRE | Previously unreleased |
| 6. | WHITETOWN | Previously unreleased |
| 7. | CHAIN LIGHTNING | Previously unreleased |
| 8. | PARTY LIGHTS | Previously unreleased |
| 9. | PARADISE BY THE "C" | Live version previously released on Live/1975-85 |
| 10. | STRAY BULLET | Previously unreleased |
| 11. | MR. OUTSIDE | Previously unreleased |
| 12. | ROULETTE | Previously released on Tracks |
| 13. | RESTLESS NIGHTS | Previously released on Tracks |
| 14. | WHERE THE BANDS ARE | Previously released on Tracks |
| 15. | DOLLHOUSE | Previously released on Tracks |
| 16. | LIVING ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD | Previously released on Tracks |
| 17. | TAKE 'EM AS THEY COME | Previously released on Tracks |
| 18. | RICKY WANTS A MAN OF HER OWN | Previously released on Tracks |
| 19. | I WANNA BE WITH YOU | Previously released on Tracks |
| 20. | MARY LOU | Previously released on Tracks |
| 21. | HELD UP WITHOUT A GUN | Previously released as a B-side |
| 22. | FROM SMALL THINGS (BIG THINGS ONE DAY COME) | Previously released on The Essential Bruce Springsteen (2003 3-disc edition) |
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 ten songs that are not included on The River Tour, Tempe 1980 (DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN, INDEPENDENCE DAY, FACTORY, RACING IN THE STREET, CANDY'S ROOM, THE TIES THAT BIND, STOLEN CAR, WRECK ON THE HIGHWAY, POINT BLANK, and BACKSTREETS) were later officially released on Live.BruceSpringsteen.net.
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.
As far as it's known, Bruce Springsteen has never performed THE MAN WHO GOT AWAY live.
As far as it's known, no artist has recorded and released Bruce Springsteen's THE MAN WHO GOT AWAY.
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List of available versions of THE MAN WHO GOT AWAY on this website:
THE MAN WHO GOT AWAY [Official studio version]
