bruce springsteen tour born in the usa

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

American Anthem

What does 'born in the u.s.a.' really mean.

Steve Inskeep

Vince Pearson

Barry Gordemer

Bruce Springsteen onstage during the Born in the U.S.A. Tour in 1984. Shinko Music/Getty Images hide caption

Bruce Springsteen onstage during the Born in the U.S.A. Tour in 1984.

This story is part of American Anthem, a yearlong series on songs that rouse, unite, celebrate and call to action. Find more at NPR.org/Anthem .

If you're listening closely, the lyrics of " Born in the U.S.A. " make its subject pretty clear: The 1984 hit by Bruce Springsteen describes a Vietnam War veteran who returns home to desperate circumstances and few options. Listen only to its surging refrain, though, and you could mistake it for an uncomplicated celebration of patriotism. You wouldn't be the only one.

NPR's American Anthem series is about songs that Americans embrace in ways that reveal who we are — and of these songs, "Born in the U.S.A." may hold the title for the most historically misunderstood. But as NPR Music director Lauren Onkey explained to Morning Edition, it took time for Springsteen himself to figure out just what the song was meant to say.

"He did a big benefit in the summer of '81 for Vietnam veterans in Los Angeles and met with vets," Onkey says. "After that tour ends, there's a number of places where he's trying to write about the Vietnam veteran experience, so the song grows out of that moment. And it starts out as something just called 'Vietnam.' "

That early attempt at the concept survives as a rough demo . In "Vietnam," a veteran arrives home and tries to get back his old job, but the administrator who greets him can only shrug:

"Son, understand, if it was up to me ... 'Bout half the town's out of work Ain't nothin' for you here From the assembly line to the front line But I guess you didn't hear: You died in Vietnam."

The songwriter kept that scene as he set about writing a more haunting, but still muted version — which is where he first added the "Born in the U.S.A." refrain. In its story of one American, Onkey says, she hears the story of many.

"He says, 'I'm 10 years burning down the road / Nowhere to run, ain't got nowhere to go.' Those lines, I think, describe so many of Springsteen's male characters — who are lost, who can't find a home. The systems around them of jobs and connection are unattainable."

But it still wasn't the song we know. In the version that became the title track on his 1984 smash album, Springsteen made one more change: turning up the volume and shouting out the lyrics almost as if for joy. Rarely has a man with nowhere to go sounded so triumphant.

As the musician later told WHYY's Fresh Air, he meant it that way. "The pride was in the chorus," Springsteen said to host Terry Gross in a 2005 interview . "In my songs, the spiritual part, the hope part, is in the choruses. The blues and your daily realities are in the details of the verses."

Springsteen fans will tell you the effect that big chorus had on crowds, whether or not the message of the verses was entirely understood. Take Chris Christie — yes, that one — who saw Springsteen at New Jersey's Giants Stadium decades before he became governor of that state.

"Bruce started every show with a really rousing, anthemic-type version of 'Born in the U.S.A.,' " Christie recalls. "With a bandanna on and a cutoff shirt and the fist-pumping, it felt like a celebration of being born in the USA — when really, it's a defiant song about 'I was born in the USA, and I deserve better than what I'm getting.' I think plenty of people didn't get what it was about, including the president of the United States."

That would be President Ronald Reagan, who referenced The Boss in a 1984 campaign speech , saying: "America's future rests in a thousand dreams inside your hearts. It rests in the message of hope in songs of a man so many young Americans admire, New Jersey's own Bruce Springsteen. And helping you make those dreams come true is what this job of mine is all about."

By playing on the hope, Reagan seemed to overlook the despair. He may have been influenced by a sometime adviser: The columnist George F. Will, noted for his bow ties and conservative politics, tells NPR he saw Springsteen in concert that year.

The Week's Best Stories From NPR Books

Bruce springsteen: on jersey, masculinity and wishing to be his stage persona.

How 'This Land Is Your Land' Roamed And Rambled Into American Life

"Max Weinberg, of whom I'd never heard, who was the drummer for the E Street Band, of which I'd never heard, called me up out of the blue and said who he worked for and would I like to come see The Boss sing," Will says. "I thought, 'This is a way to impress my children,' and I said yes."

After the show, Will penned a column praising the hardworking musicians onstage, albeit in political terms. "If all Americans — in labor and management, who make steel or cars or shoes or textiles — made their products with as much energy and confidence as Springsteen and his merry band make music, there would be no need for Congress to be thinking about protectionism," he wrote.

Springsteen's politics leaned well left of Reagan's. After the president praised him, the artist mused that if people misunderstood his music, that was fine — it only made him more popular.

"After it came out, I read all over the place that nobody knew what it was about," he said before performing "Born in the U.S.A" to a crowd in 1995. "I'm sure that everybody here tonight understood it. If not — if there were any misunderstandings out there — my mother thanks you, my father thanks you and my children thank you, because I've learned that that's where the money is."

After the applause and laughter died down, he added: "But the songwriter always gets another shot to get it right."

Over the years, Springsteen himself has been willing to tweak the song's meaning. Christie heard him play an acoustic version in the 1990s.

"Much different feeling, much different sound," Christie says. "I can remember, at the show I went to see at the State Theatre in New Brunswick, N.J., a couple of people started to try to sing with him. And he stopped in midsong and said, 'I can handle this myself.' "

At other times, Springsteen dropped the upbeat chorus — singing only the verses, forcing his audience to hear the dark story of the veteran. When the U.S. invasion of Iraq loomed in 2003, he told his audience the song was a prayer for peace.

Onkey says the complexity of "Born in the U.S.A." is why it endures: "It describes the ambiguities and challenges of the country that I have grown up in. And for me, it's a rock-and-roll anthem: This singer, this scream, the sound of the guitar and the scale of the song suggest that rock and roll is big enough and important enough to tell that story."

Maybe the meaning of "Born in the U.S.A." is the distance between the grim verses and the joyous chorus. It's the space between frustrating facts and fierce pride — the demand to push American reality a bit closer to our ideals.

Daoud Tyler-Ameen contributed to the digital version of this story.

• Bruce Springsteen

• Today's news
• Reviews and deals
• Climate change
• 2024 election
• Fall allergies
• Health news
• Mental health
• Sexual health
• Family health
• So mini ways
• Unapologetically
• Buying guides

Entertainment

• How to Watch
• My watchlist
• Stock market
• Biden economy
• Personal finance
• Stocks: most active
• Stocks: gainers
• Stocks: losers
• Trending tickers
• World indices
• US Treasury bonds
• Top mutual funds
• Highest open interest
• Highest implied volatility
• Currency converter
• Basic materials
• Communication services
• Consumer cyclical
• Consumer defensive
• Financial services
• Industrials
• Real estate
• Mutual funds
• Credit cards
• Balance transfer cards
• Cash back cards
• Rewards cards
• Travel cards
• Online checking
• High-yield savings
• Money market
• Home equity loan
• Personal loans
• Student loans
• Options pit
• Fantasy football
• Pro Pick 'Em
• College Pick 'Em
• Fantasy baseball
• Fantasy hockey
• Fantasy basketball
• Download the app
• Daily fantasy
• Scores and schedules
• GameChannel
• World Baseball Classic
• Premier League
• CONCACAF League
• Champions League
• Motorsports
• Horse racing
• Newsletters

New on Yahoo

• Privacy Dashboard

The original Eras tour: how Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA conquered the world

At 11pm on October 2 1985, at the end of a four-night stand at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Bruce Springsteen called time on one of the most profitable rock tours of the decade. Spanning 15-months, 156 concerts and 14 countries, the 15-month Born in the USA. tour played to more than 5.3 million people in arenas and stadiums in which not a single ticket went unsold. With a combined gross of $80 million – or 250 million quid when adjusted for inflation – this most profitable of travelling circuses was the Eras tour of its time.

As distinct from Taylor Swift, though, the 36-year old son of New Jersey was not a natural pop star. Rather, he was a rocker. Even with his colour setting dialled up to the max, he seemed at odds with the shiny materialism of the Eighties. Backed by the all-conquering E Street Band, onstage in LA, Springsteen spoke on behalf of aid organisations working for the unemployed and of the perils of governmental monkey business in Central America. Some of his biggest hits were deeply weird. “At night, I wake up with the sheets soaking wet and a freight train running through the middle of my head,” he sang on I’m On Fire, one of the many singles harvested from the album Born in the USA.

Today sees the LP re-released as a special red-vinyl edition in a gatefold sleeve with a booklet featuring archive material and new sleeve notes.

Just as they do now, back in 1985, the patrons on Main Street regarded Bruce Springsteen as their representative in song. “The Boss means America,” a ticketholder at the Coliseum told the Los Angeles Times. “He represents not the rich or the beautiful, not [LA] or New York, but the other people, the common people, the people in-between. When he sings, he sings about love, America and working. When he’s onstage, he’s there for everybody, even the people in the back row. He doesn’t condescend. I’m a bartender, and he’s the kind of guy that you can sit down with and have a beer.”

On the face of it, Born in the USA represented a notable change from the album that preceded it. Unveiled in 1982, the acoustic sparseness of Nebraska (essentially a two-track demo recorded in a single day) featured a cast of characters diminished to the point where violence was only ever a heartbeat away.

They were defiant, too, for all it was worth. “At the end of every hard-earned day people find some reason to believe,” Springsteen sang of a man looking down at a dead dog “like if he stood there long enough that dog’d get up and run”. Believe all you want, he seemed to be saying, but you’re wasting your time.

