As you may already know, Bruce Springsteen's new album, “
Magic,” captured the top spot on the Billboard 200 chart. Reviews for the work have been strong, which seems only appropriate for a rock star of his stature. Below are seven songs upon which the Boss built his legend.
1. Born to Run
(from Born to Run, 1975)
There’s little point in dredging up the same old clichés about “Born to Run,” Springsteen’s signature song and musical mission statement. Yes, the lyrics come off like Shakespeare with a Jersey accent. Yes, the multi-layering of instruments (Roy Bittan on glockenspiel?) is reminiscent of Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound.” Yes, this is the song that got Springsteen on the covers of both "Time" and "Newsweek" in the same week of October 1975. But nothing adequately describes this legendary songwriter’s best attempt at capturing the lusty, aimless delirium of young America. You’re better off just listening, whether it's for the first time or the millionth time.
2. Born in the U.S.A.
(from Born in the U.S.A., 1984)
Springsteen didn’t have much of a Vietnam experience – he was classified 4-F as a result of a concussion from a motorcycle accident. But Vietnam veterans across the country identified with the narrator of “Born in the U.S.A.,” who observed that being born in the land of the free can feel like a curse when you’re called to defend that freedom and forgotten afterwards. Of course, the song’s blustery, football stadium-friendly chorus had just as many people mistaking the song as some knee-jerk patriot’s anthem.
“The flag is a powerful image,” Springsteen told music journalist Kurt Loder in 1984. “And when you set that stuff loose, you don’t know what’s going to be done with it.”
3. Thunder Road
(from Born to Run, 1975)
Quite possibly the greatest album opener in the history of recorded sound, “Thunder Road” is similar to Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” in that both songs start out as melancholy ballads and end up threatening to blow out your speakers. But while Robert Plant sang about bustles in hedgerows, Springsteen told the story of a “not that young” man’s desire to grab his girl and escape his “town full of losers.” It’s a timeless, universal sentiment: British indie-popster Damon Gough (aka Badly Drawn Boy) has said he wants “Thunder Road” played at his funeral. You can bet he’s not the only one.
4. The Rising
(from The Rising, 2002)
Few rock albums have been so closely identified with a certain country at a certain time than 2002’s “The Rising.” Just nine months after 9/11, as the country was calling upon its heroes – both real and imaginary – to make sense of what was happening, the Boss did his part by reuniting with the E Street Band and knocking out his toughest collection of songs since the mid-1980s. “The Rising” is the toughest of the tough, as Springsteen presents a “dream of life” as the ultimate weapon in the War on Terror.
5. Hungry Heart
(from The River, 1980)
Springsteen has always been generous with his songwriting gifts. After all, he helped Patti Smith to her biggest hit with “Because the Night,” while Manfred Mann’s Earth Band saw their version of “Blinded by the Light” go all the way to #1 in 1976. So when Joey Ramone asked him to do the same for his band in 1979, Bruce happily penned the ultra-catchy “Hungry Heart.”
Then Columbia producer Jon Landau heard it, and the rest is history: “Hungry Heart” – by Bruce Springsteen – skyrocketed to #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1980, while the Ramones’ next single, “We Want the Airwaves,” skyrocketed to, um, #50 on the Club Play Singles chart.
6. Racing in the Street
(from Darkness on the Edge of Town, 1978)
It’s difficult to describe what the "Rolling Stone Record Guide" maintains is “still the best Springsteen song ever,” but it helps if one imagines a frog-throated Luciano Pavoratti singing an aria about drag racing. Because mournful it most certainly is: Despite the hopeful refrain of “Summer’s here and the time is right/For racing in the street,” the singer acknowledges the “wrinkles 'round my baby’s eyes” as she “cries herself to sleep at night.” In the final analysis, “Racing in the Street” is the song of a man realizing that his glory days are growing distant in the rearview mirror.
7. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
(from The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, 1973)
Before taking up the rock savior mantle with "Born to Run," Springsteen was often faulted for songs that sounded cluttered, both lyrically and instrumentally. And “Rosalita” – a seven-minute, genre-hopping barn-burner about a cocksure young musician convincing his “senorita” to break her curfew – ought to be a prime example. But then young Bruce shouts the punch line, “’Cause the record company, Rosie, just gave me a big advance!” and suddenly “Rosalita” becomes one of the best meta-story-songs of the 1970s.
Honorable mentions: “Growin’ Up,” “Jungle Land,” “Atlantic City,” “Reason to Believe,” “Badlands,” “The River,” “Glory Days,” “My Hometown,” “Brilliant Disguise,” “Streets of Philadelphia” and the brand-new "Girls in Their Summer Clothes."
