Every Bruce Springsteen Song, Ranked from 1-314
September 13, 2016 12:26 PM   Subscribe

 
The only bottom-half ones I disagree with are "Sinaloa Cowboys" and "Ain't Got You". I kiiinda disagree with "57 Channels", but yeah, it's become less than it was to start.
posted by Etrigan at 12:37 PM on September 13, 2016


I accept the ranking for my favorite, and the write-up. But "For You" will always be the one for me.
posted by chavenet at 12:40 PM on September 13, 2016 [3 favorites]


Tom Joad and Nebraska are masterpieces, so the list is wrong.
posted by Cosine at 12:43 PM on September 13, 2016 [7 favorites]


...all of the commercially available material was given equal consideration

By whom, using what criteria? Opinion pieces masked as research using passive voice really make me hold tight to my anger.

Also the list is wrong.
posted by headnsouth at 12:44 PM on September 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


Tom Joad and Nebraska are masterpieces, so the list is wrong.

Tom Joad and Nebraska are masterpiece albums, but Born to Run has the best songs, so the list is essentially correct.
posted by Etrigan at 12:45 PM on September 13, 2016 [3 favorites]


Clearly, Hungry Heart should be number one. I will now look at the list.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:46 PM on September 13, 2016 [4 favorites]


Born to Run is a great song but I've heard it so many times that I'm not sure that I need to ever hear it again.
posted by octothorpe at 12:53 PM on September 13, 2016 [4 favorites]


SO MUCH WRONG.

American Land is a great song, though I admit the Wrecking Ball version doesn't do it justice. The Seeger Sessions version is great!

Loose Change is also great.

Both The Angel and Mary Queen of Arkansas are better than Outlaw Pete

They left off Pony Boy which probably should be #315
posted by wemayfreeze at 12:54 PM on September 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


Springsteen has different songs aiming at specific fans, and the top of this list is mostly all the stadium rockers. If that's the kind of song you like then OK, but Devils and Dust at 168? I'm on Fire at 115?
posted by bongo_x at 12:57 PM on September 13, 2016 [4 favorites]


These lists are just fucking link bait. Your favourite band and songs suck as much as mine.

Rosalita is my favourite!
posted by terrapin at 12:57 PM on September 13, 2016 [6 favorites]


Rosalita is my favourite!

This live version especially.
posted by jonmc at 1:02 PM on September 13, 2016 [5 favorites]


"Someday we'll look back on this/and it will all seem funny."
posted by chavenet at 1:03 PM on September 13, 2016 [6 favorites]


They should've made space for this one, too.
posted by jonmc at 1:05 PM on September 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'm sorry to hear that, octothorpe. You can switch to Thunder Road for a palate/ear cleanser if it helps. I have heard a few soulful covers. Hayward Williams is a skinny kid with an acoustic guitar and a deep voice, but that's where the similarities end - his Thunder Road is intimate and convincing.
posted by headnsouth at 1:05 PM on September 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


What, where's "On The Dark Side"?

(i keed, but i'm sure i'm not the only one that thought it was him)
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 1:07 PM on September 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


Bruce played Incident on 57th Street INTO Rosalita at the Meadowlands two weeks ago and I lost my shit. Been waiting to hear that transition live since my first show. So good.
posted by wemayfreeze at 1:08 PM on September 13, 2016 [4 favorites]


I'm sorry to hear that, octothorpe.

It's what happens when you grew up in New Jersey in the 70s. You couldn't escape that song. I can still listen to Thunder Road just fine though.
posted by octothorpe at 1:10 PM on September 13, 2016


Radio Nowhere should be higher, but maybe not by much.
posted by jeffamaphone at 1:14 PM on September 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


What, where's "On The Dark Side"?

Save it for the Arcade Fire thread.
posted by Atom Eyes at 1:20 PM on September 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


Can't get behind #3, but I like the top ten. I'm a more recent Springsteen convert, maybe in the last ten years or so I've started listening to him, so "Born in the USA" is a song that I never liked and was played out long before I started digging into his records.
posted by eyeballkid at 1:28 PM on September 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'm a little surprised that "Simon, That Chaps My Ass (in Chicago)" didn't rank higher
posted by Auden at 1:29 PM on September 13, 2016


Just finishing up listening to Wild, Innocent ... and remembering how perfect that album is. I don't know if every song should be at the top of this list but as an album, it's my favorite.
posted by octothorpe at 1:33 PM on September 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


