Bruce Springsteen’s 30 best songs ranked

Back in September 2023, Bruce Springsteen announced that he would have to shelve his planned tour until March 2024 so he could recover from peptic ulcer disease. The temporary retreat shouldn’t be seen as a harbinger for the metaphoric end of the road for the rocker—all the pictures of the 74-year-old Springsteen show him looking spry and vigorous—yet the occasion of a pause in performance gave us the perfect opportunity to look back at his career.

Selecting 30 essential Bruce Springsteen songs could be seen as a fool’s errand. His body of work is one of the richest in rock history, comprised of classic albums and anthems that still are commonly heard decades after their original release. In addition to his core catalog, he also had a wealth of unreleased gems, some of which trickled out in concert or on B-sides or in reissues. Given this volume of work, it’s inevitable that some standards and hits didn’t make the cut. This list suggests Springsteen’s range and depth by balancing sublime epics, earthy rockers, and heart-rending ballads.

30. “From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)”(1979)

Bruce Springsteen had a habit of writing too many songs to fit onto one album, particularly during the late 1970s. He gave many of these songs away—“Because The Night” went to Patti Smith, “Fire” to the Pointer Sisters—and “From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)” wound up in the hands of Dave Edmunds, the rock & roll traditionalist who co-led Rockpile with Nick Lowe. Whether in the cover from Edmunds or Springsteen’s outtake from The River, “From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come)” is one of Bruce’s finest story songs: bold, funny, and poignant, delivered with the subtlety of a freight train.