A Bite of Bruce Springsteen 🍪
The beloved super icon and unstoppable poetic lyricist
Monday Bites are bite-sized musician spotlights & playlists by Grace Lilly.
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• 3 min read •
The more I learn about him, the more I like him
There’s a lot to love about Bruce Springsteen. A cherished, uber-popular, almost mythical figure, he represents so much to so many (there’s even a film about his impact on people’s lives).
I used to think of him as a sort of caricature of Americana, a strong flavor that I couldn’t decide if I liked. As I started digging deeper, I found there was so much more than meets the eye.
Initially compared to Bob Dylan, he’s one of the most gifted lyricists of all time. He writes less about America, and more about Americans — a distinction that injects his songs with a kind of relatability that resonates with practically anyone who listens to his music.
A dedicated advocate for social issues, he does more than just sing about people’s struggles. He supports racial justice, gender equality, reproductive rights, wage equality, immigrant rights, LGBTQ rights and has spoken out in support of gay marriage. Bruce was even one of the first artists to boycott North Carolina's anti-transgender bathroom bill in 2016.
Essentially, he cares about people. People he doesn’t know, people he’ll never meet, people who aren’t even his fans. Bruce is the real deal.
Bruce Springsteen
The basics
🤝 American rock singer, songwriter, and guitarist
🤝 b. 1949 (Long Branch, New Jersey)
🤝 Nicknamed “the Boss”
Why you should know him: A worldwide cultural phenomenon and “the embodiment of rock and roll,” Bruce Springsteen is the 27th best-selling music artist of all time and the first artist in history to release a top-five album across six consecutive decades
If you like
✨ Tom Petty
✨ Bob Dylan
✨ Vampire Weekend
✨ Billy Joel
✨ Warren Zevon
✨ John Prine
Known for
🏆 Pioneering heartland rock, writing socially conscious, poetic lyrics about working class American life
🏆 His energetic concerts, which sometimes last over 4 hours and which Obama called “not just rock-and-roll concerts, but communions”
🏆 Recording 21 albums and winning 20 Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, 2 Golden Globes, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the National Medal of Arts
🏆 Regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, with “more words in some individual songs than other artists had in whole albums”
Bite-sized facts
🍪 Grew up listening to fellow New Jersey singer Frank Sinatra on the radio, became interested in being a musician by 7 after seeing Elvis Presley's performances on The Ed Sullivan Show
🍪 Described by a former high school teacher as a “loner who wanted nothing more than to play his guitar,” his mother rented him a guitar for $6 a week and later took out a loan to buy him a $60 Kent guitar
🍪 As a teen, got his start performing professionally by joining, forming & touring with a series of bands — the Rogues, the Castiles, Earth, Child (later called Steel Mill, which gathered a cult following), Dr. Zoom & the Sonic Boom, the Sundance Blues Band, and the Bruce Springsteen Band
🍪 At 23, formed a new band that eventually became known as the E Street Band which he’s played with for 6 decades
🍪 Got the nickname “the Boss” because he was in charge of collecting his band’s nightly pay and distributing it among his bandmates
🍪 Catapulted into worldwide fame in 1975 with his breakthrough third record, Born to Run
🍪 Made a huge political impact with his hit song “Born in the U.S.A.” advocating for the rights of the working-class and making a bitter commentary on the treatment of Vietnam veterans
🍪 Credited with helping contribute to the fall of the Berlin Wall thanks to his 1988 concert in East Germany described as “the most important rock concert ever, anywhere,” the success of which catalyzed opposition to the regime in East Germany
🍪 Has avoided hard drugs his entire life, eats a mostly vegetarian diet, and runs six miles three times a week
In film & TV
📺 Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler (2009): Springsteen won the Golden Globe for Best Song for “The Wrestler”
📺 Jeremy Allen White will play Springsteen and perform his songs in the upcoming film, Deliver Me from Nowhere
Songs & dates
♫ 1973 Releases his first album, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.; then “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)” and “Incident on 57th Street” become fan favorites off his second album, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle
♫ 1975 “Born to Run” and “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” become Hot 100 hits off Born to Run, which reaches No. 3 on the Billboard charts and goes 7x platinum in the US
♫ 1980 “Hungry Heat” becomes his first Top 10 single and “Fade Away” reaches No. 20 off The River, his first album to top the Billboard 200 chart
♫ 1984 “Dancing in the Dark” hits No. 2 on the Billboard charts, and all seven singles from Born in the U.S.A. reach the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100; the album becomes one of the best-selling albums of all time
♫ 2003 “The Rising” wins 2 Grammy Awards off The Rising, dedicated to the victims of the September 11 attacks, becomes his best-selling album of new material in 15 years, wins Grammy for Best Rock Album
♫ 2012 “We Take Care of Our Own” is nominated for 2 Grammy Awards off the album Wrecking Ball, which becomes his tenth No. 1 album in the U.S. and tops album charts worldwide
♫ 2020 Letter to You reaches No. 2 in the US
He said
⭐ “The best music is essentially there to provide you something to face the world with.”