The list is pretty much correct except for "Born in the USA" which is a terrible song. And "Candy's Room" is probably correct at #58 even though I love that one. Looking through the list reminds me that "The River" was a double album that should have been a single album.
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 1:39 PM on September 13, 2016


It always bothered me that Born in the USA (the album) was such a major breakout success, because everything he did before that was superior to it and everything he did after.
In other words, this list is wrong.
posted by rocket88 at 1:43 PM on September 13, 2016 [5 favorites]


So it's clear the writer doesn't get the late-70s Van Zandt songs that didn't make the cut. If she would've included unreleased cuts we'd get to see if Resurrection would be in the top 10. It's a great tune that sums up so much of Springsteen's work. And total agreement about Born in the USA. It makes sense when you look at what else was going on back then in mainstream music, but I've never found a reason to listen to it or the 1984-85 shows.
posted by morspin at 1:46 PM on September 13, 2016


I don't think "Born in the USA" is a terrible song (although it isn't my favorite, by a long shot) but I agree it is too highly ranked here.

The crime here, for me, is Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out not making the top ten. So, really switch those two (#3 and #23, respectively) and I'm happy.

Not a Boss completest, so there's a bunch of stuff I don't know here, too.
posted by dirtdirt at 1:46 PM on September 13, 2016


36. "The Rising," The Rising. Majestic and profound, "The Rising" is truly a modern classic. The song has swung from tribute to triumph to remembrance, and powerfully so.

SPRINGSTEEN - THE RISING - LINCOLN MEMORIAL 2009

Number 1 in my heart. I have a tough time getting through it without tears.
posted by MonkeyToes at 1:49 PM on September 13, 2016 [4 favorites]


"Brilliant Disguise" is always criminally underrated.
posted by Talez at 1:49 PM on September 13, 2016 [11 favorites]


I don't know anything about music but I know what I like
posted by Postroad at 1:50 PM on September 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


...list is wrong.

...list is wrong.

...list is wrong.
They put all 300+ entries on a single page. I didn't even know that was still legal on the 21st century internet. At this point they could have said that Springsteen's #1 song was Wooly Bully and I'd at least hear them out before pronouncing judgement.
posted by roystgnr at 1:51 PM on September 13, 2016 [24 favorites]


OK, Robert Pollard next.

I'm not a huge Springsteen fan, but if Rosalita is only your 12th best song, you're doing something right.
posted by dfan at 1:52 PM on September 13, 2016 [5 favorites]


They put all 300+ entries on a single page. I didn't even know that was still legal on the 21st century internet.

It's sad how excited I was about this.
posted by bongo_x at 1:54 PM on September 13, 2016 [7 favorites]


I'm on Fire at #115. Nope nope nope.
posted by Talez at 2:01 PM on September 13, 2016 [5 favorites]


Correct Top Ten (or so):
1. Thunder Road
2. Rosalinda
3-whatever: The rest of the Born to Run album
posted by kirkaracha at 2:02 PM on September 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


Music has a qualitative positive effect on our lives, trying to quantitatively measure that effect and then make an ordered list based on the degree of relative difference between two songs has net effect of zero in terms of personal importance, cultural context, and overall enjoyment of music.

tl; dr all music ranks lists are stupid except this one.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 2:25 PM on September 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


It always bothered me that Born in the USA (the album) was such a major breakout success, because everything he did before that was superior to it and everything he did after.

No. BITUSA is a brilliant album because it has bright, shiny melodies paired with the sort of downbeat, despairing lyrics that countless emo kids could only dream of writing in their high school notebooks or on their jeans. Take "I'm On Fire", for example, which seems like a simple loping seduction song, and in the middle of it, he drops, "Sometimes it's like someone took a knife baby edgy and dull and cut a six-inch valley through the middle of my soul." Dude! Or "Downbound Train": "Now I work down at the car wash, where all it ever does is rain."
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:32 PM on September 13, 2016 [7 favorites]


Pink Cadillac is NOT 97 are you crazy. It was the B side of the "Dancing in the Dark" single (which I HATED) and all the hip kids dug it when I spun it at the Paradise in Boston in the 1980's.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 2:39 PM on September 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


excludes all covers (even those strongly associated with Springsteen, as well as The Seeger Sessions.)

