Album version
Monday morning runs to Sunday night
A scream slow me down before the new year dies
Well it won't take much to kill a loving smile
And every mother with a baby crying in her arms, singing
Give me help, give me strength
Give a soul a night of fearless sleep
Give me love, give me peace
Don't you know these days you pay for everything
Got high hopes
I got high hopes
Got high hopes
I got high hopes
Coming from the city, coming from the wild
I see a breathless army breaking like a cloud
They're gonna smother love, they're gonna shoot your hopes
Before the meek inherit they'll learn to hate themselves
Give me help, give me strength
Give a soul a night of fearless sleep
Give me love, give me peace
Don't you know these days you pay for everything
Got high hopes
I got high hopes
I got high hopes
I got high hopes
Give me help, give me strength
Give a soul a night of fearless sleep
Give me love, give me peace
Don't you know these days you pay for everything
Got high hopes
Got high hopes
I got high hopes
Got high hopes
Tell me someone now, what's the price
I wanna buy some time and maybe live my life
I wanna have a wife, I wanna have some kids
I wanna look in their eyes and know they'll stand a chance
Give me help, give me strength
Give a soul a night of fearless sleep
Give me love, give me peace
Don't you know these days you pay for everything
Got high hopes
Got high hopes
I got high hopes
Got high hopes
Got high hopes
I got high hopes
I got high hopes
I got high hopes
HIGH HOPES is a song written by Tim Scott McConnell who originally released it in 1987 (see the original Tim Scott McConnell version for more details). The song was then recorded by Scott McConnell's band The Havalinas in 1990 (see The Havalinas' version for more details). Springsteen's cover version of HIGH HOPES is based on The Havalinas' version.
Bruce Springsteen released HIGH HOPES on his 2014 album High Hopes. The above lyrics are for Bruce Springsteen's album version of HIGH HOPES as released on High Hopes.
Springsteen originally recorded HIGH HOPES in 1995 and released it the following year. See the "Studio Recording" section below for more details.
The Havalinas' version of HIGH HOPES caught the ear of Bruce Springsteen who he ended up recording it in 1995. Three studio takes of HIGH HOPES from 1995 are known to exist, all recorded in January 1995 at The Hit Factory in New York City, NY:
In December of 2012, Tom Morello was driving around Los Angeles and listening to Sirius XM's E Street Radio channel and the 1995 studio version of HIGH HOPES came. "I had heard it before, but I was reminded of what a jam it was," he told Andy Greene in a January 2014 interview for Rolling Stone. "I thought that might be a fun one to play. So in the middle of the night I sat in my driveway and I texted Bruce and said, 'What do you think about 'High Hopes' for the upcoming thing?' He put that in the set. It just felt like a potential riff-rocker. It felt like it was a little in my wheelhouse of riffage, and I thought it would just be fun to rock out."
HIGH HOPES was recorded in studio in March 2013 during the Australian leg of the Wrecking Ball Tour. Along with JUST LIKE FIRE WOULD, the song was cut at Studios 301 in Byron Bay (a town 165 kilometres south of Brisbane) and Sydney in Australia, with the E Street Band and featuring Tom Morello on guitar. Morello, who was in Brisbane, recorded his part at the studio's Byron Bay complex while the rest of the band recorded together at the studio's Sydney complex. This happened in one day, though some parts may have been re-recorded later.
In a December 2013 interview for Rolling Stone, Ron Aniello told Andy Greene that he didn't even listen to the 1995 studio version of HIGH HOPES. "I think I owed it to Bruce to be fresh," he said. The recording sessions in Australia were spontaneous. The band was there and so was Brendan O'Brien's engineer Nick DiDia who had moved to Australia, "so they just decided to cut a couple songs," as Aniello explained. "I was listening in online. I wasn't part of the tracking session."
The album version of HIGH HOPES was produced by Ron Aniello with Bruce Springsteen. The performing musicians line-up on the track is:
On 18 Nov 2013 it was announced on Bruce Springsteen's official website that HIGH HOPES will be released as a single on 25 Nov 2013. The single's artwork was revealed simultaneously. On 19 Nov 2013, six days prior to its official release, the song leaked on the internet. HIGH HOPES was released on 25 Nov 2013 as a digital single on Amazon.com and iTunes.
The single was issued on CD-R for promotional purposes in Europe.
A music video for HIGH HOPES was released on 25 Nov 2013 on both Bruce Springsteen's official website and Bruce Springsteen's VEVO YouTube channel. The video was posted to celebrate the High Hopes album's announcement. It was directed by Thom Zimny and features photos from Danny Clinch, Australian tour footage (March 2013) featuring Tom Morello shot by Chris Hilson, vintage documentary footage, and some of the song's lyrics. Springsteen also posted liner notes about the High Hopes album along with the song's video on his website. The video was also included on the Japanese Singles Collection -Greatest Hits- compilation album.
