50 Greatest Bruce Springsteen Songs

12/16/2023

by Julian Spivey
This year marks 50 years since both the debut and sophomore albums of Bruce Springsteen, a songwriter that has meant more to me as a music listener than any other. His music makes me believe in a better life. It makes me dream. It makes me feel. And I simply don't know what I would do without it. To celebrate a half-century of Bruce Springsteen's music I have compiled a list of what I believe to be his 50 greatest songs. I hope you enjoy it!

50. My City of Ruins (2002)

Bruce Springsteen had written “My City of Ruins” about his former hometown of Asbury Park, N.J. and how years of economic downfall and hardships had left the once beautiful seaside location in ruins. He had written the song and first performed it live in 2000. But when he took to the stage on the televised “America: A Tribute to Heroes” telethon just 10 days after the horrors of 9/11 it was almost as if the song took on a whole new life with it seeming to be about the destruction of the tragic day. One of the most mournful selections in Springsteen’s discography it ends with the hopeful gospel tone of “rise up, come on and rise up,” which was both his hope for Asbury Park and the exact thing Americans needed to hear in the aftermath of 9/11. “My City of Ruins” would go on to be the final track on his 2001 album The Rising, a reunion with the E Street Band, that did feature many tracks inspired by 9/11.

49. Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978)
I hope this doesn’t make fellow Springsteen fans immediately switch websites at the very beginning of this list, but I’ve never quite viewed “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” off the 1978 album of the same name, to be one of Springsteen’s ultimate, greatest songs – and the truth is, I don’t really know why. It just hasn’t clicked with me like most of the tracks higher on this list. In his book, Bruce Springsteen: The Stories Behind the Songs, author Brian Hiatt said: “Some of the other characters in ‘Darkness’ fear the prospect of losing everything, but the guy on the title track almost welcomes it, as a proving ground. If, as Springsteen has said, ‘Darkness’ was his ‘samurai record,’ here is his samurai.” Maybe I just haven’t met the true depths of darkness yet?

48. Prove It All Night (1978)
“Prove It All Night,” off 1978’s Darkness on the Edge of Town, was apparently inspired by a New York City cabbie raving on and on to Springsteen, his fare, about how you gotta prove it all day to your boss, prove it all night to your wife, prove it all weekend to your kids and on and on. The diatribe must’ve stuck with Springsteen, who wrote one of his best rockers of the ‘70s based on it. While the recorded version of the song is just fine, it truly comes alive in Springsteen and the E Street Band’s live shows, especially when guitarist Nils Lofgren, who wasn’t with the band when the song was recorded, takes on the solos, often spinning around wildly in circles while doing so.

47. She's The One (1975)
Bruce Springsteen, according to Brian Hiatt’s book Bruce Springsteen: The Stories Behind the Songs, wrote “She’s the One,” on Born to Run, simply because he loved its Bo Diddley-inspired beat and the saxophone solo from Clarence Clemons so much he had to have it as a song, so he wrote lyrics about this femme fatale type who he can’t deny, even if he knows she’s bad for him. It’s become a concert staple for the band and features Roy Bittan’s memorable piano arpeggio, which he played in his E Street Band audition before the Born to Run recording, running all the way through.

46. Death to My Hometown (2012)
If it wasn’t for Bruce Springsteen’s love of old folk music, particularly those made famous by Pete Seeger, and his recording of an entire album of them in The Seeger Sessions, I don’t think we’d ever have gotten “Death to My Hometown,” off 2012’s Wrecking Ball. “Death to My Hometown” takes that old foot-stomp folk mixed with Celtic music vibe and tells the tale of how the rich will always take advantage of poor folks, often in the guise of helping them out first. Springsteen would tell comedian and friend Jon Stewart in a 2012 issue of Rolling Stone magazine: “I called on a lot of roots and Celtic elements because I use the music to give the story a historical context. ‘Death to My Hometown’ sounds like an Irish rebel song, but it’s all about what happened four years ago (the Great Recession of 2008). I want to give people a sense that this is a repetitive, historical cycle that has basically landed on the heads of the same people.”

45. The Wrestler (2008)
Bruce Springsteen has written some killer songs for Hollywood films over his legendary career and a few of those songs are going to make this list, beginning with “The Wrestler” from director Darren Aronofsky’s 2008 drama of the same name. The film starred Mickey Rourke in a bit of a comeback as a veteran professional wrestler just trying to survive a hard life. The song “The Wrestler” gets this feeling perfectly with the narrator taking on this role and comparing himself to one trick ponies and scarecrows filled with dust and weeds. Like Rourke in the film, Springsteen makes us feel for this imperfect individual in such a humane way. The song won Springsteen the Golden Globe Award for Best Song in a Motion Picture, but somehow despite a prior Oscar for “Streets of Philadelphia” from director Jonathan Demme’s “Philadelphia,” Springsteen wasn’t even nominated by the Academy Awards for the song. He would tack it onto the end of his 2009 album Working on a Dream and it wound up being the best track on the entire thing.