Ah, ok. Because The Seeger Sessions is excellent. Treat yourself to this: Bruce Springsteen & Seeger sessions band - St. Lukes Church, London 2006. Just delightful and spirited and human-scale.
posted by MonkeyToes at 2:49 PM on September 13, 2016


My 1 and 2 are "Atlantic City" and "Racing in the Streets" and they constantly jostle for position, but I'm glad to see they make the top 10 here.
posted by hwestiii at 2:53 PM on September 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


His "Royals" is worth it too.
Not for this list, but worth it.
posted by chavenet at 3:34 PM on September 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


For #2 fans, don't forget this post from 6 months ago.
posted by MtDewd at 3:44 PM on September 13, 2016 [3 favorites]


This list is forgiven any of its sins for putting "Streets of Philadelphia" so high up. They're right, "I was bruised and battered/I couldn't tell what I felt/I was unrecognizable to myself," is one of the greatest opening lines. I love that song, I love its quiet pain, I love how the rhythm of the song so closely mimics walking.

It is, however, a pretty big sin to rank "I'm on Fire" so low. And I'll stick up for "Secret Garden" too. Those synths are cheesy, but I love the lyrics so much, and the general quiet intimacy of it.
posted by yasaman at 3:44 PM on September 13, 2016 [7 favorites]


Thunder Road is my favorite - I wrote an embarrassingly earnest essay about it for Everything 2 - but lately I've been addicted to the 'Well I got some beer and the highway's free/ And I got you, and baby you've got me' bit from Sherry Darling.

There was a long period of time where all I listened to were Springsteen and bands that sound like Springsteen.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 4:26 PM on September 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


Springsteen has different songs aiming at specific fans, and the top of this list is mostly all the stadium rockers. If that's the kind of song you like then OK, but Devils and Dust at 168? I'm on Fire at 115?

I thought it said something that in a list of 300+ songs, the writer started describing them as good ones somewhere in the 200s.
posted by not that girl at 4:40 PM on September 13, 2016 [2 favorites]



...list is wrong.

...list is wrong.

...list is wrong.

SO MUCH WRONG.


Oh, I don't know. I've only gotten down to about #200 and barely recognize a title. As someone who stopped taking the Boss that seriously about halfway through the River, this list is doing a solid job of confirming my biases. Though I am a little concerned that Born in the USA hasn't shown up yet, a song I developed an allergy to long ago.
posted by philip-random at 4:48 PM on September 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


i always found jesus was an only son really moving and profound, it's much too early
posted by PinkMoose at 4:52 PM on September 13, 2016 [3 favorites]


Thunder Road is one of those very very rare songs that can bring me to tears just thinking about it. Badlands is also greatest of all time. Then the next forty or so are merely great.
posted by bukvich at 4:57 PM on September 13, 2016 [4 favorites]


okay - top 100 now and still no serious complaints. Good list.
posted by philip-random at 5:43 PM on September 13, 2016


It would be really interesting to give Caryn Rose a list of these 314 songs, randomly sorted, and ask them to rank the again, without reference to the previously created list.

I wonder how similar the two lists would be. Is there really that definitive a difference between "Kingdom of Days" (297) and "Let's Be Friends (Skin to Skin)" (296)?
posted by layceepee at 6:15 PM on September 13, 2016


The best Bruce Springsteen song is all of them. When he dies he'll probably put out an album where his main character, so hopeful while young, then devastated, then so bitter at middle age, then invigorated with hope in old age, dies and goes to Heaven wherever that is and god is fucking WAILING on the sax. This list is great because it contains Bruce Springsteen.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:34 PM on September 13, 2016 [7 favorites]






We need more of this type of thing:

Every Joni Mitchell song
Every Frank Black solo song
Every Kool Keith song
Every Wave Pictures song
Every Guided By Voices song just kidding
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:14 PM on September 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


Every Guided By Voices song just kidding

My son works lighting at a concert venue and asked me to explain Guided By Voices to him. He said, they're drunk when they get on stage, sloppily play songs that only last two minutes and mumble incoherently for five minutes between each song.

Kids these days just don't get Rock-n-roll.
posted by octothorpe at 8:28 PM on September 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


having made it to #1 ... a few thoughts about the Top 13.

A. much as I like it, New York City Serenade at #13 is way too high as it gets awfully close to being a straight rip-off of early 70s Van Morrison. In fact, Van even calls him on it in A Town Called Paradise.

B. The River at #9 ought to be higher -- there are simply not eight Bruce Springsteen songs better than The River (and I didn't even like the album that much).

C. Born in the USA should be demoted at least one hundred spots for being one of the most misinterpreted songs of all time -- bad memories of patriotic Reaganite hordes chanting it out through the mid-80s continue to trouble my dreams (and I'm not even American).