High Hopes is Bruce Springsteen's eighteenth studio album. It was officially released on 14 Jan 2014 on Columbia Records. It consists of 12 tracks and clocks at 56:24. Four songs were previously released in different versions (two of which are covers), two more were previously performed live but never released, and the remaining six are new to fans (one of which is a cover). "This is music I always felt needed to be released," Springsteen wrote in the album's liner notes.
In a December 2013 interview for Rolling Stone, Springsteen told Andy Greene that he has always written and recorded significantly more songs than can fit on to whatever album he's creating at the moment. "I have a lot of this music on a computer," he said. "I bring it out on the road to amuse myself. Very often, if I have nothing to do late at night I'll bring it up and look at different bodies of music." The songs that began catching Springsteen's attention were largely recorded after he reunited with the E Street Band in 1999. "The songs were relatively current and had a similar sound picture," he said. "I was interested in putting this material together in some form because it sounded like it all fit together... You have to imagine that when I'm home or done with a tour I go into a studio and I'm surrounded by paintings that I've sorta half-finished. There might be something wrong with this one and I didn't have time to finish this one. When I go into my studio, I'm surrounded by all my music that I haven't released. I wait to see what's going to speak to me." But then they cut a few sessions in 2013 while on tour. "I said, 'Well, these sound good,'" Springsteen told Rolling Stone. "These things blend together. Suddenly, it began to feel very fresh and fit together quite well."
Work on the album started in late 2012 when Springsteen called producer Ron Aniello asking him to work on some demos that he was thinking about releasing. "I remember that Bruce called me on my birthday, so it was December 9th, 2012", Aniello told Andy Greene in a December 2013 interview for Rolling Stone. "He said to me, 'I have some songs. I want to get together.'" According to Aniello, these were old demos that Springsteen had done with Toby Scott and that had been around for a while. Springsteen told him that he wanted to get these songs in shape and see what comes out of that. Aniello was not able to sit with Springsteen to sort it all out because Springsteen was away most of the time touring with the E Street Band. "It all happened in a very unusual manner," Aniello told Rolling Stone. "There was a lot of conversations in Europe and I did some of the recording via iChat when the band was in Australia."
In a January 2014 interview for Rolling Stone, Tom Morello told Andy Greene that he wasn't aware that there was ever talk of a new studio album when they sent him a couple of songs to add guitar on. He did that in his home studio and shortly after he was recording in studio with Max Weinberg and Ron Aniello. "But these studio sessions just kept occurring without any formal notion of what we were doing," Morello recounted. "My assumption was just that 'Bruce is always recording music.' So it was fantastic that I was asked to be a part of it. I was psyched." In March 2013 Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band performed ten shows in Australia as part of the Wrecking Ball Tour. Steven Van Zandt was off filming his television series Lillyhammer and was replaced by Morello for that leg of the tour. Morello suggested to add HIGH HOPES to the live set. They worked it up during the rehearsals prior to the Australian shows and Morello then "proceeded to burn the house down with it," as Springsteen said. They then re-cut the song along with JUST LIKE FIRE WOULD at Studios 301, Australia's largest studio complex. "Tom and his guitar became my muse, pushing the rest of this project to another level," Springsteen said. He told Rolling Stone's David Fricke, "We've never had a recording session during a tour in our lives. We did a couple of things that I wanted to put down. So that was very exciting. And being with Tommy was exciting. The band — Steven, Nils, all those guys — continues to be a source of inspiration for me." Morello told Rolling Stone that he didn't get the notion that this was "coalescing into what was going to be a major release" until they were in Australia.
No less than sixteen recording studios were used in the making of High Hopes: Thrill Hill Recording (Springsteen's home studio in Colts Neck, NJ), Stone Hill Studio (Springsteen's new home studio in Colts Neck, NJ), Very Loud House (in Los Angeles, CA), Renegade Studio (in New York City, NY), Veritas Studio (in Los Angeles, CA), Southern Tracks (Atlanta, GA), East West Studios (in Los Angeles, CA), NRG Studios (in Los Angeles, CA), Village Studios (in Los Angeles, CA), Studios 301 (in Byron Bay and Sydney, Australia), Record Plant (in Los Angeles, CA), Electric Lady Studios (in New York City, NY), Avatar Studios (in New York City, NY), Sear Sound (in New York City, NY), and Berkeley Street Studio (in Santa Monica, CA).
