With a tragic backstory and a standout out David Ruffin vocal performance, “I Wish It Would Rain” practically dares any cover contender to meet its anguish. Springsteen was up for the challenge.
It was a surprising choice for a surprise performance, but it proved so nice they did it twice.
Bruce Springsteen’s cover of this timeless CCR classic sparked a national conversation that never stopped.
Springsteen was unfamiliar with Jerry Butler until Jon Landau brought “Hey, Western Union Man” to his attention. He ended up covering several of Butler’s songs.
Bruce Springsteen found the soul of Woody Guthrie’s signature song and helped millions of Americans hear its true message for the first time.
The first song written for Magic is as timely today as it was prophetic twenty years ago.
Bruce Springsteen’s eleventh studio album is one of his best-sounding and most thematically cohesive. It wears its influences on its sleeves, and we’ll explore them inside.
In 1985, Bruce picked up a book on the new American underclass. When he finally opened and read it a decade later, it inspired one of the strongest songs on his next album.
More than a decade on, Bruce’s seventeenth studio album stands as one of his very best–and the strongest E Street Band album to date.
“Rocky Ground” may be wrapped in gospel trappings, but its themes are as Springsteenian as anything on Darkness on the Edge of Town.