These days you don't wait on Romeos you wait on those BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN POLL RESULTS

Workin On The Highway is def a fun car song -- total jam, I love it

amazing that "My Hometown" hit the top ten.

i think momentum had a lot to do with that: it was his seventh straight top 10 in a year and a half. (he even got his cover of "war" into the top 10 a year later.) but i think it also had a lot to do with the times. it was a perfect '80s recession song. and also just a pretty great song.

Can't wait for "I'm On Fire" to show up. And, dog willing, "I'm Going Down."

45. Prove It All Night from Darkness On The Edge Of Town (1978)
101 points drawing with #46, 4 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mZ-EP1GRTc

Never was a huge fan of this one, always felt a little too by-the-numbers E Street. Obligatory sax solo, etc.

The live version from the Houston show on the Darkness box is awesome.

one of my fave ever springsteen songs.

the lowness of his voice and the piano and the heaviness of the mixing (not to mention the explicit suggestion of the chorus) didn't sound like anything he'd recorded prior. sounds by-the-numbers in retrospect but it's always stuck out to me on darkness.

44. Reason To Believe from Nebraska (1982)
103 points, 6 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc4UopypcT8

43. The Ghost Of Tom Joad from The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995)
108 points, 5 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ5zPs_lX8Y

Woo! Tom Joad is the first, and probably last, of mine to place. I always liked the mood and subdued melody and all, but on rediscovery it was the imagery that stood out - it's almost biblical, the things he selects. Not at all unusual for him, I now realise, but I do love it.

"reason to believe" is kinda "yeah okay i get it" on Nebraska and absolutely gutting on Live 75-85

i love 'Reason To Believe' -- it feels like an oldtimey folk song

ah tom joad, the other album people were allowed to like until 2004

before 2004, i should say

"reason to believe" stands on a thin line between cynicism and hope, which made it a perfect ending to my favorite springsteen album. is he shaking his head in disbelief that these losers insist there's still a reason to believe, or is he marveling at their unshakeable faith? in 2013, it's easy to see how springsteen would choose the latter, but in 1982 it wasn't so clear, and i think those conflicting impulses have a lot to do with the greatness of this one.

(and speaking of 2013-ish, his searing performance of "reason to believe" was one of the highlights of his wrecking ball tour.)

nebraska >>>>>>>>>> tom joad

It hurt me to cut "Reason to Believe" from my ballot but I already had 4 Nebraska songs ...

Did vote for "Tom Joad," though. The song has a lot of conceit to carry off, but I think it works. "The highway is alive tonight" connects so directly to all his earlier highway/driving songs, but there's no romance left -- nobody's kidding nobody about where it goes.

yeah I voted for Tom Joad too, after Darkness it was the 2nd Bruce album I owned. They kinda tie together somehow, I think

I had to cut "Reason" as well. Glad to see it place.

is he shaking his head in disbelief that these losers insist there's still a reason to believe, or is he marveling at their unshakeable faith?

It seems almost more anthropological to me than cynical or hopeful. In every verse it's clear that belief or lack thereof is not going to change the underlying equation: the dog will still be dead, Johnny is not coming back, Kyle William will eventually be dead just like the old man in the shotgun shack, and the bride has run away for good. And yet they believe anyway. The tone is more interested and maybe puzzled than judgmental, imo.

wish I could link to Greil Marcus' analysis of "Reason to Believe."

bruce proclaiming the mysteries of faith imo

last two for today...

42. Bobby Jean from Born In The USA (1984)
110 points, 5 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhR1JdZCFh8

41. For You from Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. (1973)
118 points, 6 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0JOOEnRopM

bobby jean pretty low!

"Bobby Jean" = one of the better songs about male friendship.

Reminder: here's a spotify playlist

http://open.spotify.com/user/mondosalvo/playlist/5sS8pSeutHuNnIpGkaUwye

Bobby Jean is great - that line about hoping Bobby hears the song on the radio, ugh, I love it.

Honestly I hadn't ever considered bobby was a dude til just now. My Mum's middle name is Jean so I always assumed it was a girl. That's cool that it can work either way though

The tone is more interested and maybe puzzled than judgmental, imo.

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Wednesday, February 27, 2013

looking down kinda puzzled iirc, strikes him kinda funny

they wore the same clothes!

xpost

maybe Bobby Jean was like Susannah Hoffs in "In Your Room," trying on his clothes when he's gone.

xpost dude there are days where *I* wear the same clothes as Bruce Springsteen. Check your stereotypes honey :)

i (and, tbh, many other people) always assumed "bobby jean" and "no surrender" were back to back love letters to steven van zandt. whoever they were written for, it's kinda amazing that neither of them was released as a single, especially at a time when almost everything springsteen touched was being released as a single. i sometimes wonder if they were a little too personal to him to give them away to the world like that.

i (and, tbh, many other people) always assumed "bobby jean" and "no surrender" were back to back love letters to steven van zandt.

Yep. They make thematic sense too, sandwiched between a haunted, ravaged ballad and a horny rocker.

The homosocial if not homoerotic side of Bruce exerts as powerful a pull as cars and girls.

don't remember if i voted "for you" or not, but cool! such a weird, lucid set of lyrics

Didn't you think I knew that you were born with the power of a locomotive
Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound?
And your Chelsea suicide with no apparent motive
You could laugh and cry in a single sound

I belatedly cut "Bobby Jean" even though I love it, but I did vote for "For You."

they wore the same clothes!

Tut, tut - they LIKED the same clothes.

one look at Miami Steve should have told Bruce the obvious: they do NOT like the same clothes.

"Bobby Jean" = one of the better songs about male friendship.
i thought it was about male-female friendship! i still think it is.

lotta great songs breakin my heart already this low in the poll, most of all "Bobby Jean," which was my #2

the 33 1/3 on Born In The USA is good but i got SO MAD when the author lovingly picked apart the origins of nearly every song on the album and then glossed over "Bobby Jean" as supposedly one of the album's weak spots

it's the song I've come around on the most during this poll, even though BITUSA was my #1 album I'd reckoned this a weak link until that Mac Maccaughan cover which I cannot get enough of

haha i'm glad my evangelism about that song/cover worked on someone!

Great to see NYC Serenade, For You and Blinded By the Light make the list amongst what looks like most of BitUSA.

there are certainly two more tracks from WIESS upcoming, being very conservative. don't know about Greetings -- probably spirit in the night and growin' up? and maybe it's hard to be a saint. i'm naively holding out for does this bus stop at 82nd st.

mary queen of arkansas and the angel both way underrated dramatic treacle tho

40. The Rising from The Rising (2002)
119 points, 7 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EIm1PS10CY

CUM ON UP FER A RISIN