Two intrepid Bruce fans (“Tramps”) from the U.K. decided to get 1,000 fellow acolytes from the Church of Bruce to answer the age old question: “what’s your favorite Bruce song?” This led to a survey on the discussion board of the popular Bruce site/magazine Backstreets. The result is the All Time Top 100 Bruce songs list. (h/t to Josh Shear for this!)
To compile the list, fans were asked to list their Top 20 songs. These are mine–with the Backstreets rating noted after.
1. Racing In The Street (6)
2. Thunder Road (1)
3. Promised Land (9)
4. Jungleland (2)
5. Adam Raised A Cain (45)
6. Born To Run (4)
7. Backstreets (3)
8. Spirit In The Night (30)
9. Incident on 57th Street (5)
10. Reason To Believe (55)
11. Gypsy Biker (n/a)
12. Land of Hope & Dreams (12)
13. American Land (n/a)
14. Better Days (71)
15. Wreck On The Highway (n/a)
16. Ramrod (60)
17. The River (8)
18. Kitty’s Back (26)
19. Factory (n/a)
20. The Rising (23)
While 8 of my favorite songs are amongst the Backstreets Top 10, I only have 4 other songs on my list that even crack the Top 30 of the Backstreets list. The remainder of my favorite songs are from the 40-70′s of the Backstreets list. I also list 4 songs that do not make the Backstreets Top 100 at all.
This was a hard thought process. How did I not list such songs as Rosalita, Badlands, NY City Serenade, 10th Ave. Freeze Out, Growin’ Up, Because The Night, and The Fever? List discipline!
My favourite: Stolen Car
This is a great list though, you could easily make an amazing CD from these tunes.
Mike: I vacillated between Stolen Car and Wreck On The Highway. It’s a great song.
Mmm, yeah! You can’t go wrong with the Boss.
I had to have a top 12 because 2 of the songs I enjoyed immensely before I knew that he’d written them. Other than the first song and the last 2, the rest are in no particular order:
Born To Run
The Rising
Dancing In The Dark
Born In The USA
Rosalita
Jungleland
Nebraska
Independence Day
The River
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
Blinded By The Light
Because The Night
Mitch:
can’t argue with any of them–the best feature of a “best of’ list for Bruce.