44. The Ties That Bind (1980)
Bruce Springsteen mixed some of his ‘60s garage-rock (the jangliness of The Byrds) and British Invasion (drummer Max Weinberg was asked to do his best Keith Moon of The Who) influences on the poppier sounding 1980 double-album The River, which kicks off with “The Ties That Bind,” a track the band recorded fast and in one day to attempt to get the spontaneity of their live shows, according to Springsteen in his 1998 book Songs. “The Ties That Bind” sees the narrator impressing upon a heartbroken woman not to let the downs in her past relationship keep her from seeking out future relationships.

43. Secret Garden (1995)
“Secret Garden,” released as a non-album single on Bruce Springsteen’s Greatest Hits package, is him at his softest moment of romantic crooning about a woman who is so intriguing to the narrator but won’t ever quite let him past the walls she’s put up to protect herself. The song would become popular after being included in director Cameron Crowe’s 1996 rom-com “Jerry Maguire.” I can understand why some Springsteen fans may not be a fan of the song because it’s so different in performance than most of his work but the idea of this hard-to-figure-out puzzle of a person and the overall execution of smooth vocal culminating in one of Clarence Clemons’s sexiest saxophone solos captured me.

42. It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City (1973)
“It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City,” the final track on Springsteen’s 1973 debut album Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ, is a fantastic way to end his debut. Few songs have ever had as much swagger as this song. Just check out the coolness of lines like: “I had skin like leather and the diamond-hard look of a cobra/I was born blue and weathered but I burst just like a supernova/I could walk like Brando right into the sun/then dance just like a Casanova.” That’s just the beginning too. It pretty much keeps up that badassery for just over three minutes.

41. Independence Day (1980)
“Independence Day,” is one of the most emotional songs in Bruce Springsteen’s discography because you know it’s based on the hard relationship he had with his father, Douglas, who suffered from a mental illness that was long undiagnosed. One of the darker tracks on the poppier The River album, it tells of a young man seeking his independence once he becomes an adult and not wanting to get trapped in the kind of hard, factory life that his father has found himself in. Not only can you feel the languish in Springsteen’s vocal about leaving this dying town for a hopefully better life, but the feeling just oozes out of Clarence Clemons’s saxophone solo. Any man who’s ever had a rift with their father will feel this one in their heart.

40. Sherry Darling (1980)
“Sherry Darling,” off The River, is one of the most fun performances in Bruce Springsteen’s discography in its humorous take on a man wanting to just party with his girl but having to put up with her pain in the ass mother. The chorus about making the mom walk the next block if she just won’t shut up is sure to make anyone who’s ever dealt with a mother-in-law chuckle. “Sherry Darling” is often compared to frat rock songs from the ‘60s like The Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie” in its feel and performance. It’s a fun standout in the career of such a serious songwriter.

39. Ghosts (2020)
Bruce Springsteen’s most recent album of original music, 2020’s Letter to You, seems to be “The Boss” coming to terms with growing older and remembering the many friends and family members who have passed on. The impetus for the album on at least a small scale seemed to be when the last member of his first-ever band, the Castiles, died in 2018 leaving him as the last man standing. According to a statement by Springsteen when “Ghosts,” one of the standouts from the album, was released as a single it’s “about the beauty and joy of being in a band, and the pain of losing one another to illness and time. ‘Ghosts’ tries to speak to the spirit of music itself, something none of us owns but can only discover and share together.” Having seen him perform it for the first time on tour with the E Street Band in Kansas City in February I can say it’s a magical moment to see live.

38. Letter to You (2020)
The title track of Bruce Springsteen’s most recent album Letter to You is a love letter both to his bandmates and loved ones that have passed on before him and his loyal fan base. In his ranking of every Springsteen song for NJ.com writer Bobby Olivier said: “’Letter to You’ is familiarly forceful and earnest, a spiritual cousin of ‘Land of Hope and Dreams’.” He added, “It all feels like home.” Much of the Letter to You album, the first of original material with the band in eight years, has that lived-in Springsteen sound making it potentially (but hopefully not) the final classic Springsteen album.

37. The Rising (2002)
“My City of Ruins” may have originally come out of the devastation the economy had taken on Asbury Park, but there’s no doubt the majority of The Rising – especially its title track – was influenced by the tragedy of 9/11 and the heroics and defiance shown by those, especially in New York City, in its aftermath. “The Rising” tells the story of a fictional firefighter: “can’t see nothin’ in front of me/can’t see nothin’ coming up behind …” making his way up the floors of the World Trade Center. The anthemic, spiritual feel of the song’s chorus sounds uplifting – and depending on your take on religion likely is – with the firefighter finding paradise in his ascension to another world.

36. Out in the Street (1980)
“Out in the Street,” off Bruce Springsteen’s 1980 double album The River, is one of the E Street Band’s best flat-out rockers but it seemed to be one of the toughest recording sessions the group ever had with it being done 30 or 40 times in completion with “The Boss” altering lyrics as he went and then, according to Patrick Humphries 1996 book Bruce Springsteen it was almost left off the album for being “too idealistic.” But “Out in the Street” is a different side to Springsteen’s songs of the working man in the sense of hoping the working week flies by so you can be your own boss, your own man on your own time. Idealistic? No! That’s just how Fridays at 5 p.m. feel.

