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.

1. “Born To Run” (1975)

It may be a cliche to place “Born To Run” at the top of a list of Bruce Springsteen’s greatest songs but its greatness is like the earth, water, and air: it’s an elemental part of our world. Where so much of its accompanying album builds to a moment of catharsis, the genius of “Born To Run” is that it comes crashing into view at the moment of transcendence and then proceeds to climb ever higher. It’s not only Springsteen’s definitive song but one of the defining songs of rock & roll, conveying the genre’s sense of sensual pleasures and spiritual liberation.