This is the second in a series of blogs in which I plan to go through and “musically annotate” Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography, “Born to Run”. This involves going through the book page by page and listing the artists, and when possible, providing a YouTube video of the songs that Bruce mentions as among his favorites.
Last week’s post covered Chapters 1-8, this week’s post covers Chapters 9-16, which includes 56 videos (why does Bruce have to like so many different genres of music and musicians!?)
Note: apparently having 56 videos in one post is a little too much for smartphones, as several readers notified me that they had trouble loading this page. To fix the problem, I created a YouTube playlist of all 56 songs:
You can access any particular song by clicking in the top left corner of the screen and choosing the desired video. I have listed the 56 songs below, in order. In those cases where Bruce just mentions a musical group, I randomly chose one of that group’s songs to include in the playlist.
- The Beatles, I Want to Hold Your Hand
- The Beatles with Tony Sheridan and Guests, My Bonnie
- Louis Armstrong, Hello Dolly
- Chubby Checkers, The Twist
- Anita Bryant, Paper Roses (my choice)
- Paul and Paula’s, Hey Paula
- Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, The Monkey
- Bobby Freeman, The Swim
- The Larks, The Jerk
- Chubby Checker, The Pony
- Nat Kendrick and The Swans, The Mashed Potato
- The Frug
- Bruce Springsteen, Devil with the Blue Dress On
- Greensleeves
- The Beatles, Twist and Shout
- Bill Doggett, Honky Tonk
- White Stripes, Fell in Love with a Girl (my choice)
- Chantays, Pipeline
- Santo and Johnny, Sleep Walk
- The Shadows, Apache
- The Marketts, Out of Limits
- The Pyramids, Penetration
- The Kingsmen, Haunted Castle
- Rolling Stones, It’s All over Now
- Ian Whitcomb, You Turn Me On
- The Castiles, Baby I
- The Castiles, That’s What You Get for Loving Me
- Glenn Miller, In the Mood
- Patsy Cline, The Tennessee Waltz
- Surfaris, Wipe Out
- Cadillacs, Gloria
- Don and Juan, What’s Your Name
- Five Satins, In the Still of the Night
- Animals, We Gotta Get Out of This Place
- Exciters, Tell Him
- Motifs, Someday (my choice)
- Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels, Jenny Take a Ride
- Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels, Devil With the Blue Dress On
- Shindogs, I Live for the Sun (my choice)
- Sonny and the Starfires, Please Don’t Hurt Me (my choice)
- Paul Revere and the Raiders, Kicks
- Circus Maximus, Wind
- Jimi Hendrix, Hey Joe (my choice)
- The Mothers of Invention, Oh, In The Sky (my choice)
- Neil Young, Heart of Gold (my choice)
- Cream, Sunshine of Your Love
- Jeff Beck, You Shook Me (my choice)
- Donovan, Sunshine Superman (my choice)
- Bob Dylan, Blowin’ in the Wind (my choice)
- Tim Buckley, Once I Was (my choice)
- Tommy James, Mony Mony
- Rock Me Baby
- Bruce Springsteen with Child
- Bruce Springsteen and Steel Mill
- Sundance Blues Band, with Bruce Springsteen
- Southside Johnny, with Bruce, Having a Party (my choice)
Borden's Blather 