35. Girls in Their Summer Clothes (2007)
I think Magic is one of Bruce Springsteen’s most underrated albums in the sense that I think it’s actually one of his greatest albums but his later career output doesn’t get the same attention as his first dozen years or so as a recording artist. Maybe it’s just that when Magic came out in 2007, I was first entering my Springsteen fandom. “Girls in Their Summer Clothes” is one of the standouts on Magic with its wispy nostalgia of better times on the New Jersey beaches – maybe a remembrance of the past or a hope for the future or both at the same time with much of the album focusing on the darkness of the President George W. Bush era.

34. If I Was the Priest (2020)
“If I Was the Priest” is one of the most fascinating stories of any Bruce Springsteen song because there’s almost a half-century gap between when he wrote it and when he finally recorded and released it. Springsteen wrote the song, which seems to be a wild Western story with Jesus Christ as a sheriff and the narrator – assuming it to be Springsteen himself – as a priest, sometime in the early ‘70s and the song sat untouched in his archives until he came across it in 2019 and wound up re-recording it with the E Street Band for their 2020 album Letter to You. It’s this unique moment of early-20s Springsteen the songwriter melding with early-70s Springsteen the man and performer. The interesting lyrics of the song are up for interpretation, but to me, they just sound cool.

33. Meet Me in the City (2015)
It wasn’t planned to have two songs that Bruce Springsteen wrote decades before and never recorded and released until many years later back-to-back on this list but here we are with “Meet Me in the City” coming directly after “If I Was the Priest.” “Meet Me in the City” was originally started for potential use on the 1980 double album The River, but according to Brian Hiatt’s Bruce Springsteen: The Stories Behind the Songs was “apparently left unfinished.” I’m thrilled that when The Boss decided to do a deeper look at that album with an expanded edition in 2015 he fleshed the song out into a full recording because it wound up becoming an absolute favorite of mine and sounded quintessential E Street Band. The band would open their 2016 tour in which they played The River from start to finish with this song and having seen it in Oklahoma City, Okla. it was amazing to witness live.

32. Born in the U.S.A. (1984)
“Born in the U.S.A.,” the title track from Bruce Springsteen’s 1984 album, is clearly the most misunderstood song of his entire career and has been from the very beginning back when President Ronald Reagan felt it was a patriotic anthem, not a song partially built out of his policies that helped to separate the classes of American citizens. The easy-to-chant chorus makes the song feel anthemic and that was a smart way to try to bring listeners into the plight of Vietnam vets struggling to return home, find work and make a living. It’s just that some of the casual listeners of the song didn’t want to pay enough attention to the verses in between that sing-along chorus. Springsteen rarely performs the song live anymore. I wonder if it’s potentially due to people misunderstanding it?

31. Lost in the Flood (1973)
“Lost in the Flood,” off Bruce Springsteen’s debut album Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., might be the most Springsteen-esque song on the debut, meaning it’s the song that most resembles what The Boss’s music would come to sound like on later records. It’s Springsteen’s first foray into writing about veterans returning from the war in Vietnam and the toll it’s taken on them. The sparse basic piano-only (likely Springsteen himself) performance works terrifically for the track’s first verse and a half until the epic entrance of the band on the second verse about the stock car racer when Springsteen sings “Jimmy the Saint.” In one of Springsteen’s most cinematic tracks, the song comes to a full-on violent finale in the final verse when a New York City gang gunfight involves the cops. You’d see this Springsteen more beginning with 1975’s Born to Run.

30. Tougher Than the Rest (1987)
“Tougher Than the Rest,” off 1987’s Tunnel of Love, is a rarity in Bruce Springsteen’s discography in that it’s an all-out love song. But the thing I love the most about it is it’s clearly the way Springsteen would write a love song, in such matter-of-fact language that a hard, working-class person might appreciate but many average music listeners might find off-putting. Brian Hiatt in Bruce Springsteen: Stories Behind the Songs notes that “Tougher Than the Rest” is “one of Springsteen’s most obviously country-influenced recordings,” which might be why Chris Ledoux’s terrific cover of it from 1995 was the first time I’d ever heard it.

29. Land of Hope and Dreams (2001)
Bruce Springsteen wrote “Land of Hope and Dreams” in 1999 when the E Street Band reunited after more than a decade apart because he felt the reunited group needed a new song for the tour – something big and summational, according to Brian Hiatt’s Bruce Springsteen: Stories Behind the Songs. According to that book, Springsteen viewed his band as a “big train coming down the track,” and drew inspiration from “People Get Ready” by the Impressions. What he came up with was one of his most hopeful songs of a better life – one we might not get to experience in this life (though, we should try), but maybe somewhere in another one. It’s a summation of what Springsteen and the E Street Band mean to me. It would take nearly 15 years but it would finally find its way on an album with 2012’s Wrecking Ball.

