Bruce Springsteen…

…what’s your favourite song/album ??

Always liked his music, though not a die hard fan, probably about 12 or 13 years old early 1980s

Tunnel of Love is my favourite albums of his.

🎸

Nebraska

Reason to believe

The screen door slams, Mary’s dress waves, like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays… . Irritating to play on the guitar, really hard to sing, Bruce’s story telling at its best.

I like the Guana Batz cover of I’m On Fire where they sing ‘At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet and I’m afraid I’ve wet my bed’.  Classic

The screen door slams, Mary’s dress waves, like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays…

Absolutely spot on 🙂

Born to Run

Thunder Road

Nebraska
Devils and Dust
The Ghost of Tom Joad
The Seeger Sessions

I definitely prefer his more story based chilled albums overall.

I liked that cover of With A Little Help From My Friends he did at Woodstock.

Nebraska

State Trooper
Also, a big fan of the River (the song, although I like the album too)

Thunder Road, phenomenal.

Last gig I was at* was Suede at the Barras, around 95, I’m not really into gigs at all, but Bruce came to Hampden and I just had to go.

Amazing performer.

* Pre Bruce

Thunder Road here too.

This is a fun watch. Working out how to play the song while on stage.

Some brimstone baritone anti cyclone rolling stone preacher from the east
Says dethrone the dictaphone, hit it in his funny bone and that’s where they
expect it least

The River, what a bleak story.

I come from down in the valley
Where, mister, when you’re young
They bring you up to do like your daddy done
…..
Then I got Mary pregnant
And man, that was all she wrote
And for my nineteenth birthday
I got a union card and a wedding coat
…..

I got a job working construction
For the Johnstown Company
But lately there ain’t been much work
On account of the economy
Now all them things that seemed so important
Well mister they vanished right into the air
Now I just act like I don’t remember
Mary acts like she don’t care
……

But I remember us riding in my brother’s car
Her body tan and wet, down at the reservoir
At night on them banks I’d lie awake
And pull her close just to feel each breath she’d take
Now those memories come back to haunt me
They haunt me like a curse
Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true
Or is it something worse

Thunder Road, but in particular the live 75 version with just him and the Prof. It will be the song that plays as they burn me.

As for album, Nebraska with TOL coming close behind…possibly because the first time I saw him was the TOL tour in 88.

I fell completely and hopelessly in love with his music for ever that night.

Late convert but

and also Jungleland when Clarence’s nephew plays the big man’s sax solo for the first time after his death.

I know very little, as he wasn’t cool when I was*, but I do listen a little when I think to, I must explore his back catalogue, discovered Western Stars recently and that’s rather lovely.

* I have never been cool, even when I thought I was.

His Broadway show is a remarkable insight into the man.

He also covers other peoples songs very well, Coma Girl and Londons Calling stand out.

Favorite song varies but is often Thunder Rd, or The River, or Promised Land or Badlands.
Also My Hometown and No Surrender. Independence Day, Growin’ up and Incident on 57th Street are pretty good as well.
So many great live clips on You Tube as well.
His two most recent (Western Stars and Letter to You) show he’s still producing great songs.

+1 for The River.

Some try at the pathos thing, but Springsteen nails it. A hymn to broken dreams and the sorrow of remembered youth. Beautiful and timeless.

Mary’s dress sways

Seen him twice live, just amazing.

As for songs, if I have to pick one, it’s Born To Run. Obvious, I know, but brilliant.

Nebraska favourite album – think Born in the USA prob has better songs even than that but it doesn’t sound that good nowadays (imho).

Favourite song is a tough one – man has a body of work under the belt. Rolling Stone did a top 100 list of Bruce songs and they weren’t struggling for material. Racing in the Street is one of his absolute bests but there are so many.

Crikey I know who Springsteen is but cannot even recall one single song by him … is that bad?

Pretty sure he wrote this about my brother.

