When Bruce Springsteen was growing up, life was a little chaotic — he’d sometimes skip school and his relationship with his alcoholic father was strained, to put it mildly.
But once he got his hands on a guitar, it led him to a different world, one in which his bandmates could stand in as brothers and his talent earned people’s admiration.
“Suddenly I was able to make a very loud noise, and a noise that was not so easy to ignore,” Springsteen told The Guardian in 2016. “I had my little rock ‘n’ roll band and we were playing to a small gym full of dancers and their friends, and they immediately looked at you as a presence in their lives.”
Those small gyms turned into local clubs and, eventually, into stadiums full of tens of thousands of people. Not bad for a kid from suburban New Jersey.
With over 400 songs to his name, it’s understandable that Springsteen has not played every last one live. But he certainly has played quite a lot of them. With the help of data from setlist.fm, we’ve crunched the numbers and figured out the Most and Least-Played Song Live Off Every Bruce Springsteen Album.
Album: Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. (1973)
Most-played: “Growin’ Up”
Least-played: “The Angel”
Despite how easy he makes it look and sound, Springsteen knows that songwriting is not something happens easily. “Writing is really hard, and you’re failing,” he told Howard Stern (via Rolling Stone) in 2024, with decades of songwriting under his belt. “Ninety percent of the time, you’re writing stuff that’s mediocre or worse.” But even on his debut album, 1973’s Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J., it was clear that Springsteen was someone with a gift for it. Here, “Growin’ Up” is the most-played, a song about a rebellious teenager in New Jersey — who could that possibly be based on? — while “The Angel” is the least-played.
Album: The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle (1973)
Most-played: “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)”
Least-played: “Wild Billy’s Circus Story”
Within the same year, Springsteen released his second album, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle. Now, if you have ever been to the coast of New Jersey during the summer, you know that there can be quite the cast of characters that hang out there, which is more or less how Springsteen came up with the people in “Wild Billy’s Circus Story,” the album’s least-played song. At the top of the list is the exceptionally fun-to-dance-to “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” with 884 performances.
Album: Born to Run (1975)
Most-played: “Born to Run”
Least-played: “Meeting Across the River”
Nearly every single song from 1975’s Born to Run has been played live over 200 times. The one exception to this is “Meeting Across the River,” which has only been played 73 times, starting in 1975 and stretching into as recently as 2024. The album’s title track, on the other hand, has racked up 1,861 performances, making it Springsteen’s single most-played song of his whole catalog.
Album: Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978)
Most-played: “The Promised Land”
Least-played: “Streets of Fire”
Robert Christgau, the notoriously severe rock critic, once described “Streets of Fire” as “overwrought, soggy, all but unlistenable.” We would beg to differ, and note that perhaps listening to a soulful live version like the one below might have changed his mind. This is the least-played song from Darkness on the Edge of Town. “The Promised Land” has been played a whopping 1,525 times, making it the third most-played song of Springsteen’s career.
Album: The River (1980)
Most-played: “Hungry Heart”
Least-played: “Fade Away”
The River is a double album, which naturally means it has a lot of songs on it. Nevertheless, Springsteen has still played every song from it live. (It helped that he and the E Street Band literally went on a tour in 2016 in celebration of the album’s 35th anniversary and played it start to finish.) Of those 20 songs, “Hungry Heart” is the most-played — the album’s lead single and Springsteen’s first Top Five Billboard hit — and the least-played is “Fade Away.”
Album: Nebraska (1982)
Most-played: “Johnny 99”
Least-played: “State Trooper”
Springsteen recorded the songs that would appear on Nebraska as solo demos, with the intention of then recording them properly with the E Street Band. But when they tried doing that in the studio, the music just did not click. Thus, Nebraska was released as the original acoustic demos. When the songs were played live, however, the E Street Band brought their little bit of magic to them. “State Trooper” holds the title of least-played with 35 performances, while “Johnny 99” is at the top of the list with 421 plays.
Album: Born in the U.S.A. (1984)
Most-played: “Dancing in the Dark”
Least-played: “I’m Goin’ Down”
If Springsteen hadn’t put himself on the map prior to 1984, he certainly did so with Born in the U.S.A., a No. 1 album in both the U.K. and U.S. The album’s title track has over 1,000 performances to its name, but it’s not the most-played from it. That honor belongs to “Dancing in the Dark” with a whopping 1,170 plays, though both of those songs are in the Top 10 for most-played songs of Springsteen’s entire catalog. On the low end is “I’m Goin’ Down,” which got most of its 86 plays in the years 1984 and 1985.
