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

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

Even Sherry's mama thinks 39 is too high. Same goes for all girls down at Sacred Heart.

YER MAMA'S YAPPIN IN THE BACK SEAT

TELL HER TO PUSH OVER AND MOVE THEM BIG FEET

Voted "Sherry Darling" because it makes me laugh. It's more mirthful than corny to me; I always feel like "corny Bruce" is trying Make A Point but lacks his usual gracefulness, and I see no point to "Sherry Darling" other than a whole lot of goofy fun.

I'd have some things to say about "Bobby Jean" but thematically it's the same as a song I'm hoping shows up much higher later. Also that McCaughan cover really did a number on me too.

cadillac ranch is one that slipped off my ballot tho I would've sworn going in it would be top 10.

she's the one may have even taken its place...

The Rising sounds way better when it's just Bruce solo minus the cheesy fanfare (like so many of his ott sha la la songs do tbh)

I don't like She's The One very much but it sounds ok if you listen to the whole album. In isolation I think it's one of those songs that is just not my kind of romantic.

Well, good news, there are SEVEN MORE SONGS on that record.

36. Out In The Street from The River (1980)
132 points, 6 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8yphj2hUI8

will post 35-31 later tonight, gotta head out to rep some sort of crazy punk rock show for the kids for a while.

TOO LOW

WHOA HO HO HO HO

Another one I'm not fussed about on record but voted for it for the huge rush of joy it brings on stage.

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

Makes me a little weepy watching that clip. Even from 100 yards away, that was one of my favourite ever shows.

sherry darling and out in the street are both great. i've always seen the former as... not MAJOR bruce, but like second tier in terms of bigness. i've just never held its genre conventions against it i guess, it's one of his funnest songs. i might've given votes to both and also she's the one.

actually the things said about sherry darling itt are mostly things i feel about cadillac ranch. not a huge fan

wonder if the river just going to totally dominate this poll or if we're mostly past it

is just*

Love "Cadillac Ranch." Don't remember if I voted for "Out in the Street," but love it live.

Crap, I wonder if I voted for "The Ties That Bind?"

I did. Love that song. Bruce plays an electric guitar that isn't a Telecaster!
http://archives.rickresource.com/oldattachments/114050.jpg

What the hell? Doctored.

this exists

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZtOVm11d2Y

i first heard out in the street around the time i was getting obsessed with pop linguistics so in my mind it's always been primarily a descriptivist anthem

His only Bo Diddley beat?

see also: "ain't got you"

"the rising" is the only 9/11 song i've truly loved. it doesn't sound forced or self-consciously noble to me. it sounds like a moment of grace pulled out of the collective ghost of a memory. i love how he starts right in on it without warning -- how many other springsteen songs have no introduction? -- and how you don't really know where the song's going until the slow build of that first chorus. i love how the casually awkward phrasing of a bunch of lines ("on my back's a 60 pound stone," "i can't feel nothing' but this chain that binds me," etc.), makes it sound raw and hurried even though it's obviously a carefully crafted song. i love the gospelly harmonies, which are about as good as e street ever got on that front. i love the insistently repeated "dream of life."

The problem I have with some of the throwaway tracks from The River is he had so many great songs recorded for that record. How in the world could he leave Loose Ends off? That's one of the best things he ever wrote.

is any other major artist as obsessed with both album sequencing and setlist planning as springsteen is?

PRINCE

also otm re "the rising" and thanks. i really struggle to articulate what it is about that song, maybe bc it's the inverse of a "blinded by the light" -- overstuffed with thoughts ideas and images not bc there are too damn many words but bc each one sits at the intersection of at least four interpretive planes. in the strangest way, "the rising" strikes me as a companion piece for "nebraska." not eros but agape against thanatos... just a kindness in this world.

I think "The Rising" is great, and for anyone doubting it or second-guessing, I give you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpOwePJdzO0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6Mfq7z_vHc

Other people writing utterly shitty 9/11 songs doesn't excuse Bruce from writing a slightly less shitty one.

But his is muuuuuuuuuuch less shitty I hesitate to even call it shitty. This is shitty:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAxm_GSM7L4

(Even this one I don't mind, but boy is it shitty)

the most puzzling thing about "sunny day" is how he's played it in nearly every show he's done for the past decade.

Yes. That could not be more OTM. That would easily be my vote for worst Bruce song, and it looks like its here to stay,

oh that's a pile, for sure. Though I remember reading somewhere that it predates 9/11 by several years, even if it wasn't cut for a record until The Rising.

Yeah, even in concert last year "Sunny Day" was a dead spot.

"Out in the Street" was a big favorite of mine as a teenage Bruce fan. The swagger, the fist-pumping whoa-oh-oh-ohs, the big intro. It's like a boy's fantasy of blue-collar masculinity. I still like it, but it all feels a little Miller Time to me. (Also, it's the Bruce song that sounds most like a Bon Jovi song -- "Livin' on a Prayer" is practically a remake.)

Nowadays he invites little kids on stage to warble "Sunny Day!"

PUNK ROCK TIME DONE. weirdly i met a girl at the show who told me she was considering getting the word BROOOCE tattooed
on her arm. I recommended it.

35. It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City from Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. (1973)
136 points, 6 votes including one for the Live 1975-1985 version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9aklSlMthc

34. Fire from Live/1975-85 (1986, version included on this compilation was recorded in 1978)
141 points, 7 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aigihAJk1eE

yes and YESSSSSS

i'm drivin in my car
i turn on the radio

(don't know why but i'm ok with 'fire' just ending there, everything else is cherries)

still prefer the Pointer Sisters version but this is fine.

33. Growin Up from Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. (1973)
149 points, 8 votes inc two votes for the version from live 1975-85

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBOMXBbQnw4

Yeah, I was one of the votes for "Fire," specifically that version although the one on The Promise ain't half bad.

big fan of the Tracks version of "Growin' Up." actually all the early versions of Greetings songs on there.

tooooooooooooooootally -- that's my favorite version of a lot of those songs. i'm not sure i'd even really like them otherwise?