Born in the USA, meanwhile, offered the possibility of hope. “I’ll shake the world off my shoulders,” promised the narrator of the blockbusting leadoff single Dancing In The Dark. Getting into the swing of the age, the track was accompanied by a music video aired on MTV with the kind of ubiquity normally reserved for Madonna. Directed by Brian De Palma, the concert clip ends, famously, with Springsteen cutting a rug onstage with a young Courtney Cox. As if confirming its mainstream credentials, Alfonso Ribeiro later revealed that Cox’s moves provided the inspiration for “The Carlton” dance beloved of his character in The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air.

The starting point for it all, though, was a long way removed from Hollywood film directors and canned-laughter sitcoms. In 1981, while Bruce Springsteen was pulling together the material for Nebraska, he penned a further seven songs that would form the spine of its high profile successor. Listeners who may have been duped by the pop-star music videos or the brightly coloured Annie Leibovitz photo on the album’s front cover might care to note that at least one of these compositions would confirm that the differences between the two LPs were presentational rather than substantive. What’s more, this meaningful distinction would cause no end of grief.

With his feet up on the coffee table at his home in Colts Neck, New Jersey, the process began with Springsteen pondering a work-in-progress inspired in part by a script sent to him by the writer Paul Schrader. Picking out chords on his sunburst Gibson J200 acoustic guitar, he then turned his head towards a few scribbled lines in a notebook about the plight of veterans returned from the war in Vietnam. The title was taken from the screenplay at his side. It was called Born in the USA.

As he would later write in his autobiography, Born To Run, from 2016, “Born in the USA remains one of my greatest and most misunderstood pieces of music. The combination of its ‘down’ blues verses and its ‘up’ declarative choruses, its demand for the right of a ‘critical’ patriotic voice along with pride of birth, was too seemingly conflicting (or just a bother!) for some of its more carefree, less discerning listeners… Records are often auditory Rorschach tests; we hear what we want to hear.”

It’s worth considering, I think, how this most iconic of tracks might have been received had it appeared in downtrodden form on Nebraska. In fact, I would say it seems all but obvious that its story of a beleaguered serviceman who can’t catch a break back home in the States, or the brother who lost his mind at the Battle of Khe Sahn, would have been right at home there.

Backed by the E Street Band in pummelling form, however, the song became a case study in just how easily songs with readily discernible lyrics can be misconstrued. The trade magazine Cash Box described it as being a “straight-ahead anthem that celebrates America’s traditional values”, for example, while Libertarian columnist George Will wrote “I have not got a clue about Springsteen’s politics” – wow, no kidding – but that Born In The USA’s chorus was “a grand, cheerful affirmation”. Will even suggested to Ronald Reagan’s handlers that The Boss might fancy endorsing their candidate in his campaign for re-election as president in the general election of 1984. The approach was duly rebuffed.

Nice try. But as Greil Marcus wrote in a review for the magazine Artforum, the song is about nothing less than “the refusal of the country to treat Vietnam veterans as something more than non-union workers in an enterprise conducted off the books. It is about the debt the country owes to those who suffered the violation of the principles on which [it] was founded, and by which it has justified itself ever since. In other words, the song links Vietnam veterans to the Vietnamese – or rather (because… Springsteen personalises everything he touches) one veteran tries to make that link.”

All of which is pretty heavy fare for a record that has since become the 20 th bestselling album of all time. After debuting on the American Billboard Hot 200 at a somewhat pallid number nine, Bruce Springsteen’s seventh LP rose to the top of the chart two weeks later. A residency in the top-10 lasting an astounding 84 weeks made it the highest selling album of 1985. Across the Atlantic, after arriving on the chart at number two, The Boss at last reached the summit of the British listings eight months later.

In a marketing strategy pioneered by Michael Jackson’s Thriller , the album’s momentum was sustained by a steady drip-feed of singles and attendant music videos. In releasing a whopping seven stand-alone tracks – along with Dancing In The Dark and I’m On Fire, there came the title track, My Hometown, Glory Days, I’m Goin’ Down and Cover Me – Columbia Records evidently disagreed with the assessment of their signatory and his manager, Jon Landau, that the LP should spawn no more than two singles. The suits called it right. Each of the seven songs found their way into the US top 10.

“Bruce Springsteen has enlarged his onetime cult following to immense proportions,” wrote Philip Elwood in a piece for the San Francisco Examiner published in the autumn of 1984. “[Concert promoter] Bill Graham… told [me] this week that he ‘offered Springsteen’s people six sold-out nights’ in the Bay Area, something he had never done before.” Instead, 150,000 people applied for the 27,000 tickets available for a pair of dates at the Oakland Coliseum Arena. When the Born In The U.S.A Tour wended its way back to Northern California, in September the following year, The Boss performed for more than 100,000 ticketholders over two nights at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum stadium right next door.

It really didn’t get much bigger than this. Certainly, when the representatives from the Garden State visited Europe in the summer of 1985, it was to play, and to fill, the continent’s largest venues. Around this time, many were the people who regarded a three-night stand at Wembley Stadium – not to mention dates at Roundhay Park, in Leeds, and Newcastle’s St James’s Park – as evidence of overnight success. Not so. Four years earlier, at Wembley Arena, Bruce Springsteen and his group had wowed 84,000 people over seven nights on the tour in support of The River LP. The only difference being, that crowd had been drummed out of the woodwork by an album rather than its singles.

In other words, this was no fleeting dalliance. Four years later, in his review of the tour, the critic Richard Williams noted how “on Wednesday evening, in the vastness of Wembley Stadium, [Springsteen] chose a rare moment of calm towards the end of his three-hour concert to remind his 72,000 listeners of the importance he attaches to that historic relationship [with London]. It was one of several signs that, despite his new status as the tabloid newspapers’ favourite pop sensation, he continues to respond primarily to the whisper of his conscience.”

In time – in fact, rather quickly – these whispers would lead Bruce Springsteen away from the blinding light of pop stardom. He’d remain a megastar, of course, but he’d had his fun. On the US leg of tour in support of the Tunnel Of Love album, from 1988, he played in arenas on dates that were sometimes announced at only a few days’ notice. After breaking up the E Street Band – the old gang reunited in 1999 – he even went so far as to ponder his status as “a rich man in a poor man’s shirt”. Thing was, though, the authenticity of it all couldn’t be denied, not even by him. At no point in the last 40 years has he ever issued a song that sounds as if it was written by a millionaire.

It’s quite the trick, really, considering the extent of his fortune. At the end of his Born in the U.S.A. tour, for the first time in his life, Springsteen met with his accountant. “I would shake the hand of a Mr Gerald Breslauer,” he writes in his memoir, “who would tell me that I had earned a figure that at the time seemed so outrageous that I had to ban it from thought… I couldn’t contextualise it in any meaningful way. So I didn’t. My first luxury as a successful rock icon would be the luxury not to think about, to downright ignore, my luxuries. [It] worked for me.”

The 40 th anniversary edition of Born In The U.S.A. is available now

Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.

Recommended Stories

Savings interest rates today, june 30, 2024 (best accounts offering 5.36% apy).

If you’re searching for today’s best savings interest rates, we’ve narrowed down some of the top offers. Learn more about savings interest rates today.

CD rates today, June 30, 2024 (up to 5.20% APY)

If you’re searching for today’s best CD rates, we’ve narrowed down some of the top offers. Learn more about CD rates today.

U.S. Track & Field Trials: Noah Lyles takes another step toward goal of four Olympic golds

That audacious goal is starting to look a little less implausible after Lyles swept the 100 and 200 at U.S. Olympic Trials.

USA Gymnastics loses another Olympic team contender with Shilese Jones ruled out for Trials

Three different contenders for the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team have gone down with injuries this week.

2024 NBA free agency: Paul George opts out of Clippers contract, enters free agency

The 34-year-old averaged 22.6 points (on 47/41/91 shooting splits), 5.2 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game this past season, leading the Clippers to the first round of the playoffs.

Extreme E is now Extreme H, a hydrogen-powered racing series starting 2025

The series announced this week that it’s rebranding to Extreme H, and unveiled a hydrogen-powered race car it’s calling the Pioneer 25 to usher in the transition. The first season is slated to begin in April 2025

UFC 303: Alex Pereira rocks Jiří Procházka with head-kick KO to defend light heavyweight belt

It was a chaotic card with an emphatic ending, courtesy of Alex Pereira.

Fireworks will light up the U.S. sky this week — but they can create problems for pets, PTSD survivors and even your hearing. Here's how to stay safe.

Keep your ears (and pets!) safe from fireworks.

Logan Thompson gets traded to Capitals, keeps scheduled autograph session with Golden Knights fans

Thompson spent an hour signing autographs at the Sphere during the NHL Draft following the trade.

The owner of Redbox has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, which acquired the movie rental service Redbox in 2022, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Deadline reports.

Born In The U.S.A. Tour

• Edit source

The  Born in the U.S.A. Tour  was the supporting concert tour of  Bruce Springsteen 's  Born in the U.S.A.  album. It was his longest and most successful tour to date. It featured a physically transformed Springsteen; after two years of bodybuilding, the singer had bulked up considerably. The tour was the first since the 1974 portions of the  Born to Run tours without guitarist  Steven Van Zandt , who decided to go solo after recording the album with the grop. Van Zandt, who was replaced by  Nils Lofgren , would appear a few times throughout the tour and in some of the music videos to promote the album. It was also the first tour to feature Springsteen's future wife,  Patti Scialfa .