Big fan.
Incident on 57th street is right up there for me.
Particularly the live version from a special Japanese exclusive live CD

Nebraska – yet again

Maybe:
Mary, queen of Arkansas
WIld Billy’s circus story
or, err, Nebraska

Born to Run

The River

and Hungry Heart

Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack
I went out for a ride and I never went back
Like a river that don’t know where its flowin’
I took a rong turn and I just kept goin’

Racing in the street is my favourite Western Stars I love but find it disquieting. Tunnel of love, the lyrics are fabulous but the sound and production I am not a fan of. Radio Nowhere is great, he has such a huge back catalogue.

You do realise that Bruce is taking the piss out of everyone on Never can Tell, beej. It’s a Chuck Berry classic and the easiest thing you’ll ever play on guitar. It’s two chords, three if you’re being really adventurous, Bruce uses two. Choose a chord to start in and the fifth of it is the other one you need. Chuck Berry does it in C using C and G. Bruce ends up in G using G and D, with a capo on three so he only has to move one finger and play three of the strings for each chord.

So he could have easily played it without a capo but was given a guitar which made it even easier to play the song on. All pre-planned, he was having a laugh, the band and techs knew he was going to play it and in which key.

Mary’s dress sways

Ta, haven’t played in for while.

The Fuse
Hello Sunshine
I’m on Fire.

All pre-planned, he was having a laugh, the band and techs knew he was going to play it and in which key.

Was the sign in the crowd a plant?

None of the things you say are evidence for it being planned. Equally, I’ve got no evidence that it wasn’t. I just enjoy it for what it is.

Streets of Philadelphia
The River
Atlantic city

Can’t believe no ones mentioned outlaw Pete yet!

None of the things you say are evidence for it being planned

Why else would the tech have handed him a guitar with the capo on three? When you put a capo on a guitar it affects the tuning very slightly so ideally the tech tunes the guitar with the capo in the place it will be used. The tech handed him a guitar with the capo on three, he knew that’s what Bruce would want for playing the song in G so all the nonsense about which key to do it in was just that, a wind up.

Singers know their vocal range, and how to make the most of it. When Noel Gallagher does Wonderwall he does it a fret higher than when Liam sang it. Whatever he does two frets up. Ozzy does Paranoid in D or E flat now because he can no longer get up to E. In a guitar band it doesn’t matter what key you use, however the keyboard and horn players are not going to be happy if you announce you’re doing the song in E flat rather than E today.

Edit: I doubt the sign was a plant, it was the reaction to a song from his repetoire that was a wind up. All the musicians would have seen it and not flinched, “know that”, but then Bruce started messing about and talking about choosing a key. If I’d been in the band at that point I think I’d have have fallen for it and started mentally transposing my part into each key he announced ‘G’ yeah that’s the usual, ‘A’ Ok that’s A and E and two frets down for the solo – for some of the band it would have been an uncomfortable moment.

Nebraska. Atlantic City makes me cry my eyes out. Miss my old man

Album … easy …. The River
Track …mmmmm
Far more difficult as I have so many and the list keeps changing but at any time it would probably be 1 of
Jungleland
Thunder Road
Atlantic City

Streets of Philadelphia

Ah yes I remember that one …

I **** love Racing In The Street. It’s the build from solo piano through to full band.

“I got a 69 Chevy…” oh man ❤️

I realise BTR and TR are probably his “best” songs but Racing… breaks my **** heart every time. Cracking key change too. 😀

^ you’re right about Racing. First song I learned when I bought a lockdown piano.

Was never really into him.

Then I listen to Tunnel of Love on a 40k Naim/Linn system back in 2000. Hooked. Hooked. Hooked.

The older I get the more Glory Days haunts me. On the bright side, it drives me to do new stuff to bore people with

I hope when I get old I don’t sit around thinking about it
But I probably will
Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture
A little of the glory of, well time slips away
And leaves you with nothing mister but
Boring stories of
Glory days

EDIT – Forgot how old it is / he looked then

Was the sign in the crowd a plant?

Of plants in the crowd- it was only a couple of years back that I realised who was dragged on stage from the crowd in the video of ‘Dancing in the Dark’ – in my naivety I’d assumed for the last 35 years (bloody hell, it’s that old) it was a random…

She was a random – that is what made her famous, right?

Well it is what I told my sister and I heard her repeat it to her children a couple of years back 🙂