Bruce Springsteen’s favorite song from his discography

Born in Long Branch, New Jersey back in 1949, Bruce Springsteen started his musical career in 1964 but was able to release his first studio album only nine years later, in 1973. Over the decades he became one of the most successful and influential American musicians of all time. He sold an estimated amount of more than 140 million records worldwide.

With 21 studio albums released and hundreds of songs, it’s not easy to pick a favorite one. But Bruce himself once revealed which is his favorite song from his career.

Bruce Springsteen’s favorite song from his discography

It was in an interview with The Project in 2023 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage) that Springsteen chose “Born To Run” as his favorite song from his discography. “I have to go with the fans. I guess, we usually say ‘Born To Run’. Because it was the song where I invented myself. It carried a certain amount of Rock and Roll past, current and future.”

“I’ve managed to write well about the Classic Rock archetypes. The car, the girl, the road, the guy, the running. This all classic B-movie Rock cliches that I was able to use and reinvigorate in my own way. Bring new life to and bring current into 1975, which was when the record was released. So if I have to go with one, I’m always comfortable of going with that one,” Bruce Springsteen said.

First released as a single in 1975, months before Springsteen and the E Street Band finished the recording of the album of the same name, “Born To Run” became a hit. As the musician recalled in an interview with Rolling Stone in 2005, releasing the single before probably helped to promote the album. At first they thought they would be able to finish the album really fast, so that’s why they released that single. But things didn’t go as planned and it took them six months to finally release the album.

“When Born to Run came out, we had the unusual thing of the single being out six months before the album came out. We took so long with the record that we gave the song to the radio stations thinking we were going to be almost done. But that’s not what happened.

Bruce Springsteen continued:

“So a lot of time passed before the album came out and a couple of good things happened. One is that the song itself did get quite a bit of radio play. There was a big buzz on it. I think what made the album have a buzz on it was the fact that ‘Born to Run,’ the cut, had been played for quite a while on the FM radio stations. (…) We were considered not a success at that particular moment, and so ‘Born to Run’ was pretty critical. We were hoping to get some attention and make a dent, so yeah, I think Steve is right. On the other hand, I mean, I don’t know if it would have finished us.”

“Because what the hell else were we going to do (laughs)? There’s that element, too. And the night the guys from the record company walked out of the show, I told the band, ‘Look, they may think we are going to go away, except we have no place to go (Laughs),” Bruce Springsteen said.

At the time, the single “Born To Run” peaked at number 23 on the United States Billboard Hot 100. But that album also had other famous tracks like “Thunder Road” and “Jungleland”.

According to Best Selling Albums website, “Born To Run” is Springsteen’s second best-selling record. It sold an estimated amount of more than 7 million copies. The first one is “Born In The U.S.A” (1984), which sold an estimated amount of more than 30 million copies.