28. Hungry Heart (1980)
Even though Bruce Springsteen had always been a critical hit he had not really broken into having mainstream hits, even with the success of Born to Run. He, however, had found some success with his songs being covered by other artists. Manfred Mann’s Earth Band had taken “Blinded by the Light” to No. 1 in 1977. The Pointer Sisters took “Fire” to No. 2 in 1979. Patti Smith’s “Because the Night,” which was co-written by her and Springsteen, went to No. 13 in 1978. But Springsteen hadn’t been able to crack the Billboard top 20 himself through four albums. Then came “Hungry Heart.” Springsteen actually intended the song to go to the Ramones, the New York City punk band that certainly would’ve had the song sounding different than what the E Street Band came up with for The River. But then Springsteen’s producer and manager Jon Landau, using his keen ear for hits, persuaded Springsteen to hang onto it. The E Street Band put this sort of '60s-inspired Phil Spector pop sheen on it and it went to No. 5, where it would become one of Springsteen’s all-time biggest hits.

27. No Surrender (1984)
“No Surrender,” off 1984’s Born in the USA, has one of my all-time favorite song lyrics in it: “We learned more from a three-minute record, baby, than we ever learned in school.” Now, I was a pretty good student and I definitely believe in education and gaining as much knowledge as one can but dammit if I don’t feel that line deep down in my soul. This quick, two-and-a-half-minute rocker just absolutely gets the feeling down pat of a kid breaking out of his small-town bubble with his buddies on the way to make something more of himself.

26. Blinded by the Light (1973)
If you were to pop on the vinyl of Bruce Springsteen’s debut Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ on January 5, 1973 (which based on sales at the time not a whole lot of people did) the very first song you would’ve heard was “Blinded by the Light,” a wordy, Dylan-esque folk-rock number that sounds like it was written by going through a rhyming dictionary (and it actually was!). “Blinded by the Light,” was one of two songs (the other being “Spirit in the Night”) specifically written after the rest of the album when Columbia Records president Clive Davis felt the album lacked a potential single. Springsteen’s single wouldn’t do much, but it would become his first and only No. 1 single as a songwriter when Manfred Mann’s Earth Band spiced it up a bit with a more progressive rock sound in 1976. Even though it’s likely the wordiest song Springsteen ever wrote it’s still a helluva lot of fun to sing.

25. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out (1975)
“Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” off 1975’s Born to Run, is the origin story of the E Steet Band and the great friendship and musical companionship between the group, especially between Bruce Springsteen and saxophonist Clarence Clemons. Having seen him perform this song three times in concert since the death of Clemons in 2011 I can’t help but feel the song means more to him in the dozen years since than it did before. “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” is a great song to pump you up. I don’t think I could possibly explain it better than author Jim Beviglia did in his book Counting Down Bruce Springsteen: His 100 Finest Songs when he said: “Every superhero worth a damn needs a great origin story. Spiderman was bitten by a radioactive insect. Superman crash landed from another planet and gained inhuman strength from Earth’s sun. Bruce Springsteen was hit by a saxophone blast from Clarence Clemons and made it his mission to save rock and roll.” You nerds can have Superman and Spiderman. Bruce Springsteen is my superhero and God bless the big man Clarence Clemons.

24. Atlantic City (1982)
I’m not sure why – maybe it’s because Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band make a glorious cacophony of music together and it was as stripped as an album can possibly be – but I’ve never been as high on Nebraska as many of Springsteen’s other classic albums. “Atlantic City” is the track from Nebraska that’s always stood out to me the most. Maybe it’s because it feels like a song that likely could’ve or maybe even should’ve been on a different album. The lyrics are certainly dour but the music and performance aren’t quite as much as the rest of the album. The song tells about the mafia battling over control of the New Jersey coastal town, which legalized gambling in the late ‘70s. The chorus is one of Springsteen’s greatest and drew its inspiration from dialogue in director Louis Malle’s 1980 film of the same name when Hollis McLaren’s character says: “I don’t mind that Dave’s dead. It just means he’ll be reincarnated sooner, that’s all. Everything comes back.” The Band’s cover of “Atlantic City” on its 1993 album Jericho is my favorite cover of any Springsteen song.

23. American Skin (41 Shots) (2001)
“American Skin (41 Shots)” might be Bruce Springsteen’s most controversial song of all time but it’s also proof he refuses to pull any punches when something important needs to be said. Springsteen wrote the song in response to the 1999 police shooting death of 23-year-old unarmed Guinean student Amadou Diallo when four plainclothes officers mistaking him for a rape suspect opened fire with 41 rounds, hitting Diallo 19 times. The officers were charged with second-degree murder, but as it so often happens with these police shootings, the officers were acquitted at trial. The E Street Band debuted the song, which includes a verse about an African-American mother having to teach her son about the different rules people of color have when stopped by police, in Atlanta on June 4, 2000. They would then perform the show at New York City’s famed Madison Square Garden where the performance led to the NYC Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association calling for a boycott of Springsteen’s shows. A live performance was released on 2001’s Live in New York City. The song wouldn’t appear on an album until Springsteen’s High Hopes in 2014 with Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello playing lead guitar on it. Springsteen had begun performing it again in concert following the shooting death of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin in 2012. The song has unfortunately been relevant ever since it was written without a whole lot of change.

