Bruce Springsteen's new album High Hopes  -- which will feature new songs, covers, re-recordings of the singer's old songs and studio outtakes -- will be released on Jan. 14, 2014, announced this week.

The video for the titular single from the album was also released.

The new track, High Hopes, rides on a gritty blues strain as Springsteen plays cynic on the verse: "Slow me down before the new year dies/Won't take much to kill a lovin' smile/Every mother with a baby crying in her arms/Saying give me help."

While the fast-paced intensity translates into a more uplifting, jangly soundscape featuring big horn sections on the chorus, Springsteen doesn't let up on the bleakness as he builds up to a sardonic bite in the lyrics.

"Give me love/Give me peace/Don't you know these days you pay for everything/High hopes/I got high hopes," Springsteen sings.

There is also a whole lot of striking guitar work -- wailing and shredding -- by Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine) on the track.

"This is music I always felt needed to be released," Springsteen said in a statement revealing the release date for the album.

Springsteen was originally working on an album featuring all-new material but changed his mind after interacting with Morello, who was supporting him on his tour in Australia earlier this year. After Morello suggested that he perform High Hopes, a Tim Scott McConnell song that Springsteen originally recorded with the E Street Band in 1995, Springsteen got the idea.

"We worked it up in our Aussie rehearsals and Tom then proceeded to burn the house down with it," he said.  "We re-cut it mid tour at Studios 301 in Sydney along with Just Like Fire Would, a song from one of my favorite early Australian punk bands, the Saints (check out I'm Stranded). Tom and his guitar became my muse, pushing the rest of this project to another level."

Here's the entire track list, credits and liner notes for the upcoming album:

High Hopes (Tim Scott McConnell) - featuring Tom Morello
Harry's Place * - featuring Tom Morello
American Skin (41 Shots) - featuring Tom Morello
Just Like Fire Would (Chris J. Bailey) - featuring Tom Morello
Down in the Hole *
Heaven's Wall ** - featuring Tom Morello
Frankie Fell in Love
This Is Your Sword
Hunter of Invisible Game * - featuring Tom Morello
The Ghost of Tom Joad - duet with Tom Morello
The Wall
Dream Baby Dream (Martin Rev and Alan Vega) - featuring Tom Morello

All songs are written by Bruce Springsteen except as noted. The tracks were produced by Springsteen and Ron Aniello

*Produced by Brendan O'Brien

**Produced by Brendan O'Brien, co-produced by Ron Aniello with Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen's High Hopes liner notes:

I was working on a record of some of our best unreleased material from the past decade when Tom Morello (sitting in for Steve during the Australian leg of our tour) suggested we ought to add High Hopes to our live set. I had cut High Hopes, a song by Tim Scott McConnell of the L.A. based Havalinas, in the Nineties. We worked it up in our Aussie rehearsals and Tom then proceeded to burn the house down with it. We re-cut it mid tour at Studios 301 in Sydney along with Just Like Fire Would, a song from one of my favorite early Australian punk bands, the Saints (check out I'm Stranded). Tom and his guitar became my muse, pushing the rest of this project to another level. Thanks for the inspiration Tom.

Some of these songs, American Skin and Ghost of Tom Joad, you'll be familiar with from our live versions. I felt they were among the best of my writing and deserved a proper studio recording. The Wall is something I'd played on stage a few times and remains very close to my heart. The title and idea were Joe Grushecky's, then the song appeared after Patti and I made a visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. It was inspired by my memories of Walter Cichon. Walter was one of the great early Jersey Shore rockers, who along with his brother Ray (one of my early guitar mentors) led the Motifs. The Motifs were a local rock band who were always a head above everybody else. Raw, sexy and rebellious, they were the heroes you aspired to be. But these were heroes you could touch, speak to, and go to with your musical inquiries. Cool, but always accessible, they were an inspiration to me, and many young working musicians in 1960s central New Jersey. Though my character in The Wall is a Marine, Walter was actually in the Army, A Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Infantry. He was the first person I ever stood in the presence of who was filled with the mystique of the true rock star. Walter went missing in action in Vietnam in March 1968. He still performs somewhat regularly in my mind, the way he stood, dressed, held the tambourine, the casual cool, the freeness. The man who by his attitude, his walk said "you can defy all this, all of what's here, all of what you've been taught, taught to fear, to love and you'll still be alright." His was a terrible loss to us, his loved ones and the local music scene. I still miss him. 

This is music I always felt needed to be released. From the gangsters of Harry's Place, the ill-prepared roomies on Frankie Fell in Love (shades of Steve and I bumming together in our Asbury Park apartment) the travelers in the wasteland of Hunter of Invisible Game, to the soldier and his visiting friend in The Wall, I felt they all deserved a home and a hearing. Hope you enjoy it."

Watch the video for High Hopes here:

Tags: Bruce Springsteen