Top 5 Bruce Springsteen Albums

5. The Rising

I was addicted to this album when I was 17. Every morning I'd walk to a local basketball court and listen to The Rising. The first song I listened to was Nothing Man; it perfectly represented what I thought of myself and my life back then.

"Darlin' with this kiss

Say you understand

I am the nothing man

I am the nothing man"

In his 2016 autobiography, Born to Run - a worthy read, Bruce said that The Rising was written in response to 9/11 and the devastation that clouded the American skyline. It's not difficult to work this out as you listen to the album. There's a distinct mix of lamentation, frustration and hope to work through. 

What's also significant about The Rising is that it introduced Springsteen and the E Street Band to millennials. Up until 2002, my Springsteen education and appreciation came via my mother, who always reminded me that Springsteen (and only Springsteen) was playing while I was cooking in her tum. While Dad introduced me to The Beatles - always quick to remind me that the Wood name hails from Merseyside - Mum was playing Born to Run and The River. In fact, The Rising was the first Springsteen album I didn't nick from her.

The question I want to leave you with is this: Is there a better ending to a Springsteen album? The last three tracks - The Rising, Paradise, My City of Ruins - perfectly complement each other and leave us with a lot to contemplate and digest. 

"Now the sweet bells of mercy

Drift through the evening trees

Young men on the corner 

Like scattered leaves

The boarded up windows

The empty streets

While my brother's down on his knees

My city of ruins

My city of ruins"

4. Darkness on the Edge of Town

I remember getting off the bus in Den Haag and stumbling my way up Hofzichtlaan towards the typical Dutch townhouse we lived in. I'm wasted and not giving a fuck. My earphones are blaring, and I'm listening to the first song off of Darkness on the Edge of Town: Badlands. When I got to the lake on Hofzichtlaan, I felt a desire to dive in and backstroke up the canal. Then it dawned on me that it was about -5 degrees out which meant the canal would have been the death of me. Still, part of me was tempted.

"Badlands, you gotta live it every day

Let the broken hearts stand as the price you gotta pay

We'll keep pushing until it's understood

And these badlands start treating us good"

Badlands was my theme song during the time I lived in Holland. I don't want to spit all over the country much of my mother's family calls home, but it was a trying time. Having Bruce (and Darkness) there to affirm what I was feeling was critical. My parents saw an inkling as to what was happening and sent me to a shrink. It was no use. I bullshitted my way through sessions and even tried to sneak Springsteen (and U2) lyrics in. It would've been more useful for us to just sit there and listen to Darkness on the Edge of Town.

It must've taken a few months for me to realise that there are actually 10 songs on the album. When I finally ventured past Badlands, I wasn't disappointed. The album is deliciously dark and moody, Bruce obviously felt the desire to change things up after Born to Run. What gripped me was that in each song someone is struggling against some unshakeable circumstance.

"I met her on the strip three years ago

In a Camaro with this dude from L.A.

I blew that Camaro off my back

And drove that little girl away

But now there's wrinkles around my baby's eyes

And she cries herself to sleep at night

When I come home the house is dark

She sighs, "Baby did you make it all right?"

She sits on the porch of her daddy's house

But all her pretty dreams are torn

She stares off alone into the night

With the eyes of one who hates for just being born

For all the shut down strangers and hot rod angels

Rumbling through this promised land

Tonight my baby and me, we're gonna ride to the sea

And wash these sins off our hands"

3. Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.

Where would I be if the E Street Band didn't get Greetings from Asbury Park down? That's a downright scary counterfactual. 

I first heard tracks from Greetings through Springsteen's finest live album, Hammersmith Odeon 1975. Bruce and the band played from their first three albums and delivered what has since become known as 'the Springsteen experience'.

"They hit and run, plead sanctuary, 'neath the holy stone they hide

They're breakin' beams and crosses with a spastic's reelin' perfection

Nuns run bald through Vatican halls pregnant, pleadin' immaculate conception

And everybody's wrecked on Main Street from drinking unholy blood

Sticker smiles sweet as Gunner breathes deep, his ankles caked in mud

And I said, "Hey, gunner man, that's quicksand, that's quicksand that ain't mud

Have you thrown your senses to the war or did you lose them in the flood?"

Lost In The Flood is my favourite Springsteen song. I've had a few favourites over the years, but Lost In The Flood is the most recent to move me to tears. The rawness of the lyrics grips me, and I instantly start to visualise what Bruce is singing, none more so than a pregnant nun running through St Peter's. 

