PicoBlog

Resuming this project, here are five of my favorite songs by the Boss that come from the 1980s (though not all of them were released during that decade). As always, let me know what you think or what I’m forgetting!

Famously alluded to in both the book and film High Fidelity, “Bobby Jean” is easily my favorite track off of Born in the USA.

One of the things I really enjoy about it is it, truly, allows itself to be open to different interpretations. When it’s discussed in High Fidelity, it’s treated as a song about one thinking back to a former romantic relationship and wondering, after the couple’s parting, how they are doing.

When you learn a little bit of the back story behind its composition (namely that it’s about Steven Van Zandt and his decision to leave the E Street Band just before Born in the USA), “Bobby Jean” can also be heard as a song about friendship and what happens when two friends fall out or lose track of one another. That’s something you don’t hear written and sung about, yet it makes perfect sense that Springsteen would write a great song that’s about friendship.

Whatever way you interpret it, the final verse of the song features some powerful lyrics.

Maybe you’ll be out there on that road somewhere

In some bus or train traveling along

In some motel room there’ll be a radio playing

And you’ll hear me sing this song

Well if you do you’ll know I’m thinking of you and all the miles in between

And I’m just calling one last time not to change your mind

But just to say I miss you baby, good luck goodbye

Though “Bobby Jean” does have some of that 1980s production sheen that, at least in my Springsteen songs, I’m not a fan of, the Clarence Clemons saxophone solo at the very end is a great one.

And, as you’ll see, this is the only song from Born In the USA that makes it into my official top 25, which is perhaps surprising. I’m surprised myself—I certainly think it’s a GREAT album, I think quite highly of “Bobby Jean,” “Dancing in the Dark” and “No Surrender” were both honorable mentions, and I have a fondness for “Downtown Train,” “I’m Goin’ Down” and “My Hometown.”

“Janey” is the song on Tracks that came from the Born in the USA sessions which always jumped out to me (and that’s an impressive collection of songs, including "My Love Will Not Let You Down" and "This Hard Land").

Lyrically, it’s very much in Springsteen’s wheel house— “When you come home late and get undressed, you lie in bed and feel this emptiness”; “'Til every fear you've felt burst free, it's gone tumblin' down into the sea.” What tweaks the song and makes it different is it seems to be a song about a female protagonist (even if it’s not told from her perspective). While Springsteen’s work engages with the concept of masculinity, in “Janey” you get a hint of how he speaks to things that are a bit more universal. Musically, it’s a song that highlights Roy Bittan’s piano, Nils Lofgren’s backing vocals, and features yet another great Clarence Clemons saxophone solo.

Though it only appeared in an officially released form starting with that 1998 boxed set, Springsteen performed the concert during the Born in the USA tour (enjoy some of the fashion choices in this video, they’re very… of their moment).

That Springsteen included “Janey” in the setlist rotation even though it was not an official release yet speaks to the fact that Springsteen knew this was a strong one.

Perhaps my favorite song on Nebraska, “Johnny 99” is famously the song that the Boss figured Ronald Reagan hadn’t listened to when he was referencing the singer and “Born in the USA” as part of his re-election campaign.

"The president was mentioning my name the other day, and I kinda got to wondering what his favorite album musta been. I don't think it was the Nebraska album. I don't think he's been listening to this one."

It’s a DARK song, and thus very fitting for Nebraska. It’s part folk song, part In Cold Blood/Executioner's Song/Badlands in song form, part incisive bit of social commentary (what precipitates everything that happens in the song? The closing of the auto plant). While it has that dark, spare sound that runs throughout all of Nebraska, “Johnny 99” does have more of a rhythmic drive and quicker tempo that distinguishes it from the other tracks.

As I wrote in my recap of February 2023 concert I attended, there was this interesting reinvention of this song into a rave-up, a murder rave-up as opposed to a murder ballad. It’s ability to be reinvented and changed for a different context speaks to its strength, that it’ll stand up to that kind of change and alteration and remain that song even if its sound is altered.

I’m cheating a little bit here. Even though the album version of “Atlantic City” is stellar (and would certainly be in this space if I didn’t change things up a bit), I love the live versions that feature the full force of the E Street Band behind it.

It also has some great lyrics with lines I find myself returning to and thinking about a great deal—”I got debts that no honest man can pay”; “We're going out where the sand's turning to gold. Put on your stockings, baby, 'cause the night's getting cold”; “Now I been looking for a job, but it's hard to find. Down here, it's just winners and losers and ‘Don't get caught on the wrong side of that line.’” While I do enjoy this song with the mandolin and drums that you get when performed live, the album version striped of all that is one I return to and quite enjoy. It very much feels, particularly lyrically, connected to “Johnny 99” and perhaps that’s why I like those songs off Nebraska so much.

I’ll be talking about some more of the songs from The River in another post, but I thought that this track fit in this batch, specifically amongst the two other songs from Nebraska. “Wreck” features some of what’s to come on Nebraska—the story of someone who died in a car crash, the loneliness the singer feels as he thinks about that scene—but it has more production to it.

The organ (Danny Federici), piano (Roy Bittan) and acoustic guitar gives the song a haunted, desolate feeling that goes along perfectly with the story that’s being told. Though Nebraska is seen as the Springsteen album that most clearly bears Flannery O’Connor’s influence on Springsteen’s lyrics, I cannot help but hear “Wreck” and think about Flannery’s painful and shocking moments of grace and how this song mirrors that.

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