3 Songs That Sound Like Bruce Springsteen but Actually Aren’t

In the 1980s, everyone wanted to be Bruce Springsteen. He was the epitome of cool. With his coiffed hair, leather jacket, tight working man’s blue jeans, he was both the poet-rocker of the people and a giant celebrity. What could be better?

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Well, a lot of people thought nothing could be better. So, they attempted to emulate The Boss so much that some of their music even sounds like his. Here below, we wanted to explore three examples of that. Indeed, these are three songs that sound like Bruce Springsteen but actually aren’t.

[RELATED: The Goal Bruce Springsteen Tries to Achieve in His Songwriting]

“6th Avenue Heartache” by The Wallflowers from Bringing Down the Horse (1996)

Jakob Dylan is the son of Bob Dylan. But on this song, he might sound like he’s the son of rocker Bruce Springsteen (who himself was often cited as “the next Dylan”). He sings with that throaty rasp like he’s trying to push the words out through rust. It’s similar to how Bruce sings. Almost as if the words have to be strong enough to get through the teeth. Either way, this song came some two decades after Bruce burst onto the scene. And on it, Dylan sings,

Sirens ring, the shots ring out
A stranger cries, screams out loud
I had my world strapped against my back
I held my hands, never knew how to act

And the same black line
That was drawn on you
Was drawn on me
And now it’s drawn me in
6th Avenue heartache

“On the Dark Side” by John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band from Eddie and the Cruisers (1983)

Written and performed by John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band for the fictional movie band Eddie and the Cruisers for the soundtrack of the film of the same name (phew! deep breath!), this song could easily be misheard for a Bruce Springsteen track on the car radio. It’s trying for that same twinkling American mystique that Bruce perfected. Rambunctious sonic camaraderie, fronted by a chain-smoking shape-shifter. It even has the signature sax. And on this move song, Cafferty sings,

The dark side’s coming now, nothing is real
She’ll never know just how I feel
From out of the shadows, she walks like a dream
Make me feel crazy, make me feel so mean

Aint’ nothing’s gonna save ya from a love that’s blind
Slip through the dark side and cross that line

On the dark side, oh yeah
On the dark side, oh yeah

“When You Were Young” by The Killers from Sam’s Town (2006)

This one is almost not fair. Not because there is a perfect 1-to-1 resemblance, but because The Killers’ lead vocalist Brandon Flowers is a big Bruce acolyte. One of his band’s most recent albums, Pressure Machine, is perfect Springsteen 2.0—that new yet old sense of America being a lost town with nowhere to go but down. (That title alone is likely cribbed from a Bruce song.) On “When You Were Young,” Flowers sings with passion over giant bright guitars. It’s like he’s trying to channel his forefather. On the tune, Flowers sings,

You sit there in your heartache
Waiting on some beautiful boy to
To save you from your old ways
You play forgiveness
Watch it now, here he comes

He doesn’t look a thing like Jesus
But he talks like a gentlemen
Like you imagined when you were young

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