Last February I attended my second Springsteen concert and was praying feverishly that they'd play Lost In The Flood. No dice. That's okay, though, because I always have Hammersmith. 

Another song from Greetings that you must listen to on the Hammersmith album is For You. I get goosebumps just thinking about it. 

And your strength is devastating in the face of all these odds

Remember how I kept you waiting when it was my turn to be the god

Was there a dry eye in the house that night in Hammersmith? If you compare the studio version to the live version, you'd think it was a different song. I don't know if Bruce was experiencing heartbreak at the time (wasn't the song written in 1971?), but I have turned to it numerous times for affirmation.

Greetings has to be one of the most underrated debut albums. Do yourself a favour and check it out.

2. Nebraska

You know that euphoric feeling that washes over you after you listen to an album for the first time and cherish every second?

That's how I felt about Nebraska.

Some years ago I read about Nebraska in Rolling Stone, and the author astutely introduced the album as a "violent, acid-etched portrait of a wounded America that fuels its machinery by consuming its people's dreams."

I played the album countless times in the car during my wife's pregnancy last year. I kept telling Claire that the baby "won't make my mistakes if she takes Nebraska in." (She might also do what her father hasn't and play the harmonica like a boss!)

Mansion On the Hill is still my favourite acoustic Springsteen song. Other Boss fans have challenged me on this, but I'm standing firm, and I'll explain why.

Firstly, the harmonica/acoustic guitar intro plays at my heartstrings; I just can't resist it. (Think Odysseus and the Sirens.) Then that low-key voice comes on, and I'm hooked. I want to know about that "place" and picture the mansion on the hill.

"There's a place out on the edge of town, sir

Rising above the factories and the fields

Now ever since I was a child I can remember

That mansion on the hill" 

I'm all about imagery and symbolism, you see, and there's enough in this stripped-back track to keep a dreamer busy for hours.

The brilliance of Nebraska also comes down to the track listing. We start in a violent place and have to contemplate the mind and actions of killers. By the time we get to the bookend - Reason to Believe - we start to consider where we place (and find) our hope.

"Now Mary Lou loved Johnny with a love mean and true

She said, "Baby I'll work for you every day, bring my money home to you"

One day he up and left her and ever since that

She waits down at the end of that dirt road for young Johnny to come back

Struck me kinda funny, funny, yeah to me

How at the end of every hard earned day people find some reason to believe"

1. Born to Run

As I walked through Schiphol airport at age 16, ready to leave my family home behind and set out on a Gatsby-esque mission, there was only one song playing on my dogged discman: Born to Run. 

"H-Oh, Baby this town rips the bones from your back

It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap

We gotta get out while we're young

'Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run"

I still get goosebumps when I hear Clarence take to the sax. It may be brief, but it's bloody moving. I just wish I had been able to see Clarence live. To see him belt out Born to Run and Jungleland. Just once.

Let's move on and discuss the most underrated Springsteen song, Jungleland. 

"The midnight gang's assembled

And picked a rendezvous for the night

They'll meet 'neath that giant Exxon sign

That brings this fair city light

Man, there's an opera out on the Turnpike

There's a ballet being fought out in the alley

Until the local cops, Cherry-Tops, rips this holy night

The street's alive as secret debts are paid

Contacts made, they flash unseen

Kids flash guitars just like switchblades

Hustling for the record machine

The hungry and the hunted

Explode into rock 'n' roll bands

That face off against each other out in the street

Down in Jungleland"

It's a ballsy track. Reaching over 9 minutes, a lot is happening! There's a guitar solo, which on any other track would constitute as the climax, but then Clarence comes to the floor. I am transfixed. All I want to do is be present in the moment.

I haven't told anyone this, but when I heard Thunder Road playing at my wedding, I nearly broke down in tears. Everything had come full circle, Claire was my proof.

"The screen door slams

Mary's dress waves

Like a vision, she dances across the porch as the radio plays

Ray Orbison singing for the lonely

Hey, that's me and I want you only"

Bruce explains it best: "There is something about the melody of Thunder Road that just suggested a new day, it suggests morning, it suggests something opening up." 

I had never felt that way about Thunder Road until February 15, 2014.

"Oh oh, come take my hand

We're riding out tonight to case the promised land

Oh oh oh oh, Thunder Road

Oh, Thunder Road, oh, Thunder Road"