{"id":1149434,"date":"2026-08-15T05:04:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T05:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1149434\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T05:04:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T05:04:20","slug":"the-1980-bruce-springsteen-song-that-was-too-good-to-give-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1149434\/","title":{"rendered":"The 1980 Bruce Springsteen song that was too good to give away"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bruce<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ Carl Lender<\/p>\n

Sat 15 August 2026 2:00, UK <\/p>\n

Bruce Springsteen<\/a> really broke through in the 1970s, but he didn\u2019t rule the singles charts. If you look at his track record, he followed in Bob Dylan\u2019s footsteps, more famous for whole albums than catchy number one singles.<\/p>\n

By that time, Bruce had two albums in the top five: Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town. But not a single song cracked the top 20 on the US Billboard chart. \u2018Born to Run\u2019 hit 23, and \u2018Prove It All Night\u2019 barely slid in at number 33.<\/p>\n

Even so, Bruce had shown he was capable of writing hits, just not for himself. Take \u2018Blinded By the Light\u2019: when Springsteen dropped it in 1973, almost nobody noticed. Manfred Mann\u2019s Earth Band picked it up three years later and took it to number one. The Pointer Sisters did the same with \u2018Fire\u2019 in 1978, landing at number two. Patti Smith made \u2018Because the Night\u2019 her own and soared to number 13 the same year.<\/p>\n

It seems bizarre to consider in retrospect, but Springsteen might have had legitimate reason to believe that his long-term royalties were always going to be largely dependent on finding other artists to deliver his songs to a wider pop audience. That likely played a role in a specific series of events from the spring of 1979.<\/p>\n

On March 25th, Springsteen was back in his hometown of Asbury Park, New Jersey, on a break from promoting the previous year\u2019s Darkness on the Edge of Town. Hearing that the Ramones were playing a gig<\/a> at a local club called the Fast Lane, he decided to take in the show as a spectator. The Fast Lane was the same club, incidentally, that had supposedly installed a private toilet exclusively for Joey Ramone, a request the famously germaphobic singer had made at the height of his band\u2019s success.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In any case, Springsteen enjoyed himself at the gig and came away with a bolt of inspiration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were great, and we went backstage and were talking, and I said, \u2018I wanna write these guys a song,\u2019\u201d Springsteen recalled to the Star-Ledger in 2015. <\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI ended up writing \u2018Hungry Heart\u2019 before I went to bed that night; it was one of those you write in the time it takes to play it, practically.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Joey Ramone and Co had happily accepted Springsteen\u2019s offer to write them a tune, but before he could formally present the retro soul-pop sound of \u2018Hungry Heart\u2019 to them, the song was swiftly intercepted by Springsteen\u2019s manager Jon Landau<\/a>, who\u2019d grown tired of the artist giving away his hits. That selfish instinct paid off, as Springsteen and the E Street Band kept \u2018Hungry Heart\u2019 and recorded it for their next album, 1980\u2019s The River. The romantic, radio-friendly single might have felt a bit odd or ironic as a Ramones jam, but it worked perfectly for \u2018The Boss\u2019, becoming his long-awaited first top five single.<\/p>\n

Discussing the twist of fate with the song during a guest appearance on The Howard Stern Show, Springsteen said that \u2018Hungry Heart\u2019 was also the \u201cfirst time we became a \u2018date night\u2019 band, where we had women show up at the show.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some diehard Springsteen fans weren\u2019t thrilled about the comparatively less edgy sound of \u2018Hungry Heart\u2019 when it came out, but Bruce\u2019s own bandmate, Little Steven Van Zandt, saw it as an important leap forward for the band.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople think, \u2018Oh, it\u2019s such a big deal to be original\u2019,\u201d Van Zandt told Uncut in 2016. \u201cAs a songwriter, I can tell you it\u2019s not that difficult to be original. What\u2019s difficult is writing in an existing genre and keeping your identity. In that period [early 1980s], [Bruce\u2019s] writing started to become very pop\/rock-oriented in a really good way, in a substantial way. All of a sudden, every single thing sounds like it belongs on the radio and yet it never lost the identity of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band<\/a>. That was just a monumental development.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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