10 Best Bruce Springsteen Songs

Just to set proper expectations: This is my Top 10 List of my favorite Bruce Springsteen songs. I’m not a professional critic, I don’t host a radio show and I don’t write for major magazines or sponsored blog (at least, not yet), but I am a long-time aficinado of Bruce’s music.

Over the decades and in song after song, Bruce Springsteen continues to writing passionate lyrics that grab your attention, let you see through the eyes of his characters and implore you to hear his message. Backed by the E Street Band, Springsteen’s songs explode into anthems. The live shows are legendary. And even after all of these years, I still remember my first live Springsteen concert: the midnight show at the Carlton Theater.

Too young for Woodstock, but just the right age in the mid-1970s for the Hey Days of the Jersey Shore when boardwalk arcades, muscle cars and seashore bar bands ruled from the Tradewinds in Sea Bright down the coast on Ocean Ave to the Long Branch Pier, on to Brighton Bar in West End, and then down the coast to Asbury Park. Many nights were spent cruising around the Circuit, circling endlessly between Kingsley and Ocean Avenues, or stopping by the Fast Lanes or the Stone Pony, where Southside Johnny & the Jukes was the house band of the era. Bands like the Shake, Yasger’s Farm, Twisted Sister and Cats on a Smooth Surface rocked nearly every night. After the boardwalk and the bars closed down, we’d often just hang out on the beach.

Growing up on the Jersey Shore in the 1970s, Springsteen was a local legend and his music shaped a lot of my youth. Though I didn’t get to see Dr. Zoom and the Sonic Boom, Steel Mill or any of Bruce’s other early bands, he was a local legend long before Born To Run hit the airwaves. Greetings from Asbury Park and The Wild & the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle were among the first albums I ever owned. Listening to his early albums and hearing his songs on radio gave us inspiration and hope so that we could leave the loser life behind “and pull out of here to win” too. Many of these songs still stay with me today.

So here is my list of favorite Bruce songs that have kept me company along my own personal journey. Some of my picks are found on nearly everyone’s list, and some might be a bit more surprising and perhaps controversial. You don’t agree with my selections? Add your picks to the list at the bottom of the page.

Now scroll down, and enjoy the 10 Best Songs of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

Springsteen has written and performed so many memorable songs that picking just the 10 best Springsteen song is a real challenge. Here are three more personal favorites.