Album version
I hauled myself up out of the ditch
And built me an ark out of gopher wood and pitch
Sat down by the roadside and waited on the rain
I am the hunter of invisible game
Well I woke last night to the heavy clicking and clack
And a scarecrow on fire along the railroad tracks
There were empty cities and burning plains
I am the hunter of invisible game
We all come up a little short and we go down hard
These days I spend my time skipping through the dark
Through the empires of dust I chant your name
I am the hunter of invisible game
Through the bone yard rattle and black smoke we rolled on
Down into the valley where the beast has his throne
There I sing my song and I sharpen my blade
I am the hunter of invisible game
Strength is vanity and time is illusion
I feel you breathing, the rest is confusion
Your skin touches mine, what else to explain
I am the hunter of invisible game
Now pray for yourself and that you may not fall
When the hour of deliverance comes on us all
When our hope and faith and courage and trust
Can rise or vanish like dust into dust
Now there's a kingdom of love waiting to be reclaimed
I am the hunter of invisible game
I am the hunter of invisible game
I am the hunter of invisible game
HUNTER OF INVISIBLE GAME is a song written by Bruce Springsteen and released on his 2014 album High Hopes. The above lyrics are for Bruce Springsteen's album version of HUNTER OF INVISIBLE GAME as released on High Hopes.
The album version of HUNTER OF INVISIBLE GAME was included on The Essential Bruce Springsteen (2015 edition) compilation album.
In a March 2014 interview for Rolling Stone, Bruce Springsteen told Sean Sennett: "I wrote [the title] down years ago, and I don't remember a lot about it except I said, 'That's a nice title.' I wrote it down and it sat there. Then I did more reading of other things. And I started to get into this sort of post-apocalyptic idea. The idea of these travelers in the wasteland, and what's the guy trying to do? He's trying to hold onto their humanness, their humanity in all of this ruin. That was the idea. That's who this guy is, the guy who is hunting out remnants of what makes the spirit. It was one of those songs that came together a certain way and I didn't think much about it when I wrote it. I put it away. Now it's probably one of my favorite things on the record."
HUNTER OF INVISIBLE GAME was produced by Brendan O'Brien and features Tom Morello, which indicates that the core recording was originally cut sometime between 2001 and 2008 (more probably later in that period), while some elements were added in 2013, including Tom Morello's guitar. In a 19 Dec 2013 interview that premiered on 10 Jan 2014 during Dave Marsh's Live From E Street Nation show on Sirius XM's E Street Radio channel, Bruce Springsteen said that he doesn't remember a lot about writing HUNTER OF INVISIBLE GAME, or what he was working on at the time when he wrote it. But the song was a big favourite of Morello who happened to hear it in studio a couple of years before, so he mentioned it and prompted to resurrect it. Morello has stated in an interview that he heard O'Brien tinkering with a recording of the song in 2007 or 2008, but this doesn't necessarily prove it was recorded at that time.
In a December 2013 interview for Rolling Stone, Ron Aniello told Andy Greene: "The editing we did on 'Hunter of Invisible Game' was very light. With respect to Brendan, that's his production, and I didn't want to meddle too much. We touch it up and Bruce might have changed a lyric or two. I actually can't remember, but for the most part those were the Brendan O'Brien stuff."
The album version of HUNTER OF INVISIBLE GAME was produced by Brendan O'Brien. The performing musicians line-up on the track is:
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 |
The Essential Bruce Springsteen is a compilation album released as part of Sony BMG'S (previously Sony Music Entertainment) series of "Essential" sets. According to Springsteen's liner notes comments, the collection was intended as an introduction to his music for new fans who attended shows on The Rising Tour.
The collection is fundamentally a 2-disc set (clocking at 153:37) compiling songs from all of Springsteen's studio albums to date plus his Live In New York City release. A 3-disc limited edition (clocking at 201:04) was also released. It includes a bonus third disc comprising of a selection of rarities and previously unreleased recordings.
The Essential Bruce Springsteen was released on 11 Nov 2003 on Columbia Records. It debuted and peaked at #14 on the U.S. Billboard 200 album chart where it spent 13 weeks. It also reached #28 on the UK Albums Chart. The album was awarded certified gold and platinum records by the RIAA on 16 Dec 2003.
Disc 1:
Disc 2:
Disc 3:
The Essential Bruce Springsteen was reissued on 16 Oct 2015, this time as a 2-disc set (clocking at 156:25) with an updated track list, compiling songs from all of Springsteen's studio albums to date plus his Greatest Hits (1995 edition) collection. This 2015 reissue features remastered tracks not found in that form on other Springsteen releases.
Disc 1:
Disc 2:
A short film titled "Hunter Of Invisible Game" was released on Bruce Springsteen's official website on 09 Jul 2014. The 10-minute short film serves as a music video for HUNTER OF INVISIBLE GAME. The audio is dubbed from the album version of the song, extended at the beginning with a five-and-a-half-minute instrumental score composed by Springsteen. Thom Zimny and Bruce Springsteen are credited as filmmakers.
A note from Bruce Springsteen was posted on his website along with the film. In it he thanked "our friends and fans who supported us on the High Hopes leg of our World Tour" and promised for more to come. "We've still got a few surprises for you," he added. He also talked about the making of the filmm: "For a long part of the year, Thom Zimny and I have been talking about shooting a short film for 'Hunter Of Invisible Game.' We've finally got the job done, and we think it's one of our best."
HUNTER OF INVISIBLE GAME was performed once during the High Hopes Tour (34 dates, January to May 2014). The song was played in its album arrangement.
As far as it's known, no artist has recorded and released Bruce Springsteen's HUNTER OF INVISIBLE GAME.
Thanks Shawn Butler for the lyrics correction.
If you have any corrections, additions, or comments, please contact me at , or by using the below form.
List of available versions of HUNTER OF INVISIBLE GAME on this website:
HUNTER OF INVISIBLE GAME [Album version]