22. Streets of Philadelphia (1993)
“Streets of Philadelphia” is the song that made Bruce Springsteen an Oscar-winner (it would also win Song of the Year at the Grammys), but that honestly has little to do with why it’s such a fantastic song. It has such a different sound than most of Springsteen’s repertoire – more of a modern R&B, even with a hip-hop flavored drum beat (at least in the early ‘90s) than the classic R&B of the ‘60s that occasionally pops up in Springsteen’s music. Director Jonathan Demme wanted a song for his 1993 drama “Philadelphia,” which told the story of an attorney (played by Tom Hanks in his first Oscar-winning performance) who is fired by his firm after they discover he has AIDS. “Streets of Philadelphia” truly makes you feel sympathy for this character whose body is beginning to betray him, and society already has and is essentially dying alone. Springsteen reportedly drew inspiration for the lyrics after having recently lost a friend to cancer. I think “Streets of Philadelphia” is one of Springsteen’s best vocal performances.

21. For You (1973)
In his 2019 book Bruce Springsteen: The Stories Behind the Songs writer Brian Hiatt says “[‘For You’] feels inappropriately frantic on [‘Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.,’ but I must disagree with that summation. After all, what’s more frantic than young love ending in suicide? The franticness in the performance – both the barely time to breath vocal from Springsteen and the fast-paced drums by Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez and organ playing by David Sancious, gives the song a yearning that feels realistic for a 22-year old who’s heart has been broken. If you prefer a slower version there are more solo piano-driven live versions out there for you. Springsteen wrote in his 2016 memoir Born to Run of the heartbreaker who inspired the song as a “drug-taking, hell-raising wild child … so alive, so funny and broken … She stirred up my Catholic school-bred messianic complex.”

20. Incident on 57th Street (1973)
“Incident on 57th Street” is essentially Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band’s Romeo & Juliet, except better because it’s set to kickass music, like David Sancious’ piano and Danny Federici’s organ. In “Incident on 57th Street,” Romeo is Spanish Johnny and Juliet is Jane. Springsteen doesn’t even attempt to hide the inspiration for the characters referring to them as “cool Romeo” and “a late Juliet.” But instead of battles between rival families, Johnny is trying to make it on the streets of New York doing whatever he can to make ends meet and survive. Unlike the tragic ending of Shakespeare’s classic though, Springsteen leaves his version open-ended to let the listener decide if they think it ended in tragedy or the lovers actually get away from this life.

19. Devils & Dust (2005)
I’m never going to forget this as long as I live: On February 8, 2006, I was a senior in high school who had just gotten into Bruce Springsteen’s music recently and was watching him perform “Devils & Dust,” which was nominated for Song of the Year, on the Grammy Awards telecast. Springsteen performed the dark song from the perspective of a soldier fighting in a war, presumably the ongoing one in Iraq at the time, and not understanding why or who he could trust. Springsteen was on stage alone with just his guitar and harmonica and everything about this performance instantly resonated with me, especially when Springsteen ended the song and exclaimed: “Bring ‘em home!” It was such a simple performance and message and of all the performances that evening, which included Kanye West, U2, Mariah Carey, Gorillaz and more huge stars it was the standout performance. When Springsteen has something important on his mind that he wants to get out in song he seems to do it better than almost anybody and “Devils & Dust” is a fine example of it.

18. Growin' Up (1973)
“Growin’ Up,” on Bruce Springsteen’s 1973 debut Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ, is a sign of things to come later for Springsteen, in my opinion, in its adolescent rebelliousness. Springsteen was 22 when he wrote the song in 1971 and it has all the gusto and bravado of one ready to break out of his own little world into something bigger with a bang. David Sancious, who was only 18 at the time, gives the album its first great E Street Band flourish with his piano solo.

17. Racing in the Street (1978)
Wow. We’re really getting into the thick of the list now. Even sitting here writing this passage I can’t believe “Racing in the Street,” the epic about illegal street racing off 1978’s Darkness on the Edge of Town, is only at No. 17. But then I scrolled up to remind myself of the 16 songs above it and think, “OK, fine, any of these could’ve been top five.” Everything about “Racing in the Street” is perfect. It’s like a movie that plays out in just under seven minutes set to music. It begins with this amazing somber piano playing from Roy Bittan that runs throughout the song, is joined by Danny Federici on organ about two minutes in and these performances musically fit the mood of this tale about a street racer who races for money at night because there’s not much better to do and it’s about the only kind of entertainment he can find and if it ends tragically so be it. The song certainly has its tragedies but not necessarily the kind you’d expect from a song about street racing, but with feelings of depression from a world you’re almost willing to kill yourself to escape. Sometimes music can be so damn beautiful in its sadness and the long solo from Bittan and Federici on their respective keys that ends the song is one of those shining moments.

