Trois titres inédits à la Librairie du Congrès

Un fan américain a fait les démarches nécessaires pour écouter trois titres inédits conservés à la section Droits d'Auteur de la librairie du congrès. Il s'agit de deux titres déposés en 1995 (et dans la veine Streets of Philadelphia) et de la chanson recalée pour Harry Potter.
Récit en anglais ici :

MY UNCLE SAM'S RECORD COLLECTION
A Christmastime visit to hear unreleased Springsteen music at the Library of Congress

You can probably think of quite a few ideal places to experience Springsteen songs, from in the car with the windows down to elbows on the stage. It's doubtful that a government office building would be high on your list. But when that's the only way you can hear these songs, it's a different story. Take it from Shawn Poole:

Last week, on one of my vacation days between Christmas and New Year's Day, I took a roadtrip to spend an afternoon in Washington, DC, listening to some unreleased Bruce Springsteen recordings that most fans, myself included, have never heard before in any form. The recordings are part of Springsteen's U.S. Copyright filing records and, since these records are legal public documents, they are available for public "inspection" — including listening on headphones to the submitted recordings themselves — through the Library of Congress' U.S. Copyright Office (located in the Library's Madison Building, just across the street from the main building.)

Among the recordings available for the public's listening pleasure are the 1995 recordings "Between Heaven & Earth" and "Blindspot," and the 2001 recording "I'll Stand By You (Always)." The last of these got some renewed attention recently, since Springsteen was asked about it during his recent visit to London. Bruce confirmed that he wrote and submitted the song for possible inclusion on the soundtrack for the first Harry Potter film. (Click here for director Chris Columbus's version of that story.)

Many enterprising Springsteen fans have seen these titles show up in an online copyright search, but there's a vast difference between seeing the words on a screen and hearing the work itself in your ear. I've known for a few years now that it's possible to arrange to hear unreleased recordings like these in the nation's capital, but until last week I never got around to doing so (mainly because you just can't do it as a spur-of-the-moment thing; more on that later.) As a fan of the Harry Potter books and films, however, reading again about Bruce's Potter-connected song inspired me to finally arrange the trip to Washington and hear that song and some other unreleased Springsteen music for myself. It made for quite a nice Christmastime treat.

While none of what I heard is on the level of legendary long-unreleased Springsteen material such as "The Promise," "Roulette," or "Murder Incorporated," these recordings nevertheless remain very interesting and often beautiful "roads not taken" in Springsteen's career. Should he ever get around to issuing a Tracks 2 set or similar project, any or all of these tracks certainly would merit inclusion.
Below are my notes on each of three tracks I got to hear last week, along with their copyright registration information for your reference, should you care to arrange your own visit. Instructions for doing so are below as well.


"Between Heaven & Earth"

The first pleasant surprise I encountered upon hearing both this track and "Blindspot" was that these 1995 tracks definitely are not outtakes from the sessions for The Ghost of Tom Joad, as some fans (myself included) have presumed previously. Given the strong hip-hop elements in each recording, it is much more likely that these tracks were part of Bruce's "lost" hip-hop-influenced album of the mid-1990s.
"There's a record that we recorded, mixed and didn't put out," Springsteen said on E Street Radio back in 2013. "Bob Clearmountain mixed it, spent a lot of time on it… didn't put it out. That was, like, '94. And it still intrigues me. I still go back to it. There are still things on it that I really like, and I may go back to sort of say, 'Okay, well, why...?' Sometimes it's timing, you know. There was a particular reason that I didn't put out that group of music. Sometimes the timing just doesn't feel right for that kind of record."

"Between Heaven & Earth" is a ballad that features a hip-hop-style drum track and synthesizer wash a la 1994's "Streets of Philadelphia," with some electric guitar added to the recording's fade-out, presumably played by Bruce. (No musician or production credits were included with any of the copyright records I inspected.) The lyrics are focused on the difficulties of maintaining a marriage and family life, with imagery that includes children and a home's kitchen. The recording also features some nice double-tracked backing vocals from Bruce, using the falsetto voice he was developing at that time.

One other thing I should note here is that all of the tracks I inspected last week were submitted to the U.S. Copyright Office on cassette tapes. Oddly enough, the 1995 cassettes are high-quality Denon Metal cassettes dubbed by New York City's Masterdisk, while the 2001 track was submitted on a plain old Maxell UR normal-bias cassette. All of them have held up very well, however, and their sound quality is still pretty damn good even in this digital age (especially when played back on the U.S. Copyright Office's professional equipment on headphones, which is how you have to listen, of course. You also can bring your own pair of headphones if you prefer to do so.) It helps greatly, of course, that each of these tracks is a fully finished professional studio recording. There is no rough-mix, bootleg-level sound to be found here at all.