Album: Tunnel of Love (1987)
Most-played: “Brilliant Disguise”
Least-played: “Valentine’s Day”
Although E Street members contributed some to 1987’s Tunnel of Love, this is usually considered a solo effort of sorts, with Springsteen playing most of the parts himself, sometimes with a drum machine. This was around the time Springsteen split from his first wife, Julianne Phillips, and entered into a relationship with his bandmate Patti Scialfa. Needless to say, much of the material on Tunnel of Love focused on this shift in Springsteen’s life. The least-played song from the album is “Valentine’s Day,” a poignant number about letting one’s walls down. The most-played is “Brilliant Disguise,” a considerably blatant nod to the end of his marriage — “Oh, we stood at the altar / The gypsy swore our future was bright / But come the wee-wee hours / Well maybe, baby, the gypsy lied.”
Album: Human Touch (1992)
Most-played: “Human Touch”
Least-played: “Cross My Heart”
It was at the end of the ’80s that Springsteen made the decision that he would no longer need the services of the E Street Band, for the time being at least. He pushed ahead writing and releasing albums, two of which went out into the world on the exact same day in March of 1992: Human Touch and Lucky Town. From the former, the title track is the most-played, while “Cross My Heart” comes in last place with just two performances, both in 1992.
Album: Lucky Town (1992)
Most-played: “If I Should Fall Behind”
Least-played: “Book of Dreams”
Human Touch was supposed to come out earlier than 1992. That didn’t happen, and when Springsteen returned to finish up the project, he wound up writing a whole album’s worth of other new material that he made into Lucky Town. Here, the least-played track is “Book of Dreams,” in which the narrator finds himself at a wedding, though whether he is the groom or a highly perceptive guest is unclear. “If I Should Fall Behind” holds the top spot with 291 plays, a love song to Scialfa, whom he married in 1991.
Album: The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995)
Most-played: “The Ghost of Tom Joad”
Least-played: “The New Timer”
With 1995’s The Ghost of Tom Joad, which won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album, Springsteen once again tapped into his acoustic side. For this, he drew inspiration from John Steinbeck, the plight of underprivileged people and the bleakness that seemed the future of America then. The album’s title track has 435 plays to its name, and has appeared in set lists as recently as 2024. Meanwhile, “The New Timer” has been played 21 times in total, but hasn’t been performed since 2005.
Album: The Rising (2002)
Most-played: “The Rising”
Least-played: “Let’s Be Friends (Skin to Skin)”
As the story goes, Springsteen paid a visit to the beach in Asbury Park, New Jersey, a formative location for him, shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. There, a man in the next car over recognized him, rolled down his window and said “We need you now.” And so Springsteen did what he often does in times of turmoil, personal or otherwise. “Yeah, I picked up a guitar,” he told Rolling Stone in 2002, the year The Rising was released, featuring mainly songs he wrote in response to the tragedy. “That’s my life preserver.” Though all of the album’s songs have been played live at one point or another, “Let’s Be Friends (Skin to Skin)” has only been performed one time — that was in Connecticut in 2003. “The Rising” has been performed the most, and the very first time it was played was in the place it all began: Asbury Park.
Album: Devils & Dust (2005)
Most-played: “Long Time Comin'”
Least-played: “Black Cowboys”
But wait, there’s more acoustic material to cover. Devils & Dust came out in 2005, debuting at No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard 200, though Springsteen has said that some of the songs date back years. The album’s most-played song, “Long Time Comin,'” was written nearly a decade prior and was even played live during Springsteen’s 1996 solo Ghost of Tom Joad Tour. On the other hand, the album’s least-played song, “Black Cowboys,” only got played less than 20 times in 2005 and hasn’t been heard since.
Album: We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (2006)
Most-played: “Pay Me My Money Down” by the Weavers
Least-played: “Shenandoah” (Traditional)
Springsteen has made clear a number of times over the years that Pete Seeger is one of his heroes — in 2009, at Seeger’s 90th birthday celebration, Springsteen described him as “a living archive of America’s music and conscience, a testament of the power of song and culture to nudge history along, to push American events towards more humane and justified ends.” Three years before that, he put out an album of songs made popular by Seeger titled We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions. It won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album and of its 13 songs, all have been played live. “Oh Shenandoah” is at the bottom of the list with exactly one performance on Nov. 18, 2006 in Dublin, Ireland. At the top is “Pay Me My Money Down,” which got its most recent play in May of 2023.