The tour started in June 1984 and went through the United States and to Canada. In March 1985 the tour went to Australia, Japan and Europe. It then headed back for a second leg of the U.S. tour in which Springsteen and the  E Street Band  played to sold-out professional football stadiums. The tour finished in October 1985 in Los Angeles.

The tour grossed $80–90 million overall. Of that, $34 million came from Springsteen's summer 1985 stadium dates in North America. [1]  The  Born in the U.S.A.  album was inside the top 10 of the  Billboard  200 during the entire tour. Springsteen also was enjoying a hit single from the album (there were seven in total) during any moment of the tour. The album along with Springsteen's previous album,  Nebraska , which he did not tour to promote, were performed in their entirety throughout the tour. Total attendance was 3.9 million.

• 1.1 Special guests
• 2 Broadcasts and Recordings
• 3 Postponed dates

Personnel [ ]

• Bruce Springsteen  – lead vocals, guitars, harmonica
• Clarence Clemons  – saxophone, congas, percussion, background vocals
• Garry Tallent  – bass guitar
• Danny Federici  – organ, glockenspiel, piano, synthesizer
• Roy Bittan  – piano, synthesizer, background vocals
• Max Weinberg  – drums
• Nils Lofgren  – guitars, background vocals
• Patti Scialfa  – background vocals, synthesizer, tambourine

Special guests [ ]

• Courteney Cox (6/29/84 – danced with Springsteen on " Dancing in the Dark " which was captured in the music video)
• J.T. Bowan (8/9/84)
• John Entwistle (8/11/84)
• Southside Johnny (8/12/84)
• Steven Van Zandt  (8/20/84, 12/14/84, 12/16/84, 12/17/84, 7/3/85, 7/4/85, 7/6/85, 7/7/85, 8/22/85)
• The Miami Horns  (8/19/84, 8/20/84, 9/14/84)
• Pamela Springsteen (10/22/84 – danced with Bruce on "Dancing in the Dark")
• Gary U.S. Bonds (1/18/85)
• Robbin Thompson (1/18/85)
• Eric Clapton (6/1/85)
• Pete Townshend (6/1/85)
• Jon Landau  (9/29/85, 10/2/85)
• Julianne Philips (10/2/85 – danced with Bruce on "Dancing in the Dark")

Broadcasts and Recordings [ ]

Nearly half of  Live/1975-85  consists of songs from the Born in the U.S.A. Tour, incorporating songs from the August 6, August 19, and August 20 shows in 1984, and the August 19, August 21, and September 30 shows in 1985.

Several shows have been released as part of the Bruce Springsteen Archives:

• Brendan Byrne Arena, New Jersey 1984 , released May 13, 2015
• Brendan Byrne Arena, August 20, 1984 , released March 2, 2018
• Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Sept 27, 1985 , released April 5, 2019
• Brendan Byrne Arena, August 6, 1984 , released September 18, 2020
• Giants Stadium, August 22, 1985 released July 23, 2021

Postponed dates [ ]

• 1 Steven Van Zandt
• 2 Born In The U.S.A. Tour
• 3 E Street Band

The Born in the U.S.A. Tour '84 - '85

June 3, 2024 15 Songs, 1 hour, 16 minutes ℗ 2024 Columbia Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment

More By Bruce Springsteen

You might also like.

Bryan Adams

Little Steven & The Disciples of Soul

Various Artists

Africa, Middle East, and India

• Côte d’Ivoire
• Congo, The Democratic Republic Of The
• Guinea-Bissau
• Niger (English)
• Congo, Republic of
• Saudi Arabia
• Sierra Leone
• South Africa
• Tanzania, United Republic Of
• Turkmenistan
• United Arab Emirates

Asia Pacific

• Indonesia (English)
• Lao People's Democratic Republic
• Malaysia (English)
• Micronesia, Federated States of
• New Zealand
• Papua New Guinea
• Philippines
• Solomon Islands
• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• France (Français)
• Deutschland
• Luxembourg (English)
• Moldova, Republic Of
• North Macedonia
• Portugal (Português)
• Türkiye (English)
• United Kingdom

Latin America and the Caribbean

• Antigua and Barbuda
• Argentina (Español)
• Bolivia (Español)
• Virgin Islands, British
• Cayman Islands
• Chile (Español)
• Colombia (Español)
• Costa Rica (Español)
• República Dominicana
• Ecuador (Español)
• El Salvador (Español)
• Guatemala (Español)
• Honduras (Español)
• Nicaragua (Español)
• Paraguay (Español)
• St. Kitts and Nevis
• Saint Lucia
• St. Vincent and The Grenadines
• Trinidad and Tobago
• Turks and Caicos
• Uruguay (English)
• Venezuela (Español)

The United States and Canada

• Canada (English)
• Canada (Français)
• United States
• Estados Unidos (Español México)
• الولايات المتحدة
• États-Unis (Français France)
• Estados Unidos (Português Brasil)
• 美國 (繁體中文台灣)

Forty years later, Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ is back on the charts

The Boss and the E Street Band are due at Citizens Bank Park in August.

Bruce Springsteen ’s Born in the U.S.A. turned 40 this month, and now the album that transformed him into a megastar is back on the charts.

The Boss and the E Street Band have been touring in Europe this summer — except for a brief unplanned break from work due to vocal issues that caused them to postpone shows in France, Italy, and the Czech Republic.

Springsteen, who is in the Netherlands this week, will be back at South Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park on Aug. 21 and 23, to make up for shows that were rescheduled due to illness last summer . He has completed a full round of shows in Ireland and the United Kingdom, and also was inducted into the prestigious Ivors Academy in London by Paul McCartney in May.

That exposure has benefitted his album sales as Born in the U.S.A . has reentered the UK album chart — coming in at Number 56 — for the first time in nearly a decade. It was last seen on that chart when it came in at Number 50 in 2015.

Born in the U.S.A . is the 22nd biggest selling album of all time, according to Wikipedia, with sales of 22.8 million copies, one spot behind Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite for Destruction and one ahead of Abba’s Gold: Greatest Hits .

Sales of the album, which spawned seven hit singles and whose “Dancing in the Dark” and “No Surrender” are staples of Springsteen’s current live set, are also up in the U.S. The album reentered the Billboard album chart at 197 this week.

Springsteen and the E Streeters wrap up their European tour at Wembley Stadium in London on July 27 and pick up again in Pittsburgh on Aug. 15 before heading to Philadelphia.

Born in the U.S.A. Tour '84-'85

Bruce springsteen / bruce springsteen & the e street band.

STREAM OR BUY:

Release Date

Discography timeline, user reviews, track listing, similar albums.

Wisconsin native reflects on 40 years of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ in new book

Rock music critic from Appleton explores legacy of iconic 1984 album

Steven Hyden grew up in Appleton listening to Bruce Springsteen. He recently remembered finding a cassette copy of “Born in the U.S.A.” in his dad’s car.

“There was something about the cover (that) just called out to me,” he said in a recent interview on WPR’s “ Wisconsin Today .”

He said hearing the first few notes of the title track at 6 years old was a “big bang moment” for him. It launched a lifetime of listening to and appreciating “Born in the U.S.A.”

Stay informed on the latest news

Sign up for WPR’s email newsletter.

“I’ve loved this album pretty much as long or longer than anything in my life,” he said.

Now 40 years later, Hyden is a music critic who writes for Uproxx and has published several books about music. He just released a new book looking at the legacy of “Born in the U.S.A.”

In the book, Hyden wrote that this album changed rock music. But more so, he said it struck a chord with American culture and politics in a way few albums have since. 

“The tape I found in my dad’s car is a landmark in American pop culture, an all-time bestseller that placed Bruce Springsteen at an elevated position more analogous to a national monument than a pop star,” Hyden wrote. “It influenced how music sounded in the era, but more than that, it informed the national political discourse as well.”

When asked what the album means to him now, Hyden said it’s just as relevant as ever.

“I think that this record has a lot to say about the state of the country, how it has changed in the last 40 years,” he said. “The reason I wanted to write about it is that, along with being a great record, there’s a lot of richness to the story (of this album) and what it represents.”

Here’s what Hyden has to say about a few of the album’s standout tracks, based on his interview with “Wisconsin Today” and his new book, “There Was Nothing You Could Do: Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born In The U.S.A.’ and the End of the Heartland.”

‘Born in the U.S.A.’

Steven Hyden: The song “Born in the U.S.A.” is such a slam-bang of an opener for a record. It really hits you in the face. Just the sound of the drums, the synthesizer, Bruce’s voice, everything in the package.

There’s a long history with the title track of people reading it in a way that doesn’t exactly line up with what Bruce Springsteen intended. If you look at the lyrics of that song, he’s writing about this disaffected Vietnam veteran who comes back home, and he has been rejected by his country. There’s a feeling of betrayal that courses through that song. And anger and rage. But the music is very uplifting — it’s anthemic. The chorus almost demands that you shout along with it. 

You did have political actors, (such as) the Reagan campaign that year, that were knowingly co-opting that song. There was an attempt in political circles to wrap an arm around Bruce Springsteen because he was such a popular star. And if you’re trying to appeal to young people, this was an easy way to do it.