"Blindspot"

Like "Between Heaven & Earth," "Blindspot" features a hip-hop-style drum track, synth wash and an electric guitar solo, though this track's solo is more prominent and extended. The rhythm track on "Blindspot" also features the sound of a male shout repeatedly sampled in the same manner that James Brown's and Bobby Byrd's shouts were sampled in Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock's 1988 hip-hop classic "It Takes Two." The lyrics focus on the troubling aspects of interpersonal relationships as well, exploring the darker aspects of our own personalities that can make forging and maintaining our relationships so difficult. Just as everybody's got a hungry heart, so does everybody have a blindspot. Bruce also uses a lyrical image similar to one found in Jackson Browne's "Your Bright Baby Blues" (from The Pretender, produced by Jon Landau) where the singer feels like he's flying at first, but then realizes he's actually on his knees.

"I'll Stand By You (Always)"

This is the only track I "inspected" for which the cassette recording was accompanied by a printed lyric sheet (though absolutely no photography, recording or copying of any of the materials, lyrics, etc. is permitted during the inspection process.) I've placed the word "Always" in parentheses because the title of the copyright record and the handwritten title on the cassette both include the word "Always," while the title on the typed lyric sheet does not. In any case, this is a beautiful little ballad, clearly from the perspective of a parent singing lovingly to a child. The track features piano, synthesizer, and a simple, metronomic drum part. Bruce contributes more multi-tracked falsetto backing vocals, too. There are no specific Potter scenarios in the lyrics, a few ghosts and goblins appearing in a nightmare notwithstanding, but the telling of stories of heroes fighting evil, in order to assuage and comfort a child's fears and insecurities, is a theme embedded throughout.

After the song was rejected for use in the first Harry Potter film, Bruce allowed tropical/salsa music star Marc Anthony to record a version of "I'll Stand By You (Always)." After much pre-publicity from both Sony and Anthony himself that his version of the song would appear on his album Mended, the song was never released in any form by either Anthony or Springsteen. When asked about it in London a few months ago, Bruce said, ""It was pretty good, it was a song I wrote for my eldest son, it was a big ballad that was very uncharacteristic of something I'd sing myself. But it was something that I thought would have fit lovely. At some point I'd like to get it into a children's movie of some sort, because it was a pretty lovely song." Having now heard it myself, I have to agree.

If you're interested in arranging your own visit to hear these recordings (and in the process feel like a Springsteen-scholar mix of Indiana Jones, Woodward & Bernstein and Mulder & Scully all at once), here's how to go about doing so:
Plan ahead: Appointments must be scheduled, and you should submit your request to visit at least six weeks in advance. This will give the Copyright Office staff time to process your fee and acquire/prepare each item you request, which is not stored at the Library of Congress itself, but at an off-site location. Only after all items are acquired and ready for inspection can your visit be scheduled. To start this whole process, first send an e-mail message to copycerts@loc.gov listing the title and registration number/date of each record you wish to inspect. (The specific Springsteen-related information you'll need is listed above.) You'll soon receive a reply explaining what steps to take next.
Allow plenty of time for your visit: The U.S. Copyright Office is open only on weekdays, Monday through Friday (except holidays), from 8:30am - 5:00pm. You'll want to have at least an hour or two to listen (and re-listen) leisurely to this music. And if you bring along some friends (see below), everyone will need a chance with the headphones — again, no speakers here. If you don't already have a Reader Identification Card, you'll also need additional time to first acquire one, which could take a while on especially busy days. While no photography, recording, or copying is permitted, taking notes is fine; notes may be reviewed upon request by Copyright Office staff to ensure compliance with the regulations that protect all copyright holders. It's worth saying that every staff member with whom I interacted before and during my visit was polite, pleasant and very helpful.

Share the wealth (and the expense): There are fees involved in having Copyright Office staff acquire each requested record and arrange for your visit. These fees must be paid in advance. Listening to all of the recordings listed above will cost you a total of $200, but you can decrease this cost substantially by splitting it among a few friends who are interested in joining you for the experience. I was permitted to bring up to three additional people with me during my visit. That worked out to just $50 per person: well worth it, from this fan's perspective, for a chance to hear a set of very interesting Springsteen tracks that currently are unavailable any other way.
- January 5, 2017 - report and photograph by Shawn Poole - special thanks to Erica Ingram and Denina Scott at the U.S. Copyright Office

tu devrais renommer ton post "3 titres pour 200 dollars"

est ce que les Russes qui ont de grandes oreilles pourraient aller écouter la chose au Congrès et nous faire parvenir les titres jusqu'à nos oreilles par le détroit de Béring?  


Bref... on finira bien par les écouter à un moment ou un autre, ces chansons? hein? non? si...

C'est malin, maintenant j'ai envie d'écouter son titre ecrit pour Harry Potter, voir l'album rejeté dans son entier.

En attendant d'entendre la vraie chanson, il y a toujours la parodie de Conen O'Brien :