⭐ “I spent most of my life as a musician measuring the distance between the American Dream and American reality.”
⭐ “I have to write and play. If I became an electrician tomorrow, I'd still come home at night and write songs.”
⭐ “You can't be afraid of getting old. Old is good, if you're gathering in life. Our band is good at understanding that equation.”
⭐ “If I went tomorrow, it’s OK. What a fucking ride!”
Bruce Springsteen Playlist
I gathered my fav Springsteen songs, from me to you with love. Like & save on Spotify and listen all week 💗
Where to start
Unexpected crossover
Watch Bruce dance with a young Courteney Cox in the 1984 music video for his hit single “Dancing in the Dark” (fun fact: this music video helped launch Courteney’s career pre-Friends).
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The Academy Award-winning song
In the music video for his Oscar-winning song “Streets of Philadelphia” from the film Philadelphia, Bruce is actually singing live, recorded using a hidden microphone — you can actually hear the footsteps and kids playing in the background.
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“Never been so overwhelmed by a totally unknown talent”
Listen to a then-undiscovered 20-year-old Bruce in the cult favorite band Steel Mill in this recording of a full live concert from January 13, 1970 at The Matrix in San Francisco. Music critic Philip Eldwood wrote of the show that he had “never been so overwhelmed by a totally unknown talent.”
Down the rabbit hole
If you wanna dive even deeper:
Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band (2024)
Premiering at the Toronto Film Festival, this documentary follows Bruce Springsteen as he offers the most in-depth look ever at the creation of his legendary live performances, including footage of band rehearsals, backstage moments, rare archival clips and personal reflections from Springsteen himself. Watch on Hulu.
Bruce Springsteen changed Brendan Higgins’s life
🏆 A top-read essay
Brendan Higgins shares the personal meaning he finds in The Boss's 2002 tune. You might want to grab some tissues.— No. 001 - Bruce Springsteen's “Mary's Place” changed my life
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No other artist has had more impact on my life. It could be argued that no other PERSON has had more impact on my life. Bruce built my worldview- a place where "nobody wins unless everybody wins" (his words) and "nobody crowds you, but nobody goes it alone" (from the amazing "Long Walk Home"). It's a worldview I still aspire to every day.
I remember seeing him at his sold-out 10 night run at MSG in 2000 (I was at 8 of the 10 shows) when he debuted a song about the shooting of a Guinean immigrant student named Amadou Diallo, who was shot 41 times by police while reaching for his wallet to try to prove his identity. The song "American Skin (41 Shots)" was an early and eloquent protest against police violence upon people of color. Bruce's audience can still be at least half conservative and the stunned reaction of the audience was shocking. Booos rose up from the audience. Loudly. The other half of the audience tried to drown them out with support, but the mood in the room was ugly. The next day the NY Post had a cover story about how angry the police union was that their "American" hero had betrayed them. The spokesman for the police union called Springsteen a "fag". (You can look it up). The NYPD pulled their security detail. But Springsteen never budged. He continued to perform the song nightly and invited the family of Amadou Diallo to the last show of the run. He has put his money where his mouth is time and time again.
No one has inspired me more.