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

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

39. Sherry Darling from The River (1980)
120 points, 7 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fXq_rWb5ls

Love the playfulness of Sherry Darling. Think how out of place it would have been on Darkness …

Wow, "Sherry Darling" placed? Like the song, but this is far more pro forma a corny Bruce track than "Glory Days."

uggh, that sentiment makes me wish I'd voted all "corny Bruce"

I love the Bruce that wishes he'd just ended up in the Rascals

Don't get me wrong, i LOVE corny Bruce.

But "Sherry Darling" is pretty generic by Bruce standards. Though he does awesome with generic, too! I don;t ever skip the track, and am happy to see it place. But it's pretty slight.

Aw, I love "Sherry Darling." Didn't vote for it -- it's not first-tier Bruce, by my reckoning -- but it's a great tune, and another good one for singing along in the car. And the lyrics are a nice slice of life.

"The Rising," otoh, has always seemed like a Noble Effort to me, but not much more.

as far as Bobby Jean goes, if i thought about it as documenting a male-male friendship it would probably strike an even deeper chord with me. pretty sure the illustrious Bobby Jean is female though.

as for Sherry Darling, yeah i find it a little bit innocuous as well, but that's the beauty of the man's appeal: songs that register as slight for some will have a great deal of personal resonance for others. he puts far too much thought into each and every song for anything to go under the radar across the board.

At the time "The Rising" came out, I wrote something like "the only thing rising is my gorge." I still stand by that; I applaud him for the effort but the result is risible.

The Risible

exactly.

An yet - it's the only time you'll ever see Bruce play a solo with a tremolo bar, and on a Tele, no less! (/guitar geek)

"The Rising" made my ballot.

38. She's The One from Born To Run (1975)
121 points, 6 votes - one voter specifying the live Hammersmith 75 version...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9jcvBYhJEE

37. Cadillac Ranch from The River (1980)
127 points, 6 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc-xXOE1Jws

Sherry Darling is such a fun sing along song though -- I mean, it's totally throwaway but it's sooo much fun

YER MAMA'S YAPPIN IN THE BACK SEAT

"Cadillac Ranch" was in my top 5. We talked about it in the voting thread, but it's one of his best straight-up rockers, that Berry/Fogerty riff and punchy Max beat, and also a great, smart, funny, even ecstatic song about death.

Didn't vote for "She's the One," but it's one of my favorites on BtR. His only Bo Diddley beat?

I was the Hammersmith Odeon '75 voter. Love that version so much. Swings so much harder than the studio version (which swings plenty).

Yeah Cadillac Ranch owns, it's so rockin. And the 75 Version is so killer, tarfumes otm