16. Spirit in the Night (1973)
“Spirit in the Night,” the penultimate track on Bruce Springsteen’s debut Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., is the quintessential early E Street Band sound for me – the more R&B, soulful, even jazz-tinged performing with Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez on drums, David Sancious on organ and piano (although it’s apparently Harold Wheeler credited on piano on this track) to go along with guys who would last past the first two albums in saxophonist Clarence Clemons and bassist Garry Tallent. The song, one of two written and tacked onto the album late in the recording process when Columbia Records president Clive Davis didn’t hear single material, is so infectiously fun and loose. The song tells the tale of a wild band of teenagers who drive out to a nearby lake and just screw around and there’s so much young, dumb, rebellious awesomeness in the whole performance. I wish I could bottle up the “Spirit in the Night” sound and wear it as cologne.

15. Backstreets (1975)
Roy Bittan’s minute-plus long piano intro in “Backstreets,” which ends side one of Born to Run, is his most beautiful composition of the many beauties he performed with the E Street Band. In his review of Born to Run for Rolling Stone magazine journalist Greil Marcus said: “[Roy Bittan’s piano intro] might be the prelude to a rock & roll version of The Iliad.” Listening to this intro makes me think of James Cagney’s gangster crossing the street in the rain walking directly toward the camera with this menacing look on his face in “The Public Enemy.” But the song itself doesn’t have quite as violent of a story. It’s Springsteen reminiscing about the good old days of a relationship that burned bright but seemingly fast – some over the years have even debated whether or not the Terry he sings about was a man or woman and whether it was a romantic or platonic love. It doesn’t matter about the gender but I definitely feel like it was a romantic relationship. Born to Run is an album filled with cinematic songs that could all be their own little movies and “Backstreets” is one that might make you smile until you cry.

14. I'm On Fire (1984)
“I’m On Fire” is about as short and sweet as Bruce Springsteen gets. It’s also the sexiest Springsteen gets – although some fools misinterpret the “hey little girl is your daddy home” line to mean something much more nefarious than is meant and screw those folks for doing so. The track off Born in the USA just oozes sensuality from the very beginning with Max Weinberg’s snare cross stick hits and the softly sensual twang of Springsteen’s guitar with the two together giving off the old Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two “boom-chicka-boom.” It’s simplistic, but shouldn’t a song about urges and sexual feelings be succinct and to the point? There is so much tension in this vocal and then the ending release of the “whoo-whoo-whoos” at the end. It’s the type of desire you don’t get a whole lot out of Springsteen’s discography but it’s a slam dunk here.

13. Dancing in the Dark (1984)
“Dancing in the Dark,” off 1984’s Born in the USA, is the closest “The Boss” ever got to a No. 1 Billboard hit as a recording artist when it topped out at No. 2 for four weeks and was kept off the top spot by Duran Duran’s “The Reflex” (Boo!) and Prince’s “When Doves Cry” (OK, that’s understandable). “Dancing in the Dark” would, however, win Springsteen his first Grammy Award in 1985 for Best Rock Vocal Performance. The song is one of Springsteen’s poppier-sounding tunes of his career but just taking a listen at the lyrics lets you know it’s still the same old Springsteen ready to bust loose from a dead-end job or town and who can’t identify with lines like: “I check my look in the mirror/wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face/Man, I ain’t getting’ nowhere/I’m just livin’ in a dump like this/There’s somethin’ happenin’ somewhere/Baby, I just know that there is.”

12. My Hometown (1984)
This might have me on the outskirts of many Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band fans but my favorite track off the epic Born in the USA album has always been the album-ender, “My Hometown.” It might be unusual because it’s an anthemic album that sent Springsteen from critical rock God to one seemingly everybody in the United States loved overnight and this track is more in line with something like the title track off The River – which now that I think about it was actually a great deal different than most of that album, as well. “My Hometown” sees Springsteen’s narrator both waxing nostalgia about his hometown and feeling all the dark times that have always bubbled under and now are about to breach the surface and knowing he needs to get out for the benefit of his family. It’s a mixture of beauty and pain and you can feel every bit of it via Springsteen’s almost pained vocal.