‘Glory Days’

SH: People hear that song at baseball games, and they think, “Oh, what a nice song about nostalgia.” And then you dig deeper, look at the lyric sheet and it’s like, he’s talking about how depressing it is to end up on a barstool and talking about how great your life used to be. It’s a song against nostalgia, not endorsing nostalgia. 

That sort of “sad songs that sound happy” formula just gets repeated throughout that record. And Bruce didn’t invent that formula. Lots of songwriters have used that, but it’s very effective. He uses it better than most.

‘Dancing in the Dark’

SH: So that was a song that came very late in the process. The record was basically done, and Bruce Springsteen’s manager Jon Landau looked at the record and felt like it needed one more song. The thing with this record was that it was really conceived to be the record that would push Bruce Springsteen over the top. Landau felt like, “We just need one more song that’s going to be a big hit, and that’s going to take us to the promised land.”

Bruce was very frustrated by this because he wrote so many songs during this period, many of which didn’t come out until years later on a boxset called “Tracks” at the end of the 1990s. He had written so many songs, he felt like he was done. He had been working on this for years. So he, very reluctantly and I think somewhat angrily, wrote this song, “Dancing in the Dark.” 

It’s a very poppy song. If you’ve seen the music video, Bruce is smiling and dancing with Courtney Cox. It’s like all joy and rainbows and everything. But if you look at the lyrics, it’s a very bitter song: “I want to change my clothes, my hair, my face. I’m not satisfied with where I am in life.”

‘My Hometown’

SH: The seventh and final single. It topped out at No. 6. But it is No. 1 in my heart. Like “Born in the U.S.A.,” it is a thesis track. Only the first number on side one is about coming home, and this one is about leaving it.

When I go back to my own hometown, I usually take a late-night drive past the boyhood home my mother has long since moved out of, and I listen to this song. But I don’t think about how the old neighborhood now looks like the worn-out ghost town that Bruce writes about. What I ponder is my journey with this record. In the first verse, the narrator is a kid in his dad’s car. In the last verse, he’s the dad taking his own son for a drive.

And that’s exactly my arc with “Born in the U.S.A.” I started out as a child playing it in my father’s car, and now I’m a father who plays it for my children in my car. My love for this album has not changed. What’s changed is everything else.

Wisconsin Public Radio, © Copyright 2024, Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System and Wisconsin Educational Communications Board.

Related Stories

Blondie co-founder chris stein, one way or another, finds himself in the right place at the right time.

T Bone Burnett releases his first solo album in 20 years

A guidebook for Bruce Cockburn fans

Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band – Born in the USA Tour

The Born in the USA Tour was Bruce Springsteen’s most successful tour to date, supporting his iconic album ‘Born in the USA.’ The tour included performances in the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan and Australia. It was also the first to feature the future wife of Springsteen, Patti Scialfa.

The tour grossed nearly 90 million dollars and the namesake album was inside the top ten of the Billboard 200 chart for the entirety of the tour. The final four shows of the tour, September 27, 29, 30 & October 2, were held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, where they performed crowd-tested classics and premiered new songs like Edwin Starr’s “War.” The cumulative attendance was of the four sold-out Coliseum shows was 322,900.

• Top 15 '80s Aerosmith Songs
• Eagles Add More Concerts
• Bill Wyman's New Album
• Songs Journey Hasn't Played
• Elton John Played on Hollies Hit
• New Dennis DeYoung Interview

40 Years Ago: ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ Transforms Bruce Springsteen

We expect our musicians to evolve throughout their careers. But few could have predicted the complete transformation made by Bruce Springsteen when his album Born in the U.S.A. was released on June 4, 1984.

Springsteen had kept a relatively low profile since the world tour in support of The River concluded in September 1981. He didn’t return to the road to support his stark, acoustic masterpiece, 1982's Nebraska . When he did surface, it was usually to sit in with friends at Jersey Shore bars like the Stone Pony or Big Man's West, which was owned by E Street Band saxophone player Clarence Clemons .

So, when fans bought Born in the U.S.A. and looked at the photo on its inner sleeve, they could not have been prepared to see that the once-scrawny singer had been hitting the gym. "I was a big fan of meaningless, repetitive behavior," he said in Peter Ames Carlin's bio, Bruce . "And what's more meaningless than lifting a heavy object and then putting it down in the same place that you found it? There are probably other psychological reasons behind it, but otherwise, it was a perfect match for me. The Sisyphean aspect of it just completely suited my personality."

READ MORE: Top 10 Bruce Springsteen Songs

It wasn't just Springsteen's appearance that had changed. As nearly every other rock act was doing at the time, synthesizers were brought in to help modernize the sound of the E Street Band. And while they dominate some songs, like "Born in the U.S.A.," "Dancing in the Dark" and "My Hometown," for the most part Roy Bittan 's keyboards blend well with Danny Federici’s Hammond organ. Coupled with a shiny mix by Bob Clearmountain, the songs on Born in the U.S.A. fit perfectly on the radio at the time, even if some of the sounds Bittan used haven’t aged particularly well.

As bright as the finished product was, the recording of it was anything but. Brucebase says that at least 86 songs were recorded in four sets of sessions spanning 13 months. The first round took place from January through May 1982. This was the infamous "Electric Nebraska" period where Springsteen was unable to capture the same emotions with the band as he did on the acoustic demos he had recorded on Jan. 3, 1982. Instead, he had engineer Toby Scott clean up the cassette tape as best as he could, and it was released that September. The full-band versions of the Nebraska material still have yet to surface on any bootleg.

That doesn't mean the sessions were completely fruitless. The entire first side of his next album – "Born in the U.S.A.," "Cover Me," "Darlington County," "Working on the Highway," "Downbound Train" and "I’m on Fire" – plus "I’m Goin’ Down" and "Glory Days," were cut during those four months.

Recording stopped after Springsteen decided to put out the Nebraska demo tape. After its release, he retreated to his recently purchased house in Los Angeles. A few weeks into 1983, he spent three months cutting another batch of songs with only a drum machine. He considered fashioning an album out of the roughly two dozen songs as sort of a sequel to Nebraska , but realized the effect it would have on his band. None of the tracks from this time made it onto the record, but "Shut Out the Light" and "Johnny Bye-Bye" wound up as b-sides.

Listen to Bruce Springsteen’s ‘I’m Goin’ Down’

They Still Needed a Hit Single

He reconvened the E Street Band in May for another month of sessions in New York. These were a little more productive, with "My Hometown" making the final cut and "Pink Cadillac," "Stand on It," and "Janey Don't You Lose Heart" also eventually being used as B-sides.

A handful of one-off sessions in late 1983 produced "Bobby Jean" and "No Surrender." By February 1984, they had enough for a full release – and the outtakes that surfaced on Tracks and the bonus disc on The Essential Bruce Springsteen showed that there was more than enough stellar material in the can – but there was still something missing: the sure-fire hit single. Manager Jon Landau did his time-honored duty, demanding that his client write something that would guarantee radio airplay.

Furious that nothing was good enough, Springsteen channeled all of his frustrations onto the page. But it worked: "Dancing in the Dark," with its synth hook and rock-solid groove, was exactly what Landau wanted and the last track recorded for the album. Now it was time to figure out which songs to make the final cut.

"I had an idea – and it was an idea that I had been working on for several records," Springsteen told Carlin. "I was a strange product of Elvis [Presley] and Woody Guthrie , and I pursued the pink Cadillac in my own way, but I was fascinated by people who had become a voice for their moment. Elvis, Woody Guthrie, Curtis Mayfield , Bob Dylan , of course. I don’t know if I felt I had a capacity for it or just willed my way in that direction, but it was something I was interested in – probably because it was all caught up in my identity.

"You cannot figure out who you are if you don’t understand where you come from," Springsteen added. "What were the forces that work on your life as a child, as a teenager and as a young man? What part do you have to play? How do you empower yourself?"

It's a stretch to call Born in the U.S.A. a concept album, but it's clear that the 12 tracks were chosen because of the way they fit together. Personal, social and sexual politics often intertwine within the songs, from the cheap-thrill seekers who run afoul of the law in "Darlington County" to the economic hardships that end a relationship in "Downbound Train."

Knowing he had a blockbuster on his hands, Landau worked with Columbia on the marketing plan. He wanted – and got – a treatment similar to what had brought Michael Jackson ’s Thriller to unprecedented sales. That meant a two-year campaign with a new single every three months, beginning with "Dancing in the Dark." Released on May 4, the song was, by the summer, the No. 2 single on the Billboard Hot 100, kept out of the top spot for four weeks by Prince ’s "When Doves Cry."

Listen to Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Downbound Train’

A Key Figure Exits the E Street Band

With a smash hit single on his hands, Bruce Springsteen was set to begin a lengthy tour. But the E Street Band had a transformation of its own when Springsteen’s longtime friend, guitarist and co-producer Steve Van Zandt , left the group during the recording of the album. He did this partially to pursue a solo career, but also because he felt his role as one of Springsteen's two chief sounding boards – the other being Landau – had been marginalized.

"Jon on his right and me on his left," he told Carlin. "Jon representing the career, the business, the narrative end. Me representing rock 'n' roll, the street, where it was coming from. A healthy balance, and it proved to be quite successful. … All of a sudden, I could tell he wasn't hearing me – and I thought the way to preserve the friendship was to leave."