D. Still a darned fine list as these things go.
posted by philip-random at 8:35 PM on September 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


Born in the USA should be demoted at least one hundred spots for being one of the most misinterpreted songs of all time

BITUSA gets those spots back, and more, because Bruce called out Reagan for trying to co-opt it, at a point in time when the Gipper was as popular as he's ever been.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:43 PM on September 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


... except Reagan and his ilk more or less won that round -- they certainly kept winning elections. That said, credit to the Boss for taking that stand, and for following Born in the USA with the rather un-co-optable Nebraska ...
posted by philip-random at 8:52 PM on September 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


I was 10 years old in 85 and I knew what that song was about.
posted by The Hamms Bear at 9:32 PM on September 13, 2016


My least favorite Springsteen song is Dancing in the Dark simply because people here tend to treat it as a kitchy joke, and Springsteen as partly a joke by extension.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 9:42 PM on September 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


Psst, philip-random, Tunnel of Love followed Born in the USA as studio albums go; Live/1975-85 directly followed Born. Nebraska predated all that. Carry on.
posted by myopicman at 10:08 PM on September 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


Psst, philip-random, Tunnel of Love followed Born in the USA as studio albums go;

I normally check my discographies before I go all expert, but failed here. Minus one for me ... and the Boss, because this means things just sort of a fizzled for a while in terms of new material post Born in the USA. Which was probably his way of doing what Dylan did post his "motorcycle crash" -- strategic retreat from all the madness of fame, glory, everything.
posted by philip-random at 11:04 PM on September 13, 2016


164... 164! 164?

One hundred sixTY FOUR FUUUUCK YOUUU VULTUUUUURE!!!!!!
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 2:38 AM on September 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


Jungleland not in top 5? FALSE
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 5:04 AM on September 14, 2016


I accept the ranking for my favorite, and the write-up. But "For You" will always be the one for me.

I would have boosted 'For You' up the rankings based on that mournful acoustic piano version he does sometimes. It shifts the emphasis from the dramatic tragedy of the woman to the bone-tired weariness of the narrator, who's been dealing with this again and again and again and again for years. "Your life was one long emergency..."
posted by Catseye at 5:44 AM on September 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


I am not a huge Springsteen fan, but I love obsessive lists such as this one. Thanks for posting it.

I would have rated "Factory" higher, but that's just me. "Racing In The Street" made it to #8, and it's the Springsteen song I like best, so I'm okay with this list.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 7:09 AM on September 14, 2016


just as long as I don't have to ever hear his cover of Santa Claus Is Coming to Town EVER AGAIN.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 7:10 AM on September 14, 2016 [4 favorites]


I have been meaning to hear (Sandy) for a couple weeks now, not sure what prompted me... but yep, thanks for the reminder, list, that really is a good one.

I guess I will never get to be a young man on the Jersey Shore in the 70s, so glad the Boss has chronicled it for me.
posted by Meatbomb at 7:56 AM on September 14, 2016


Is anyone planning to see Bruce on his book tour? He is coming to Powell's next month, and the price of entry gets you a pre-signed book and you meet Bruce himself. He is not reading, signing, or performing at the event. I kind of want to go, but feel anxious just thinking about it. A book signing at least provides a buffer for the socially awkward among us.
posted by terooot at 8:33 AM on September 14, 2016


The songs from Nebraska should be #1-10, otherwise a decent list
posted by Lyme Drop at 10:25 AM on September 14, 2016


Is anyone planning to see Bruce on his book tour?

He just did the wristband release online in Boston and there were HUGE problems with bots getting all the wristbands.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 2:29 AM on September 15, 2016


"Brilliant Disguise" is always criminally underrated.

The whole Tunnel of Love album is: the follow-up to Born in the USA but much more difficult and strange than his new fans expected of him, too eighties for his older fans as superficially it seemed to resemble Born in the USA.

It's my second favourite Springsteen album after Darkness on the Edge of Town and the second Springsteen album I ever bought, after Darkness on the Edge of Town again.
posted by MartinWisse at 3:53 AM on September 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


So it turns out Bruce didn't write Pony Boy! It's a modified version of a 1909 song called My Pony Boy. Learn something new every day.
posted by wemayfreeze at 11:56 AM on September 20, 2016


jeff-o-matic: "just as long as I don't have to ever hear his cover of Santa Claus Is Coming to Town EVER AGAIN."

Everybody out there been good, or what? Oh, that's not many, not many, you guys are in trouble out there!
posted by Chrysostom at 12:29 PM on September 21, 2016 [1 favorite]


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