Bruce Springsteen Reportedly Assembling Set Of Unreleased Tunes

Those sounds rising toward heaven these days are the prayers of Bruce Springsteen fans entreating their icon to please, please, please come back home to rock ‘n’ roll.

Many Bruce fans - not all, but a substantial core - will tell you that somewhere along the way he took a detour away from being the greatest rocker ever. Maybe they like “Tom Joad,” “Tunnel of Love” and “Nebraska,” but they’ll argue that even the “Born in the USA” tour, which was rock ‘n’ roll, felt less wild and free than Bruce shows of yore.

Springsteen himself has readily admitted for a decade that the young-kid rocker is gone, just as the young kid himself is gone. He’s got kids of his own. He’s thinking about other things beside rockin’ all over the world.

He underscored that point sharply with his last record: “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” an acoustic collection far closer to folk ballads than rock anthems, followed by an acoustic tour in theaters. He’d play a couple of nights, then go home, and he made it clear this is how he tours now.

But a lot of fans figure there’s got to be some rock left in his soul, which is why they’re so heartened by the report Bruce has finally put together a box set of songs he recorded over the years but never released, and that after it comes out, he might do a more rocking tour.

Officially, all this is pure speculation. But Springsteen did show up at a recent Sony Records convention in Miami to play three songs that could appear in the box set, including “I Wanna Be Where the Bands Are,” an unreleased gem from the “River” sessions.

Reports have the set featuring around 100 tracks and coming out Nov. 10 or 17. Questions, of course, abound: Will Bruce clean up the tapes? Will all the songs be ones that are legally unreleased? Will there be outtakes or material from live shows? Bob Dylan’s “Biograph,” to which this will doubtless be compared, included all that.

The Dylan comparison also works because Bruce, like Bob, has been incredibly prolific. The most casual Springsteen bootleg collection includes dozens of tunes. Even better, a lot of it is great stuff.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he has 200 songs fans have never heard,” says Charles Cross, former editor of Backstreets magazine. “If he put 50 of them on this set, that would be incredible, not to mention getting known material with good fidelity.”

Cross notes that a bootleg album of “River” outtakes, a single disc titled “The Ties That Bind,” is felt by many fans to be better than the double-LP Bruce did release.

As with most Bruce projects, mum is the word. But we do know that Avon soon will release the first book of Springsteen song lyrics, with his commentary. Bet the ranch he’ll be the star inductee of the Class of ‘99 early next year at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

And if he wants to be where the bands are again, he’ll have no trouble selling tickets.