Van Zandt was replaced by Nils Lofgren , a guitar wizard who had played with Neil Young and fronted his own critically acclaimed band, Grin. To cover the bulk of Van Zandt's vocals, Springsteen brought in Patti Scialfa, a mainstay of the Asbury Park scene who had auditioned for a Springsteen offshoot band called Dr. Zoom and the Sonic Boom back in 1971.

"She busted the boy's club, big time," Springsteen said when he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1999. "It went like this, 'OK, fellas. There's gonna be a woman in the band. We need someone to sing all the high parts. How complicated can it get?' Well, a nice paparazzi photo of me in my jockey shorts on a balcony in Rome, 10 of the best years of my life, Evan, Jesse, Sam — three children genealogically linked to the E Street band – tells the rest of the story. Everybody wants to know how I feel about the band. Hell, I married one of 'em."

As much as that sounds like it was a seamless transition — despite the eventual affair — Springsteen admitted when he inducted the E Street Band into the Hall 15 years later that he had some reservations about bringing a woman into the group.

"Her entrance freaked us out so much that opening night of the Born in the U.S.A. tour, I asked her to come into my dressing room and see what she was gonna wear! So, she had on kind of a slightly feminine T-shirt and I stood there, sort of sweating. At my feet, I had a little luggage bag that I carried with me, and I kicked it over. It was full of all my smelly, sweaty T-shirts and I said, "Just pick one of these. It'll be fine."

Watch Bruce Springsteen's  'Dancing in the Dark' Video

Bruce Springsteen Roars to the Top

The tour began at the end of June in St. Paul, Minn. The opening show also served as the shoot for the "Dancing in the Dark" video, which featured then-unknown actress Courteney Cox getting pulled out of the crowd to dance with Springsteen. A week later, Born in the U.S.A. was the No. 1 album in the country, where it would stay for four weeks. Everything seemed to be going according to the schedule, but Springsteen would soon find himself at the heart of the debate about what it means to be an American.

Drummer Max Weinberg, a political news junkie, invited the panel of ABC's This Week with David Brinkley  to a show in late-August at the Capital Centre just outside Washington, D.C. Conservative George Will was the only member who accepted. Two weeks later, he devoted his nationally syndicated column to what he saw. "I have not got a clue about Springsteen's politics, if any," he wrote. "But flags get waved at his concerts while he sings songs about hard times. He is no whiner, and the recitation of closed factories and other problems always seems punctuated by a grand, cheerful affirmation: 'Born in the U.S.A.!'"

READ MORE: Top 10 Clarence Clemons Songs

Will was right about some things. Springsteen's characters didn't whine about their plights. They simply asked for a fair shot at the American Dream, and had reacted in kind when it was denied. But his biggest mistake was in his use of the phrase, "grand, cheerful affirmation." The main character of "Born in the U.S.A." may have accepted his 10-year jail sentence, but the chorus was a shout of anger at a country that had turned its back on those who had sacrificed for it. To not acknowledge this was, at best, a simple misinterpretation; at worst, it was a politically motivated lie.

Then-President Ronald Reagan's speechwriters immediately saw an opportunity to capitalize on Will's column. A week later at a re-election campaign stop in Hammonton, N.J., Reagan invoked the name of the state's favorite son. "America's future rests in a thousand dreams inside your hearts," he said. "It rests in the message of hope in songs so many young Americans admire: New Jersey's own Bruce Springsteen. And helping you make those dreams come true is what this job of mine is all about."

Watch Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ Video

Politics and 'Born in the U.S.A.'

It was a masterstroke of politics. Without seeking Springsteen's endorsement – which he was never going to get – or even probably knowing a single song of his, Reagan's message was clear: If you like Bruce Springsteen's music, vote for me.

For most of his life, Springsteen had stayed away from making his political views known. The exceptions were a benefit for George McGovern in 1972 – before he was famous – and the " No Nukes " concert at Madison Square Garden in 1979. Now, he had no choice but to enter the fray.

Two days later, during a concert in Pittsburgh, Springsteen said: "The President was mentioning my name the other day, and I kinda got to wondering what his favorite album must've been. I don't think it was the Nebraska album. I don't think he's been listening to this one." He then performed "Johnny 99," which is about a laid-off auto worker who gets drunk and goes on a crime spree.

The campaign of Democratic nominee Walter Mondale seized on the moment by claiming that the former vice president had Springsteen's endorsement. When the Springsteen camp issued a denial, Mondale retracted. Springsteen wouldn’t openly become involved in presidential politics until the 2000s.

Still, it made sense for both candidates to get Springsteen's approval. After all, the recently concluded Summer Olympics in Los Angeles had been a blowout for the American athletes – mostly due to the boycott of the majority of the Eastern Bloc countries – and jingoism was rampant. With both candidates looking for symbols that defined America, they only needed to look as far the T-shirt-and-Levi’s-wearing man who posed in front of the flag.

But that show in Pittsburgh introduced a new element into the Springsteen live experience. He donated $10,000 to a local food bank that had been established to provide food to steelworkers who had lost their jobs. Springsteen would continue partnering with food banks wherever he played, giving them table space in arenas, informing the crowd of their work and making his own contribution.

Watch Bruce Springsteen's Video for  ‘Glory Days’

The Aftermath of These Successes

The release of Born in the U.S.A. 's title track as a single in late 1984 helped pushed the album back into the top in mid-January 1985. (Prince’s Purple Rain had held the No. 1 spot since unseating Springsteen in early August.) Later that week, the U.S. leg of the tour ended in Syracuse, after which Springsteen flew to Los Angeles to participate in the all-star " We Are the World " project.

Springsteen’s new-found global fame took him to Australia and Japan across March and April. Shortly after returning to the United States, he made headlines again – but it wasn’t for his music. Bruce Springsteen had gotten married.

He had met Julianne Phillips, a former model and aspiring actress, the previous October when the tour reached Los Angeles. A whirlwind romance, which somehow managed to stay out of the tabloids, followed. On May 13, they tied the knot in secret at her hometown of Lake Oswego, Ore. A couple of weeks later, the album’s fifth single, "Glory Days," was released, eventually reaching No. 5. The video featured an appearance by Phillips at the very end.

When the tour reached Europe that summer, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band made the jump from arenas to stadiums, and did the same when they returned to the U.S. in August for two more months of shows. By the time the dust settled, Born in the U.S.A. had sold 15 million copies, with all seven of its singles hitting the Top 10. ("We Are the World" also hit No. 1).

In nearly four years between the first recording sessions to the day "My Hometown" fell off the charts, Springsteen had gone from a successful musician to one of the biggest pop stars in the world. (Only Jackson and possibly Prince were more popular.) But the transformation came with consequences. His difficulty in adjusting to his fame would, by decade's end, result in the dissolution of both his marriage – due to the aforementioned " photo of me in my jockey shorts " – and (temporarily) his band .

Bruce Springsteen Albums Ranked

Gallery Credit: Michael Gallucci

Why Bruce Springsteen Called Killers Collaboration ‘Cathartic’

More From Ultimate Classic Rock

Exclusive: How Bruce Springsteen Wrote and Recorded ‘Born In The U.S.A.’

By Brian Hiatt

Brian Hiatt

My new book, Bruce Springsteen: The Stories Behind the Songs , tells the tales behind every officially released studio recording of Bruce Springsteen’s career so far. In addition to my years of Springsteen reporting, including five interviews with the man himself, the book draws on over 60 hours of brand-new interviews with musicians, producers, and other collaborators from throughout his career (including Max Weinberg, Roy Bittan, Nils Lofgren, Soozie Tyrell, Tom Morello, David Sancious and many, many more). I’m proud to debut this exclusive excerpt here at Rolling Stone , where I’ve been on staff since 2004. Every song gets its own entry in the book; the one you’re about to read is for the title track of Springsteen’s 1984 album.

In 1968, Bruce Springsteen had every intention of dodging the draft. His efforts to convince a Newark, New Jersey, selective service board of his abject unsuitability for combat in Vietnam apparently extended to claiming he was both gay and tripping on LSD, but none of it was necessary. He flat-out failed his physical, thanks to a concussion he suffered in a nasty motorcycle accident the previous year. Springsteen was relieved – elated, even – but years later, he would admit to occasional pangs of guilt. “Sometimes,” Springsteen wrote in his memoir Born to Run, “I wondered who went in my place.”

Editor’s picks

Every awful thing trump has promised to do in a second term, the 250 greatest guitarists of all time, the 500 greatest albums of all time, the 50 worst decisions in movie history.

Circa 1978, he read Born on the Fourth of July , Ron Kovic’s searing memoir of enlisting in the Marines as a blindly patriotic kid, only to come back from Vietnam paralyzed from the waist down and turn to antiwar activism. Soon after Springsteen picked up the book in an Arizona drugstore, Kovic himself happened to roll up to Springsteen by the pool at the Sunset Marquis in Los Angeles. They became friendly, and Kovic connected him with activist Bobby Muller, cofounder of the struggling Vietnam Veterans of America. Jon Landau helped arrange for Springsteen and the E Street Band to play an arena benefit concert for that organization in August 1981, with a group of veterans, many of them disabled, watching from places of honor on the side of the stage. It was a pivotal moment for the Vietnam veterans’ movement in the United States. “Without Bruce and that evening,” Muller said, according to Dave Marsh’s book Glory Days , “We would not have made it.”