Album: Magic (2007)
Most-played: “Long Walk Home”
Least-played: “You’ll Be Comin’ Down”
In 2007, Springsteen released his first album with the E Street Band since The Rising, titled Magic, and the effects were powerful — two songs from the album, “Radio Nowhere” and “Girls in Their Summer Clothes,” earned Springsteen three Grammys. Even Magic‘s hidden track, “Terry’s Song,” has made four set lists. The least-played is “You’ll Be Comin’ Down,” which appeared exactly once in Columbus, Ohio, never to be heard again. But then there’s “Long Walk Home” at the top with 304 performances, a song Springsteen has said he wrote about his feelings during the George W. Bush years.
Album: Working on a Dream (2009)
Most-played: “Working on a Dream”
Least-played: “What Love Can Do”
The first time Springsteen performed the title track to 2009’s Working on a Dream — which is now the most-played song from the album – was on Nov. 2, 2008 at an event for a guy called Barack Obama. It then got played a bunch in 2009, but interestingly enough has not appeared on a set list since then. Meanwhile, “What Love Can Do” only got played once at a 2009 concert in Philadelphia, but fortunately that performance was recorded and later included on the 2024 album The Live Series: Songs of Celebration.
Album: Wrecking Ball (2012)
Most-played: “Land of Hope and Dreams”
Least-played: “You’ve Got It”
Springsteen has spent many years writing songs about what he once described at a 2012 press conference as “the distance between American reality and the American dream.” It is usually not, as he sees it, a small gap, something he continued to address on 2012’s Wrecking Ball. “What was done to our country was wrong and unpatriotic and un-American and nobody has been held to account,” he said to The Guardian then. “There is a real patriotism underneath the best of my music but it is a critical, questioning and often angry patriotism.” Here, “You’ve Got It” comes in last place with one performance in Norway. “Land of Hopes and Dreams,” a song Springsteen wrote back in 1999 and played live regularly before it appeared on Wrecking Ball, is No. 1 with 746 plays.
Album: High Hopes (2014)
Most-played: “American Skin (41 Shots)”
Least-played: “Hunter of Invisible Game”
Finally, here is an album on which there are songs Springsteen has never played live. “Harry’s Place” and “Down in the Hole” from 2014’s High Hopes have never seen a set list — not that there isn’t still time for that to happen given Springsteen’s rigorous touring schedule. But that makes “Hunter of Invisible Game” the next least-played song with one performance that took place in Adelaide, Australia. The clear winner here is “American Skin (41 Shots)” with 112 plays, a song about a police shooting that resulted in the death of a man named Amadou Diallo — the four officers that were involved were ultimately acquitted.
Album: Western Stars (2019)
Most-played: Multiple Ties
Least-played: Multiple Ties
Here’s the thing about Western Stars: technically, none of its songs have been publicly played live. Instead, Springsteen played all of them in 2019 for a very small group of people in a 100-year-old barn on his New Jersey horse farm, an event that was turned into a concert film. That was the one and only time he played material from the album.
Album: Letter to You (2020)
Most-played: “I’ll See You in My Dreams”
Least-played: “Janey Needs a Shooter”
Here’s another rare instance of a couple songs from an album never getting played live. In this case, it’s “One Minute You’re Here” and “Rainmaker” from Springsteen’s 2020 release Letter to You. “It’s the only album where it’s the entire band playing at one time, with all the vocals and everything completely live,” he explained to The New York Times then. “Janey Needs a Shooter” has managed to squeeze in one performance in Hanover, Germany, while “I’ll See You in My Dreams” has accumulated 146 plays, with most of those happening in 2023 and 2024 thanks to the pandemic.
Album: Only the Strong Survive (2022)
Most-played: “Nightshift” by the Commodores
Least-played: Tie Between “Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)” by Frank Wilson and “Turn Back the Hands of Time” by Tyrone Davis
In 2022, Springsteen shifted gears and released an album full of R&B/soul covers called Only the Strong Survive. Oddly enough, he’s never performed the title track, along with multiple other tracks. That means “Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)” by Frank Wilson and “Turn Back the Hands of Time” by Tyrone Davis tie for least-played with one performance each, and “Nightshift” by the Commodores comes out on top with 112 plays.
Bruce Springsteen Live Albums Ranked
Longtime fans will tell you his studio records are only half the story – concert performances are the other, and maybe more essential, part.
Gallery Credit: Michael Gallucci
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