For most other artists, today’s featured track None But the Brave would be their best song. For Bruce Springsteen it’s an outtake, kept in the vault for years. I was surprised to read how early this was recorded. I assumed it was a 90’s or 2000’s track. It just plain sounds like modern Bruce. His voice clearly carries his age and a certain world-weariness that characterized the heavy subject matter of Rising-era recordings.
This song is fantastic, and for that reason many fans feel it should have been on Born in the USA. But does it thematically/musically fit that record? None But the Brave is heartfelt and heartbreaking, and it captures the E Street Band sound at perhaps the peak of its powers. None But the Brave is the second bonus outtake to appear here from The Essential Bruce Springsteen record released in 2003 after the previous entry County Fair.
Tonight down on Union Street
I’m thinking back baby to you and me
The way you used to be
Your words come back to me
From passing cars
Voices sing out
And empty bars
Where guitars ring out
We’d walk and talk about
Who’d be the ones to get out
You said
None but the brave
No one baby but the brave
Those strong enough to save
Something from what they gave
None but the brave
No one baby but the brave
In my dreams these nights I see you my friend
The way you looked back then
On a night like this
I know that girl no longer exists
Except for a moment in some stranger’s eyes
Or in the nameless girls in cars rushing by
That’s where I find you tonight
And in my heart you still survive (read the remainder here)
None But the Brave made its live debut shortly after its album releases, at Bruce’s Asbury Park holiday shows in December 2003. The first E Street Band performance was more than four years later, in Vancouver on the Magic tour. Apart from today’s track, there are some seriously good songs left off the Born in the USA album including: Pink Cadillac, Johnny Bye & Shut out the Light.
None But the Brave finds Bruce nostalgically looking back on days spent with a lost love. This makes it something of a companion piece to “Point Blank” from The River, and in the July 1983 Born in the U.S.A. sequence, it was slotted as the third song on Side One. Ultimately, it wouldn’t see an official release until 2003, and it’s been played live a scant six times.
References:
1. Roll of the Dice: None But the Brave – E Street Shuffle
2. 10 Amazing Songs Bruce Springsteen Cut From ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ – Rolling Stone
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand
Observation Blogger 
I’ve heard this song maybe once…I need to listen to this more. It is a great song…must be nice as a songwriter to write as many quality songs that he just locked in the vault.
I heard it on my playlist at the gym and I wondered how I hadn’t already written about it. It slipped through the cracks. I like the guitar solo. He had a lot to play with to finalise the record.
For one album…I’m not sure if it was Born to Run or Born in the USA he wrote 80 songs for the album…it’s incredible.
I think it was the latter if I remember rightly.
Ok…yea I think he was upset that his manager wanted to new song….which became Dancing in the Dark…he said I already wrote 80….YOU write it lol…but he ended up writing it.
Like 80’s not enough! I like that story.
Neat Springsteen song. I don’t think I heard it before. I wouldn’t have minded if it had been on “Born in the U.S.A” and replaced “Darlington County” or “Working on the Highway”.
I’m a fan of Darlington County so I wouldn’t have taken that out. But yeh, I like ‘None But The Brave’ over ‘Working on the Highway ‘for sure. However he was going for a blue collar worker theme on the record and belted it out of the park. I once heard BITUSA was second (in history) in sales only to Jackson’s ‘Thriller’.
“Born In the U.S.A.” was the album that really brought Springsteen on my radar screen. While many of the tracks on that album certainly haven’t suffered from obscurity, I still enjoy them.
My friend at school Daniel Olsen brought his music to me. He lent me everything he had. We even tried to write lyrics like Bruce which I still have copies. I went crazy on his music in my youth writing whole lyric jackets of Born to Run etc. Good times indeed.
Same here.. always been a big fan of music. Unlike you, I’m not as crazy now for ‘Dancing in the Dark’ as I was in my youth. I’ve seen ‘Blinded by the Light’. I thought it was pretty weak. Thanks anyway.