When Springsteen returned home the next month and began writing the songs that ended up on Nebraska, he also started something called “Vietnam,” perhaps taking some light inspiration from Jimmy Cliff’s protest classic of the same name. Springsteen recorded a couple of boom-box demos of his tale of a returning veteran who is told everywhere he goes that he “died in Vietnam.” Some of the lyrics would reappear on the B-side “Shut Out the Light,” but one verse, with a factory manager claiming he would hire the narrator if it were up to him, would recur in brilliantly condensed form elsewhere. There is a repeated line about the veteran’s girlfriend running off with a rock ‘n’ roll singer (a hint of that survivor’s guilt?), and when he sings “the stranger is me,” it’s a reference to what would become one of Springsteen’s touchstones, the Stanley Brothers’ “Rank Stranger.”

On the oak writing table in his Colts Neck, New Jersey, house, Springsteen had a screenplay called Born in the U.S.A. , sent his way by the film director Paul Schrader. Soon after writing “Vietnam,” Springsteen nicked the title of the script and began to transform the song. The first chorus he wrote rhymed “ born in the U.S.A. ” with a soon-to-be-discarded line sardonically saluting “the American way.” His reading of American history had recently included the 1979 book Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon and the Destruction of Cambodia (a paperback copy shows up in photographer Frank Stefanko’s 1982 shots of Springsteen’s house), and one draft of the new song feels like private venting over what he learned. After marveling that Nixon never spent a day in prison, Springsteen suggests an alternative punishment: They should have “cut off his balls,” he sings (really). This draft also makes clear, in case anyone ever really doubted it, that the reference to being sent off to fight “the yellow man” in the final song was intended as an antiracist statement. They wouldn’t treat “the white man that way,” he sings, while musing over what it felt like to be Cambodian and witness the horror of bombs “falling like rain.” Other drafts show how skilled Springsteen had become at editing and compression; we learn a lot more about the refinery, down to a description of its pollution blanketing the town, material that only merits a hint in the final song.

'Silvio Dante Helped End Apartheid!': Stevie Van Zandt Looks Back at His Wild Life

Jeremy allen white plans to do his own singing in bruce springsteen movie, read bruce springsteen's foreword to alan vega biography: 'he was just incredible'.

Springsteen recorded “Born in the U.S.A.” on his four-track along with the rest of the Nebraska songs, including it on the cassette he sent to his manager and co-producer, Jon Landau. The melody had yet to coalesce, and the echoey home recording blunts whatever impact the song might have had – Nebraska ‘s low-fi fairy dust loses its magic here. The subtle electric guitar Springsteen overdubbed for the final forty seconds does begin to hint, just barely, at a signature riff, and the falsetto howls over the outro suggest a louder noise to come.

In April 1982, Springsteen and the E Street Band returned to Studio A at the Power Station, intending to wade through the Nebraska songs. Author Clinton Heylin, who obtained Sony studio records, finally confirmed in 2012 that the E Street Band attempted most or all of that album, although none of it has leaked – that, presumably, will have to wait for the inevitable boxed set. On the second day, Springsteen pulled out “Born in the U.S.A.” As Roy Bittan recalls, he played it on acoustic guitar and sang it for the band, rather than putting on the four-track demo.

By that point, the melody had evolved, and Bittan recalls pulling a six-note motif from the chorus Springsteen sang. “When I heard him sing it, I said, ‘That’s a riff,'” Bittan says. “A very succinct, simplistic riff.” He went over to his new Yamaha CS-80, a highly flexible analog synthesizer, and started shaping a sound. “I was always intensely listening to the lyrics to see what the hell the song was about,” Bittan says. “So I heard what he was talking about, and what I tried to conjure up is a Southeast Asian sort of synthesized, strange sound. And I played the riff on that.” By the second time Bittan played the riff, Max Weinberg was slamming his snare drum along with it.

From there, with Danny Federici playing piano for once and Steve Van Zandt on acoustic guitar, they started recording the song. “Bruce heard Max and me, and he said, ‘Wait, wait, wait. Stop. Okay. Roll the tape,'” Bittan says. “‘Does everybody have the chords?’ Yes, everybody had the chords. ‘Okay, roll the tape.’ Boom. There it was.”

Weinberg remembers a different set of events. In his memory, they first recorded a version of it as “a country trio,” with a country beat. Then, Weinberg recalls, Springsteen started strumming a rhythm that reminded the drummer of the Rolling Stones’ “Street Fighting Man” and he started playing along. “Everybody else came out,” Weinberg recalls, “and he said, ‘Just keep playing this riff over and over again.’ And he kinda arranged it.” (At the same time, Weinberg does not want to dispute Bittan’s memories: “Roy may have gotten that riff. You can call this chapter Rashomon!”)

However it started, the version on the album is an early live take (with a few minutes of jamming chopped out). In the years since Springsteen sat him down in the River sessions, Weinberg had rebuilt his chops from scratch, taking lessons from master session drummer Gary Chester. Everything he learned is on display in “Born in the U.S.A.” During the take heard on the album, Weinberg recalls, Springsteen “raises his hands and he kind of plays the air drums, like, ‘Do a solo.’ So, if you listen to that moment, Roy and Danny, they were playing the riff. Where they were positioned in the studio, they couldn’t see him stop. So you hear the riff go on . . . But then they felt the rhythm stop, so they stopped, and they do that whole thing. And then he counts off one, two, three, four and we go back into it.”

They finished around three in the morning. Six hours later, Springsteen drove by Weinberg’s house with a boom box and a cassette of Toby Scott’s rough mix of the song. The engineer had applied gated reverb (using a broken reverb plate) to Weinberg’s snare, which, combined with the overloaded room microphones in Studio A’s ceiling, made it sound like heavy artillery going off at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. (On the final mix, Bob Clearmountain somehow made it even more gigantic.)

“We sat on my deck having freshly squeezed orange juice, and we listened to ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ about twenty times,” says Weinberg. “I’ll never forget it, because I went from ‘I could have lost this job’ to the drums on that record. He told me, ‘The drums on this song are as important as the vocal. Because it sounds like confusion and bombs and you perfectly illustrated what I thought the song was about.'” Springsteen knew he and the band had just made one of their greatest recordings, even if the rest of the world wouldn’t hear it until two years later.

For the narrator of “Born in the U.S.A.,” his birthright has been stripped of everything he thought it should mean, just as life itself had been for the guy singing “Reason to Believe.” But if the furious blare of the music – so confusing to so many listeners – signifies anything, it’s that the singer is determined to find his own meaning, to hold his ground, maybe even to rediscover some remnant of what Springsteen would later call “the country we carry in our hearts.” “The big difference between ‘Born to Run’ and ‘Born in the U.S.A.,'” Springsteen told me in 2005, was that “‘Born in the U.S.A.’ was obviously about standing someplace.”

Bruce Springsteen: The Stories Behind the Songs , by Brian Hiatt, is in stores everywhere this week.

Kesha Teases ‘Joy Ride,’ Which Arrives on Independence Day

• By Althea Legaspi

Watch Michael J. Fox Join Coldplay on Guitar at Glastonbury

• Glastonbury 2024

Watch Taylor Swift Debut ‘The Albatross’ Live in Dublin

• Visit in Your Dreams

Willie Nelson 'Cleared' to Return to Outlaw Music Festival

• By Daniel Kreps

In Defense of Camila Cabello — and Letting the Pop Girlies Try New Things

• By Tomás Mier

Most Popular

Sean penn says he 'went 15 years miserable on sets' after 'milk' and could not play gay role today due to a 'timid and artless policy toward the human imagination', 'tulsa king' season 2 premiere date and teaser trailer released, nicole kidman & keith urban’s daughter sunday is apparently going by a different name, florida's ron desantis says 'sexual' festival caused him to veto $32 m. in arts grants, you might also like, ‘our lovely pig slaughter’ director immerses his characters in bloody, honored tradition, model and former soap opera star renauld white dies at 80, the best yoga mats for any practice, according to instructors, ‘the boys’ showrunner on butcher’s internal conflict in season 4: ‘he’s really rattled by what could be happening’, lebron opts out but plans to re-sign with lakers, per report.

Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 Rolling Stone, LLC. All rights reserved.

Verify it's you

Please log in.

The Boss is back: Bruce Springsteen launches 2024 tour with a joyous Phoenix concert

When Rolling Stone invited readers to vote for the greatest live acts of all time in 2011, it’s doubtful the results came as a huge surprise to anyone.

Not only did Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band win the popular vote, they did it without “a close second anywhere in sight."

And that’s because their concerts were — and are , as they reminded us as Springsteen relaunched his postponed world tour on Tuesday, March 19, at Footprint Center in downtown Phoenix — the stuff of legends.

Springsteen and The E Street Band stretch the boundaries of what it means to prove it all night while chasing moments of transcendence that can range from deeply moving to profoundly silly.

Bruce Springsteen setlist 2024: Every song he sang at Phoenix tour relaunch

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band relaunched their tour in Phoenix

The last time Springsteen brought the E Street Band to Phoenix , on a tour in 2016 re-exploring “The River,” they turned in a 3½-hour concert whose truly awe-inspiring six-song encore ended in a spirited revival of the Isley Brothers’ “Shout.”

The fans who flocked to Footprint Center on Tuesday night were on a pilgrimage to see the relaunch of the E Street Band’s first tour since then — a tour cut short in 2023 as Springsteen was treated for peptic ulcer disease, a potentially serious gastrointestinal condition.

