THE PRICE YOU PAY

Live 08 Nov 2009 version

[Spoken intro to The River album performance:]

Good evening everybody. We're gonna get right to work now. Tonight we've got something never before performed. Just this one time. It's too long to do it again. As you know, towards the end of our... we're in the last seven shows of our tour. We've had a great couple of years out here playing for you. We appreciate your support. And uh, we tried to think of things that would uh, make these last series of dates fun for ourselves and our fans, so we've been playing different albums on different nights. We've played Born To Run, Born In The U.S.A., Darkness On The Edge Of Town, we played The Wild The Innocent last night for you folks out here. This is a record, uh, it's sort of a gateway to a lot of my future writing. It was a record we made after Darkness On The Edge Of Town, it was a record made during a recession. Some hard times in the States. Uh, its title song is a song I wrote, uh, for my brother[-in-law] and sister. Well, my brother[-in-law]'s in the construction industry and lost his job and they had to struggle very hard back in the late seventies, like so many people are doing today. Uh, it was a record where I first started to tackle men and women and families and marriage and uh... there were certain songs on it that led to complete records later on. "The River" sort of led to the writing on Nebraska, "Stolen Car" led to the writing on Tunnel Of Love. It was a record where... originally it was a single record, I handed it in with just one record and I took it back because I didn't feel it was uh, it was big enough. And uh, I wanted to sort of capture the themes that I'd been writing about on, on Darkness, I wanted to keep those characters with me and at the same time add the music that made our live shows so much fun and enjoyable for our audience. So uh, in the end, we're gonna take you down to the river tonight.

[Performs THE TIES THAT BIND / SHERRY DARLING / JACKSON CAGE / TWO HEARTS / INDEPENDENCE DAY / HUNGRY HEART / OUT IN THE STREET / CRUSH ON YOU / YOU CAN LOOK (BUT YOU BETTER NOT TOUCH) / I WANNA MARRY YOU / THE RIVER / POINT BLANK / CADILLAC RANCH / I'M A ROCKER / FADE AWAY / STOLEN CAR / RAMROD]

[Then performs THE PRICE YOU PAY:]

Here we go!
One, two, one two three four

You make up your mind, you choose the chance you take
You ride to where the highway ends and the desert breaks
Out on to an open road you ride until the day
You learn to sleep at night with the price you pay

Now with their hands held high, they reached out for the open skies
And in one last breath they built the roads they'd ride to their death
Driving on through the night, unable to break away
From the restless pull of the price you pay

Oh the price you pay, oh the price you pay
You can't walk away from the price you pay

Now they come so far and they waited so long
Just to end up caught in a dream where everything goes wrong
Where the dark of night holds back the light of the day
And you've got to stand and fight for the price you pay

Oh the price you pay, woah the price you pay
You can't walk away from the price you pay
Alright!

Little girl down on the strand with that pretty little baby in your hands
Do you remember the story of the promised land
How he crossed the desert sands and could not enter the chosen land
On the banks of the river he stayed to face the price you pay

So let the games start, you better run you little wild heart
You can run through all the nights and all the days
But just across the county line, a stranger passing through put up a sign
That counts the men fallen away to the price you pay
And girl before the end of the day I'm gonna tear it down and throw it away

Info

The above lyrics are for the live 08 Nov 2009 performance of THE PRICE YOU PAY at Madison Square Garden in New York City, NY, during the Working On A Dream Tour. The song was played in its full-band album arrangement.

On this show, Bruce Springsteen and the band played the entire The River album from start to finish and in sequence.

The 08 Nov 2009 Show

During the Working On A Dream Tour, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band performed two concerts at Madison Square Garden in New York City, NY, on 07 and 08 Nov 2009. On the second show, and for the first time ever, they played the entire The River album from start to finish and in sequence.

Ticket stub for the 08 Nov 2009 show at Madison Square Garden, New York City, NY

Handwritten setlist stub for the 08 Nov 2009 show at Madison Square Garden, New York City, NY

In June 2018 the complete 08 Nov 2009 concert was officially released on Live.BruceSpringsteen.net (see the "Official Live Downloads" section below for more details). The show was recorded by John Cooper and mixed by Jon Altschiller, with additional engineering by Danielle Warman.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band -- MSG Nov 08, 2009

Official Live Downloads

Prior to the High Hopes Tour, Bruce Springsteen's management announced a new service allowing fans to download concert recordings approximately 48 hours after each show. The initial plan required fans to purchase a special USB wristband, which could then be used to download a single High Hopes Tour show of the purchaser's choice and also functions as a regular reusable USB flash drive. The wristband, which could be purchased online or at the concert venue, was priced at $40. Following some negative response from fans over the high cost for the wristband, Springsteen's management subsequently announced a separate cheaper option for purchasing shows directly, without the need for the wristband. The shows were available for purchase and download via Live Nation, Bruce Springsteen's concert promoter, priced at $9.99 for MP3 and $14.99 for FLAC. Audio recordings for 31 of the 34 High Hopes Tour dates (all except 16 Feb 2014, 06 Apr 2014, and 03 May 2014) were released as such and they were available until 30 Jun 2014.

On 17 Nov 2014, Live.BruceSpringsteen.net was launched. It's a new addition to the official website, serving as an online store offering high-quality live concert recordings as well as high-resolution digital releases of Springsteen's album catalog. The download store is powered by Nugs.net in cooperation with Columbia Records. Audio recordings for 30 of the 34 High Hopes Tour dates (all except 16 Feb 2014, 06 Apr 2014, 03 May 2014, and 18 May 2014) were re-released on the new download store in multiple formats, including MP3, lossless CD-quality FLAC or ALAC, and 24-bit HD FLAC or ALAC or MQA, as well as audio CD-R with custom artwork. Nugs.net adopted the MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) format on 24 May 2017. From then on, all Bruce Springsteen live concert recordings, including the previously released ones, became also available in MQA.

Audio recordings for all 75 The River Tour 2016 dates were also released on Live.BruceSpringsteen.net in multiple formats, including MP3, lossless CD-quality FLAC or ALAC, and 24-bit HD FLAC or ALAC or MQA, as well as audio CD-R with custom artwork. Each show was generally released within a month after it took place.

Audio recordings for all 14 Summer '17 Tour dates were also released on Live.BruceSpringsteen.net in multiple formats, including MP3, lossless CD-quality FLAC or ALAC, and 24-bit HD FLAC or ALAC or MQA, as well as audio CD-R with custom artwork. Each show was generally released within a month after it took place.

Archival releases were periodically released on the same site, as part of the Bruce Springsteen Archive Series. These shows were also made available in multiple formats, including MP3, lossless FLAC or ALAC, 24-bit FLAC or ALAC or MQA, DSD, and audio CD-R. So far 90 shows (or sets of shows) were released from the ongoing series.

Available Versions

List of available versions of THE PRICE YOU PAY on this website:

Page last updated: 03 Jun 2018