11. Wrecking Ball (2012)
“Wrecking Ball” just seemed to be 100 percent Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band from my initial listen of it in 2012 off the album of the same name. It’s a song that sounds like Springsteen and the band could’ve written, recorded and performed it at nearly any point in their careers. It’s defiant. It’s ready to take on the world and it came about as the result of a frequent home of the band’s live shows in their home state of New Jersey being torn down when the NFL team that called it home got a new one. E Street Band guitarist, and Springsteen’s nearly lifelong best friend, Steven Van Zandt told Rolling Stone magazine in 2012: “Bruce wrote this song for our final shows at Giants Stadium in 2009 before they tore it down. It’s one of those road songs written for the band. But it’s become a bigger song than merely about a physical wrecking ball. We had a long conversation about whether it should be the title of our album. I thought once it’s elevated to the title of the album it actually will take on an additional metaphorical significance that can turn around the defensive negative implications of a wrecking ball smashing a structure or metaphorically smashing one’s past or history or dreams. There’s some of that in there. The song begins to say, ‘We are now the wrecking ball. We’re out here wrecking your passivity. We’re wrecking your acceptance of mediocrity. We’re out here living it with you in the pouring rain, we’re not afraid of anything. Bring on the wrecking ball.” The song was an important message for us E Street fans, especially after the death of Clarence Clemons and this being the first album for the band since (although this having been an older song is one of two he plays on on the album). The band may have been battered but they cannot be beaten.

10. Long Walk Home (2007)
Magic was an important album for me as a young Bruce Springsteen fan when it was released in 2007 during my sophomore year in college. The George W. Bush presidency had gone haywire with a war in Iraq that we knew fairly early on was unnecessary, the economy was beginning to nosedive and there was an overall sense of dread overtaking the country (we were naïve to think at the time it couldn’t get worse). But on this album about these moments and feelings, there was a song that, while still holding those themes, gave me a bit of hope, although Springsteen let us know it wouldn’t be an easy journey right in his title and chorus of “Long Walk Home.” It’s a song that always gives me hope to continue fighting for a better future and depending on what’s going on in the world takes on different meanings each time I hear it. It was important enough for Springsteen that he used lines from it to endorse Democratic candidate Barack Obama for President in 2008.

9. 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) (1973)
“4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy),” off The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, has always been one of my favorite Springsteen story songs and one of the most vivid of his career, as you can see the entire thing play out like a movie in your mind’s eye. It’s a love song – but what is Springsteen really in love with: Sandy or the Asbury Park boardwalk scene? The nostalgia and romanticism of it all, complete with real-life characters of the time like the fortune teller Madame Marie, makes me feel I need to see Asbury Park in my lifetime, though I’m not sure if it could ever compare or even look the same a half-century later - or if it ever really felt that way in general: E Street Band drummer at the time Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez told Rolling Stone: “No one would ever go under the boardwalk. There were rats under the boardwalk!” Springsteen has called the song a “love note and a goodbye song” to his adopted home of Asbury Park and the song hits both of those feelings perfectly.

8. The Promised Land (1978)
“The Promised Land,” off 1978’s Darkness on the Edge of Town, may have my single favorite Bruce Springsteen chorus of any of these great songs on this list with the absolute defiance of: “The dogs on Main Street howl ‘cause they understand/If I could take one moment into my hands/Mister, I ain’t a boy, no, I’m a man/And I believe in the promised land.” Anytime I see or hear of folks trying to keep others down with their archaic laws or beliefs or simply think they know better because of their age or race or religion I can’t help but think of the rebelliousness of “Mister, I ain’t a boy, no, I’m a man/And I believe in the promised land.” I too believe in a promised land and it’s men like Springsteen that make me realize I’m not alone in this feeling and with battle cries like this one, we might one day make it to that promised land.

7. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) (1973)
“Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” is my favorite jam on The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle, in its tale of a young rock and roller ready to set the world on fire but needing to steal away his girl from his hometown to truly have it all. In his book, Bruce Springsteen: The Stories Behind the Songs, Brian Hiatt called it: “his first great rock song.” It’s a fever dream of a seven-minute rocker with rapid-fire lyrics that Springsteen wrote in his early 20s and having seen him perform it in Kansas City this past February in his early 70s one he still knocks out of the park. The track includes some of the greatest saxophone work from beginning to end of legend Clarence Clemons’s career. ‘Rosalita’ will have you wanting to dance your ass off with the biggest smile on your face every time you hear it.

6. The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995)
As with many singer-songwriters of his era, Bruce Springsteen was inspired by potentially the greatest of all folk singers Woody Guthrie. This led to his interest in Guthrie’s song “Tom Joad,” which took its inspiration from author John Steinbeck’s great work of American fiction The Grapes of Wrath. In Steinbeck’s book the character Tom Joad has this great monologue about fighting for the little guy and Springsteen built “The Ghost of Tom Joad” around this epic moment of literature, which appeared on Springsteen’s 1995 album of the same name. Tom Joad was a Depression/Dust Bowl-era character fighting against the ills of that time, but when Springsteen sings about the problems of the times in which he wrote his song many of those problems (rich getting richer, poor getting poor, etc.) are still major issues. So, the narrator of the song sees himself as a kindred spirit of Tom Joad. Guthrie, Steinbeck and Springsteen are all using Tom Joad to speak for the voiceless.