Springsteen turned 74 in late September 2023. Four days later, he broke the news that he’d been forced to postpone all remaining concerts booked for 2023 “out of an abundance of caution.”

Naturally, I went into the Springsteen concert on Tuesday night assuming I might feel the need to make allowances for age and health and everything those words imply, especially when used that close together.

But the Springsteen who rocked that arena in Phoenix on Tuesday didn’t need my well-intentioned qualifiers.

He 'just kind of shot through the roof': How Phoenix radio made Bruce Springsteen the Boss

Springsteen brought his A-game to the relaunch of his world tour

The man brought his A-game at the helm of an 18-member E Street Band (or 17 if you’re not counting Springsteen as a member of that band, which seems a bit ridiculous) in a breathless journey through their glory days with an energy that only seemed to flag in the course of their nearly three-hour performance when the song itself demanded it.

He’s certainly scaled back on the physicality of his performance style.

There were no bent-knee slides across the stage. No leaping to rival a young Pete Townshend. But the sense of showmanship remains, from the playful rapport of Springsteen's onstage antics with the members of the E Street Band to the charming self-awareness of his dance moves to that moment toward the end where he tore his shirt open for no apparent reason other than to entertain.

His voice has aged a bit since the first time he followed that iconic shout of “1-2-3-4” with “the highway’s jammed with broken heroes on a last-chance power drive.” But he’s too good a singer to let that compromise the essence of his vocals, settling into a more conversational delivery on “Born to Run” that made it feel like you were hearing those same lyrics for the first time after knowing them for nearly 50 years while also sidestepping the high notes.

Springsteen and the E Street Band are on a search-and-rescue mission

My favorite Springsteen memory is the E Street Band reunion show I saw in 1999 at the Meadowlands in Jersey, where the Boss announced that they were on a “search-and-rescue mission” to regenerate, rejuvenate and otherwise rekindle the spark that is “the majesty, the mystery and the ministry of rock ‘n’ roll.”

Of course they were.

And 25 years later? Springsteen seemed as committed as ever to that search-and-rescue mission, from the time he and his bandmates made their entrance one-by-one to set the tone with “Lonesome Day,” one of three songs they played from “The Rising,” to the raucous rendition of “Twist and Shout” that brought the encore to a joyous climax, having been requested by an 18-year-old fan whose sign said this was his first Springsteen concert.

That kid obviously picked a good night to be introduced to what it means to witness Springsteen in his element, leading the E Street Band in a 29-song overview of his career.

Highlights ranged from 'Born to Run' to 'Dancing in the Dark'

The setlist made its way through countless classics, reaching back to his first album, “Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.,” for a loose-limbed “Spirit in the Night,” and touching on a number of the most beloved songs on “Born to Run” and “Darkness on the Edge of Town” as well as “No Surrender,” “Dancing in the Dark” and other crowd-pleasing highlights of “Born in the U.S.A.,” a 17-times-platinum mainstream-saturating exercise in world domination that remains his most successful album.

They also dusted off a handful of the soul and R&B songs Springsteen covered on his latest album, 2022’s “Only the Strong Survive,” and three songs from his latest album of original material, “Letter To You,” including the solo acoustic version of “I’ll See You In My Dreams” that brought the encore to a haunted finish.

But what made that concert special went beyond what songs they played.

The E Street Band remain a force of nature, despite the loss of Clarence Clemons — “the Big Man” as his joining of the band is celebrated even now in “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” — and Danny Federici, who played organ, glockenspiel and accordion from the time they put the band together in Belmar, New Jersey, until his death in 2008.

Springsteen honored their memory during “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out," during which their images were flashed across the screens above the stage.

The new, expanded E Street Band was brilliant

The current edition of the E Street Band is a three-guitar army with Springsteen, the Valley's own Nils Lofgren and Steven Van Zandt taking turns in the spotlight, two great keyboard players (Roy Bittan and touring member Charles Giordano), violinist Soozie Tyrell, the stellar rhythm section of drummer Max Weinberg and bassist Garry Tallent, and 44-year-old Jake Clemons still doing an excellent job of honoring his uncle, Clarence Clemons, who died in 2011, with the swagger (and physical stature) one would need to even try to fill those shoes.

There’s a flashiness to Lofgren’s soloing that’s undeniable while Springsteen squeezes out the sparks in solos that rely more on the power of each individual note and how it’s phrased, as evidenced on “Prove It All Night,” in particular, while indulging in some low-end twang Duane Eddy would’ve envied on a fantastic “Letter to You.”

The E Street Band’s ranks are further fleshed out in their current incarnation by four backup singers, a four-man horn squad and percussionist Anthony Almonte.

It was quite the crowded stage.

Springsteen kept the banter to a minimum in Phoenix

Springsteen's legend is based in part on his conversational approach to showmanship, as evidenced by the classic monologues captured on “Live/1975–85.” 

But he kept the chit-chat to a minimum for much of Tuesday’s concert.

Taking the stage in a red-and-black flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled extra high, he greeted the fans with a quick “Good evening, Arizona. 1-2-3-4” and barely said another word until he’d made it through “The Promised Land,” the 10th song of the night.

Springsteen eulogized his teenage bandmate George Theiss

His first big monologue was 14 songs deep, after “Mary’s Place,” when he introduced the poignant “Last Man Standing” with the story of George Theiss, a bandmate he met at 15.

“It was 1965,” he began.

“I was 15 years old and I had been playing guitar for about six months when one summer afternoon, I heard a knock on my door and it was George Theiss, a school friend of mine, and he was looking for a guitar player to audition for his band.”

Springsteen passed the audition in a “shotgun shack” and “embarked on the greatest adventure of my life,” he said. “I played in my first real rock ‘n’ roll band and it lasted for three years. As kids. Three years! That’s a lifetime for teenagers.”

Fast forward 50 years and a much older Springsteen is visiting Theiss on his deathbed as his former bandmate is dying of cancer.

“He only had a few days to live,” Springsteen said. “And I realized that his passing would leave me as the last living member of that first band, the Castiles.”

Springsteen spoke of 'death's final and lasting gift to us'

Death brings a certain clarity, Springsteen said. “Death’s final and lasting gift to us, the living, is you get an expanded vision of the life you can live yourself. George’s death made me realize, again, just how important it is to try and live every moment you’re here.”

And with that, the stage was set for “Last Man Standing,” a haunted highlight of his latest album of original material, “Letter to You.”

The tribute to his fallen bandmate carried over into “Backstreets,” one of several emotional highlights that ventured into existential territory.

He didn’t mention the loss of his mother, Adele Ann Springsteen, who died in January at 98. But there’s no doubt that she was on his mind.

Even "Night Shift," the Commodores cover from "Only the Strong Survive," felt like it tied into the existential theme.

After bringing the show to a crowd-pleasing climax in an encore packed with some of Springsteen’s most enduring calling cards, from “Born to Run” to “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight),” “Glory Days,” an anthemic “Dancing in the Dark” and “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” Springsteen sent the other members of the E Street Band away after a joyous “Twist and Shout” to end the night with a solo acoustic rendition of “I’ll See You in My Dreams.”

"I'll see you in my dreams," he sang. "We'll meet and live and laugh again. I'll see you in my dreams, yeah, around the river bend. For death is not the end and I'll see you in my dreams."

Springsteen apologized for postponing his Phoenix concert

But first, he said he was sorry he had to reschedule his world tour.

“First, I want to apologize if there was any discomfort because we had to move the show last time,” he said. “I had a mother (expletive) of a bellyache. I hope we didn’t inconvenience you too much.”

Then after making a plea on behalf of St. Mary’s Food Bank , he brought the concert to an existential close with “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” a suitably haunted reflection on the friends he lost along the way.

It was a fitting close to a concert steeped in existential musings by a legend who invited us to take that long walk on his first release with “Growin’ Up.”

More than 50 years later, Springsteen is still growin’ up, inviting us to come along. It’s a beautiful thing if you’re willing to let your guard down and experience the ride.  

Bruce Springsteen setlist 2024: Every song he played in Phoenix

Here’s every song Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band played at Footprint Center in downtown Phoenix on Tuesday, March 19, 2024.

• “Lonesome Day”
• “No Surrender”
• “Two Hearts” (with snippet of “It Takes Two” by Marvin Gaye/Kim Weston)
• “Darlington County”
• “Prove it All Night”
• “Darkness on the Edge of Town”
• “Letter to You”
• “The Promised Land”
• “Spirit in the Night”
• “Don’t Play That Song (You Lied)” (Ben E. King cover)
• “Night Shift” (Commodores cover)
• “Mary’s Place”
• “Last Man Standing”
• “Backstreets”
• “Because the Night”
• “She’s the One”
• “Wrecking Ball”
• “The Rising”
• “Thunder Road”
• “Born to Run”
• “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)”
• “Glory Days”
• “Dancing in the Dark”
• “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”
• “Twist and Shout” (The Top Notes/Isley Brothers/Beatles cover by sign request)
• “I’ll See You in My Dreams”

Reach the reporter at  [email protected]  or 602-444-4495. Follow him on X  @ EdMasley .

Support local journalism.   Subscribe to azcentral.com today.

The impact of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’

by: Larry Potash , Robin Baumgarten

Posted: Jun 24, 2024 / 09:58 AM CDT

Updated: Jun 24, 2024 / 09:58 AM CDT

Rock critic Steven Hyden takes a critical deep dive on “Born in the USA”‘s 40th anniversary, as well as Bruce Springsteen’s overall career and the trajectory of rock music (and America!) since 1984.

