Bruce Springsteen has often left a song or two off his setlists. However, there are a handful of go-tos that he always seems to whip out during live performances. Let’s look at just a few of the songs that Bruce Springsteen plays live the most!
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1. “Born To Run”
As of February 2025, Bruce Springsteen has played “Born To Run” a whopping 1,861 times live in concert. We’re not exactly shocked. This is by far Springsteen’s most well-known song, outside of “Born In The USA”. This is the song that put Springsteen on the map.
“Born To Run” was released in 1975 on the album of the same name, and this famed titled track took a whopping six months to work on. That hard work paid off; this song is a rock classic.
“One day, I was playing my guitar on the edge of the bed, working on some song ideas, and the words ‘born to run’ came to me,” Springsteen once said of the origins of the song. “[…] I liked the phrase because it suggested a cinematic drama that I thought would work with the music that I’d been hearing in my head.”
2. “Thunder Road”
One of the most-performed songs Bruce Springsteen plays live, “Thunder Road” has made it to his setlists 1,568 times as of February 2025.
“Thunder Road” is the opening track on Born To Run, and it was the best possible song to use to kick off a legendary album. It was never officially released as a single, but that hasn’t stopped the song from becoming a folk rock classic among The Boss’s fans.
3. “The Promised Land”
Bruce Springsteen live songs don’t get better than this! The Boss has whipped this gem out 1,525 times as of February 2025.
This gorgeous track from the 1978 album Darkness On The Edge Of Town has become a staple in Springsteen’s live setlists. The origins of the song came to Springsteen after visiting Utah and Nevada in 1977. At the time, he was dealing with grief following the death of one of his icons, Elvis Presley. From that grief came one of Springsteen’s finest country rock classics.
Photo by Fin Costello/Redferns
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