5. The River (1980)
The River was supposed to be Bruce Springsteen’s foray into a poppier, radio-friendly type of rock music and much of the double album is but then there’s the title track, which is one of the most devastatingly depressing songs “The Boss” has ever written and recorded about a young man who’s forced to enter the real world very quickly once he gets his girl pregnant and poof goes any dreams of a better life. But was a better life really possible? The opening line states: “I come from down in the valley/where, mister, when you’re young/they bring you up to do/like your daddy done.” This is the story of many young folks throughout the decades of American life. In the first live performance of the song in 1979, Springsteen stated that “The River” was based on his sister and brother-in-law and in author Peter Ames Carlin’s 2012 biography Bruce there is an interview with Springsteen's sister, Ginny, in which she said the song is a precise description of her early life with her husband Mickey. Springsteen would then write in his 2016 autobiography Born to Run that the song was a tribute to Ginny and Mickey. It’s a pretty devastating and haunting tribute.

4. Badlands (1978)
“Badlands,” off 1978’s Darkness on the Edge of Town, has what’s probably my single favorite Bruce Springsteen lyric of all-time with: “Poor man wanna be rich/rich man wanna be a king/and a king ain’t satisfied/’til he rules everything.” “Badlands” is Springsteen at his most defiant. The world is pushing him down and he’s just about had enough – it’s something most of us who love his music so much have probably felt at moments in our own lives, I know I have. There’s a ferocity to the lyrics, music and performance of “Badlands” that makes you want to throw your fists in the air and scream along – Springsteen was said to be inspired by the punk records he was listening to at the time and you can tell. He told Rolling Stone magazine in 2010 that he would frequently come up with a great title first and then have to write the song to fit it. He said: “’Badlands’ – that’s a great title, but it would be easy to blow it! But I kept writing, and I kept writing, and I kept writing and writing until I had a song that I felt deserved that title.” Springsteen most definitely didn’t blow it.

3. Jungleland (1975)
Bruce Springsteen wrote a good many epics in the ‘70s but none were as grand in scale as the Born to Run album ending “Jungleland.” World building isn’t something you see a whole lot in songwriting – there isn’t enough time, as most songs are two-to-four minutes long – but there’s an entire community built in “Jungleland,” the most cinematic of Springsteen’s output. We’re introduced at the beginning to our main characters: Magic Rat and the barefoot girl. We follow them through this glorious New York City night where everywhere you see and feel a mixture of love, desperation, violence, despair, danger, longing, escapism and so many other words that describe Springsteen’s entire ethos. All of this culminates in Clarence Clemons’s greatest saxophone solo of all time, which was actually a studio creation by Springsteen himself editing bits and pieces of multiple takes together in what Clemons said in his memoir Big Man: Real Life & Tall Tales: “To me, that solo sounds like love.” The sax solo might sound like love – between Springsteen and Clemons, between Magic Rat and the barefoot girl – but the song quickly turns tragic in its finale, which finishes out the epic in a way that truly makes Springsteen New Jersey’s Shakespeare.

2. Born to Run (1975)
After Bruce Springsteen’s first two albums, both released in 1973, failed to burst through to the mainstream despite critical acclaim, he knew he had to break through in a major way or else that might be the end of his promising career at its beginning. According to Rolling Stone magazine, Springsteen said: “I had these enormous ambitions for it. I wanted to make the greatest rock record that I’d ever heard. I wanted it to sound enormous, to grab you by your throat and insist that you take the ride, insist that you pay attention – not just to the music, but to live, to being alive.” Springsteen succeeded. “Born to Run” may very well be the greatest rock record ever recorded and it certainly grabbed us listeners by the throat and made us pay attention. Having truly become a Springsteen fan around the time I was leaving my hometown for a new world of college and adulthood I think it was the escapism of his music – trying to break free and find your way in the world – that worked its way into my mind, body and soul and has never left my bloodstream in the nearly two decades since. Born to Run, both the song and album, was my entry into this wondrous world of hope and I haven’t stopped running since because as the man says, “Someday, I don’t know when, we’re gonna get to that place where we really wanna go and we’ll walk in the sun.”

1. Thunder Road (1975)
The opening harmonica, played by Bruce Springsteen, on “Thunder Road” mixed with that beauty of a piano piece by Roy Bittan just sets the stage perfectly for the beginning of both my favorite Springsteen album, Born to Run, and its opening track, my favorite Springsteen song. It sounds so tragic setting the stage for this young man ready to bust loose from his “town full of losers” with the girl of his dreams, but magic happens about a quarter of the way through the track when the whole E Street Band comes in and this tragedy turns into a world full of hopefulness. This is their one chance to make it out of this place and they’re going to take it. According to Rolling Stone magazine, Springsteen was sure the Born to Run album would begin with its title track until he wrote “Thunder Road.” Springsteen said: “’Thunder Road’ was just so obviously an opening, due to its intro. It just set the scene. There is something about the melody of ‘Thunder Road’ that suggests a new day, it suggests morning, it suggests something opening up.” For me, it suggested a new beginning – not only in life but with a brother in music – and like the song’s narrator and Mary, I’ve never turned back to what was left behind. Springsteen may have had two truly good albums under his belt by the time Born to Run came along, but with this opening track and statement his career truly took off and he hasn’t looked back in half a century since.

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50 Greatest Bruce Springsteen Songs

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