Love the WGN Morning News? We love you, too. And you can have all the hijinks delivered to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign up and subscribe to our WGN Morning News newsletter.

Suggest a Correction

Jet-puffed color-changing marshmallows for s’mores ….

If you’re tired of the same old marshmallows holding your s’mores together, Jet-Puffed’s color-changing marshmallows can give them a brand-new look.

Transform your backyard into an outdoor home theater …

When the weather is nice, you can take your viewing experience outside to simulate a drive-in theater.

Prime Day hidden gems 2024

These hidden gems are available at deep discounts, scoring you big savings on everything from home and kitchen to tech and apparel.

WGN Morning News

Adopt a pet: c.a.r.e, jim warren with presidential debate analysis, around town – illuminarium, the list: jobs you should be able to do with zero ….

Thanks for signing up!

Watch for us in your inbox.

Subscribe Now

Morning News

More interviews and segments can be found on the WGN News YouTube Page

BestReviews.com - Top picks to make everyone happy

Amazon’s prime day has huge deals on apple products, best deals of prime day 2024, last year’s amazon prime day was record-breaking. …, 5 free months of amazon music and more early prime …, amazon announces prime day will return july 16 and …, man charged after road rage shooting outside lowes, 10-year anniversary of the june 30, 2014 “double …, 1 dead, lpd officer shot in ford heights, victim …, after 50 years in prison, the former leader of chicago’s …, 2024 chicagoland fourth of july guide, midday fix: live music from the empty pockets, missing chicago doordash delivery driver found safe, latest news, crews break ground on fieldhouse honoring jackie …, 2nd teen accused in neuman murder appears in court, 11 injured after escalator malfunction after cubs …, former cpd officer killed in shooting laid to rest, sox beat rockies 11-3 for their 3rd straight win, happ hits 2-run homer in 8th, cubs beat brewers 5-3.

You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience.

• All playlists
• New Releases
• As seen in the media
• Remastered Releases
• Qobuzissime
• The Qobuz Ideal Discography
• Qobuz 24-bit HD Collection
• 5.1 Surround Sound
• In Hi-Res quality
• By Distinction
• International Pop
• Alternative & Indie
• Free Jazz & Avant-Garde
• Contemporary Jazz
• Jazz Fusion & Jazz Rock
• Traditional Jazz & New Orleans
• Experimental
• Art Songs, Melodies & Lieder
• Chamber Music
• Symphonic Music
• Vocal Music (Secular and Sacred)
• Secular Vocal Music
• Sacred Vocal Music
• Drum & Bass
• Film Soundtracks
• Musical Theatre
• Video Games
• North America
• Latin America
• Indian Music
• Oriental Music
• Yiddish & Klezmer
• Zouk & Antilles
• Ambient/New Age

No result found.

We did not find any results matching your search.

Your cart is empty

Bruce Springsteen|The Born in the U.S.A. Tour '84 - '85

The Born in the U.S.A. Tour '84 - '85

Bruce Springsteen

• Released on 6/3/24 by Columbia - Legacy
• Main artists: Bruce Springsteen
• Genre: Rock

Unlimited Streaming

Listen to this album in high quality now on our apps

Enjoy this album on Qobuz apps with your subscription

Download not available

Copy the following link to share it

You are currently listening to samples.

Listen to over 100 million songs with an unlimited streaming plan.

Listen to this playlist and more than 100 million songs with our unlimited streaming plans.

From $10.83/month

Bruce Springsteen, Composer, Lyricist, MainArtist, AssociatedPerformer

(P) 2024 Columbia Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment

B. Springsteen, Composer, Lyricist - Bruce Springsteen, MainArtist, AssociatedPerformer

About the album

• 1 disc(s) - 15 track(s)
• Total length: 01:16:32
• Composer: Various Composers
• Label: Columbia - Legacy
• Genre: Pop/Rock Rock

Why buy on Qobuz?

Stream or download your music.

Buy an album or an individual track. Or listen to our entire catalog with our high-quality unlimited streaming subscriptions.

The downloaded files belong to you, without any usage limit. You can download them as many times as you like.

Choose the format best suited for you

Download your purchases in a wide variety of formats (FLAC, ALAC, WAV, AIFF...) depending on your needs.

Listen to your purchases on our apps

Download the Qobuz apps for smartphones, tablets, and computers, and listen to your purchases wherever you go.

Vulgar Display of Power

Disraeli Gears

Louder Than Love

Soundgarden

Born In The U.S.A.

Born To Run

The Essential Bruce Springsteen

Best of Bruce Springsteen

Fleetwood Mac

Now And Then

The Beatles

One Hand Clapping

Paul McCartney

The Beatles 1962 – 1966

• Statistics Stats
• You are here:
• Springsteen, Bruce
• Tour Statistics
• Song Statistics Stats
• Tour Statistics Stats
• Other Statistics

All Setlists

• All setlist songs  ( 2921 )

Years on tour

• 2024  ( 30 )
• 2023  ( 67 )
• 2022  ( 7 )
• 2021  ( 37 )
• 2020  ( 4 )
• 2019  ( 6 )
• 2018  ( 178 )
• 2017  ( 80 )
• 2016  ( 80 )
• 2015  ( 10 )
• 2014  ( 42 )
• 2013  ( 50 )
• 2012  ( 104 )
• 2011  ( 9 )
• 2010  ( 13 )
• 2009  ( 99 )
• 2008  ( 74 )
• 2007  ( 46 )
• 2006  ( 68 )
• 2005  ( 77 )
• 2004  ( 20 )
• 2003  ( 86 )
• 2002  ( 67 )
• 2001  ( 7 )
• 2000  ( 47 )
• 1999  ( 95 )
• 1998  ( 16 )
• 1997  ( 33 )
• 1996  ( 90 )
• 1995  ( 29 )
• 1994  ( 9 )
• 1993  ( 31 )
• 1992  ( 83 )
• 1991  ( 1 )
• 1990  ( 4 )
• 1989  ( 2 )
• 1988  ( 93 )
• 1987  ( 8 )
• 1986  ( 3 )
• 1985  ( 76 )
• 1984  ( 84 )
• 1981  ( 99 )
• 1980  ( 49 )
• 1979  ( 8 )
• 1978  ( 111 )
• 1977  ( 38 )
• 1976  ( 69 )
• 1975  ( 97 )
• 1974  ( 136 )
• 1973  ( 210 )
• 1972  ( 58 )
• 1971  ( 76 )
• 1969  ( 3 )
• 1968  ( 2 )

Show all tours

• Born in the U.S.A.  ( 156 )
• Born to Run  ( 86 )
• Bruce Springsteen 1992–1993 World Tour  ( 106 )
• Chicken Scratch Tour  ( 35 )
• Darkness  ( 112 )
• Devils & Dust  ( 72 )
• Forward  ( 7 )
• Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.  ( 166 )
• High Hopes  ( 34 )
• Human Rights Now!  ( 20 )
• Lawsuit Tour  ( 57 )
• Magic  ( 102 )
• Reunion Tour  ( 133 )
• Seeger Sessions  ( 58 )
• Springsteen & E Street Band 2023 Tour  ( 66 )
• Springsteen & E Street Band 2024 World Tour  ( 1 )
• Springsteen On Broadway  ( 235 )
• Springsteen On Broadway 2021  ( 30 )
• Springsteen & E Street Band 2024 World Tour  ( 24 )
• Summer '17 Tour  ( 14 )
• The Ghost of Tom Joad  ( 133 )
• The Rising  ( 123 )
• The River  ( 145 )
• The River Tour 2016  ( 75 )
• The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle  ( 207 )
• Tunnel of Love Express  ( 68 )
• Vote for Change  ( 10 )
• Working on a Dream  ( 88 )
• Wrecking Ball  ( 136 )
• Avg Setlist
• Concert Map

Average setlist for tour: Born in the U.S.A.

• Born in the U.S.A. Play Video
• Out in the Street Play Video
• Johnny 99 Play Video
• Atlantic City Play Video
• Darlington County Play Video
• Prove It All Night Play Video
• The River Play Video
• Badlands Play Video
• Trapped ( Jimmy Cliff  cover) Play Video
• Glory Days Play Video
• The Promised Land Play Video
• My Hometown Play Video
• Thunder Road Play Video
• Cover Me Play Video
• Dancing in the Dark Play Video
• Hungry Heart Play Video
• Cadillac Ranch Play Video
• Downbound Train Play Video
• I'm on Fire Play Video
• Pink Cadillac Play Video
• Bobby Jean Play Video
• Racing in the Street Play Video
• Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) Play Video
• Born to Run Play Video
• Ramrod Play Video
• Jungleland Play Video
• Twist and Shout ( The Top Notes  cover) Play Video
• Detroit Medley Play Video
• Do You Love Me? ( The Contours  cover) Play Video

Show Openers

Main set closers, show closers, encores played.

This feature is not that experimental anymore. Nevertheless, please give feedback if the results don't make any sense to you.

• Jun 28, 2024
• Jun 27, 2024
• Jun 26, 2024
• Jun 25, 2024
• Jun 24, 2024
• Jun 23, 2024
• FAQ | Help | About
• Terms of Service
• Ad Choices | Privacy Policy
• Feature requests
• Songtexte.com