Ron Aniello revealed that at least 20 tracks were recorded for the album. Among the tracks that didn't make the album cut were COLD SPOT, HEY BLUE EYES, AMERICAN BEAUTY, and MARY MARY.
The album was produced by Bruce Springsteen, Brendan O'Brien, and Ron Aniello. It features all E Street Band members, including the late Clarence Clemons and the late Danny Federici on several songs of what Springsteen calls "some of our best unreleased material from the past decade." The album also features an ensemble of guest artists, including Tom Morello who's featured prominently on the album, appearing on eight tracks.
High Hopes is available in three configurations: standard CD edition, limited edition, and double-disc LP. The limited edition consists of the standard audio CD and includes a bonus live DVD of Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band performing the entire Born In The U.S.A. album on 30 Jun 2013 at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, England, during the Wrecking Ball Tour. The double-disc LP is pressed on 180-gram vinyl and includes a CD version of the album.
High Hopes was officially announced on 25 Nov 2013 and the release date was set for 14 Jan 2014, but on 28 Dec 2013 it became available for purchase as individual tracks in MP3 format through Amazon.com's mobile application. Although Amazon quickly removed the files, presumably recognizing its mistake, the album had already made its way onto file-sharing websites.
The album topped the charts in 20 countries, including the United States and the UK. It was Springsteen's eleventh #1 album in the US, placing him third all-time for most #1 albums only behind The Beatles and Jay-Z. It was his tenth #1 in the UK, putting him joint fifth all-time and level with The Rolling Stones and U2.
| Country | Chart | Peak position |
| Australia | Aria Top 50 Albums Chart | 1 |
| Austria | Alben Top 75 | 2 |
| Belgium | Ultratop 50 Albums (Flanders) | 1 |
| Belgium | Ultratop 50 Albums (Wallonia) | 2 |
| Canada | Billboard Top Canadian Albums | 1 |
| Croatia | Arhiva Kombiniranih (all artists chart) | 1 |
| Czech Republic | ČNS IFPI - CZ Albums Top 100 | 1 |
| Denmark | Album 40 | 1 |
| Finland | Suomen Virallinen Albumilista | 1 |
| France | Top 200 Albums | 2 |
| Germany | Media Control Charts Top 100 Albums | 1 |
| Greece | 1 | |
| Hungary | Top 40 Albums | 12 |
| Ireland | Top 100 Individual Artist Albums | 1 |
| Italy | Top 20 Albums | 1 |
| Japan | Japan Hot 100 | 8 |
| New Zealand | Album Top 40 | 1 |
| Norway | VG-lista Topp 40 Album | 1 |
| Poland | Poland Albums Top 50 | 6 |
| Portugal | Albums Top 30 | 4 |
| Slovenia | 1 | |
| South Africa | 5 | |
| South Korea | 83 | |
| Spain | Album Top 100 | 1 |
| Sweden | Sverigetopplistan Albums Top 60 | 1 |
| Switzerland | Albums Top 100 | 1 |
| The Netherlands | Album Top 100 | 1 |
| UK | Official UK Albums Top 100 | 1 |
| USA | Billboard 200 | 1 |
Japanese Singles Collection -Greatest Hits- is a Bruce Springsteen compilation album released by Sony Music Japan in 2023. The compilation, which was exclusively released in Japan, consists of previously released 35 audio tracks and 62 video tracks. The collection is part of a 26-title reissue campaign to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Bruce Springsteen's debut album. The series, issued in three waves (25 Oct 2023, 22 Nov 2023, and 20 Dec 2023), includes 25 albums originally released between 1973 and 2014 plus a new compilation album that includes all of Springsteen's singles released in Japan from 1975 to 1999. All audio CD's were manufactured using Sony Japan's Blu-spec CD2 format.
Disc 1: (audio CD)
Disc 2: (audio CD)
Disc 3: (DVD)
Disc 4: (DVD)
Other versions of HIGH HOPES were also officially released.
HIGH HOPES was performed 6 times during the Wrecking Ball Tour (133 dates, March 2012 to September 2013), all during the 10-date Australian leg in March 2013. See the live 16 Mar 2013 version.
In preparation for the High Hopes Tour, HIGH HOPES is known to have been practiced during at least one of the private rehearsals that took place in January 2014 in Cape Town prior to the tour's first leg.
HIGH HOPES was performed 34 times during the High Hopes Tour (34 dates, January to May 2014). The song was played in its album arrangement.
HIGH HOPES was performed off-tour on 14 Jan 2014 at Rockefeller Center in New York City, NY, during a TV appearance on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. The song was played in its album arrangement, with the E Street Band and Tom Morello. See the live 14 Jan 2014 version for more details.
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List of available versions of HIGH HOPES on this website:
HIGH HOPES [Album version]
