If you were to assume that if Bruce Springsteen could only listen to one song for the rest of his life, he would pick something that sounded like the good, old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll on which he built his entire career, we wouldn’t blame you. But you’d be wrong (full disclosure, we were, too).
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During a 2021 appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Springsteen revealed his one-and-done, “desert island” track to be a pop track from 1966.
Bruce Springsteen Picks One Song to Listen To For The Rest Of His Life
Selecting one song to listen to for the rest of your life would be a difficult choice for anyone, let alone an artist who spent most of his existence absorbing, learning from, and writing his own music. Yet, it didn’t take long for Bruce Springsteen to come up with an answer while he was taking the “Colbert Questionnaire” on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
“One,” Springsteen said, looking at the ground, deep in thought. “Woah. Uh, ‘Summer Wind’ by Frank Sinatra.”
Sinatra released “Summer Wind” in 1966 as the second single from his album Strangers in the Night. The song, which details a summery romance giving way to a cold autumnal loneliness, was originally a German song that Johnny Mercer rewrote to feel more natural to American listeners. Many artists covered the song, but the most famous version is far and away by Sinatra.
Ol’ Blue Eyes’ version of “Summer Wind” topped the Billboard Easy Listening chart and peaked at No. 25 on the Hot 100. The song is certainly a far cry from some of Springsteen’s more rock-oriented offerings. But when one considers just how long he had been listening to the iconic jazz crooner, his answer on The Late Show made a lot of sense.
The Boss Has Long Been a Fan of Ol’ Blue Eyes
New Jersey folks tend to stick together whenever possible, so it’s unsurprising that Bruce Springsteen, a Freehold, NJ, native, would admire Frank Sinatra, who was from Hoboken. Before his performance of “Angel Eyes” at Sinatra’s 80th birthday tribute show, Springsteen recalled listening to the “patron saint of New Jersey” with his mother while they “went searching for my father.”
“She said, ‘Listen to that. That’s Frank Sinatra. He is from New Jersey,’” Springsteen said. “It was a voice filled with bad attitude, life, beauty, excitement, a nasty sense of freedom, sex, and a sad knowledge of the ways of the world.”
“Every song seemed to have its post script, ‘And if you don’t like it, here’s a punch in the kisser,’” Springsteen continued. “But it was the deep blue of Frank’s voice that affected me the most. While his music became synonymous with black tie, the good life, the best booze, women, sophistication, his blues voice was always the sound of hard luck and men late at night with the last ten dollars in their pockets trying to figure a way out.”
Sometimes, those men were longing for summer romances of yesteryear—a man who “sighs his lullabies through nights that never end.”
Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images
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