Mojo - The Music Magazine

Meet two young people. They are in love. They're out in the street and they don't have much 'cept a saxophone and a vision of something better. They see a car. Then another. That's TWO CARS! It can only be one thing: Sesame Street's Born To Add, the best kinda Bruce Springsteen cover in the world ever. Yes! Even better than this one!

It's just one of the Bruce-centric clips compiled and annotated by our experts in tribute to this month's MOJO magazine cover star. An awesome early Spirit In The Night, a heart-stopping acoustic Born In The USA, an utterly, hilariously rubbish cover of Come Together at the '94 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame: like the best kind of Boss show, it's guaranteed 100 per cent rockin' entertainment all the way.

________________________________________________________________________

1. Spirit In The Night, live in Los Angeles, 1973

"Your first artist is being hailed all over the country as one of the most important new talents of the '70s" Tough billing, but Springsteen's up to it in a rare filmed performance of the groovier, less aggressive Vini Lopez line-up. Stay for a Van Morrison flourish at the end. ________________________________________________________________________

2. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight), 1975

The Wild, The Innocent's irresistible picaresque live at Hammy Odeon, 1975, Springsteen's UK "arrival". You'll believe a man with a tea cosy on his head can fly. ________________________________________________________________________

3. Prove It All Night, September 19, 1978

Visual quality resembling "Big Brother bedroom" infra-red offset by the searing intensity of this performance, filmed at Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ. "New Jersey, you make me wanna prove it all night." Then he does. Even the intro is exhausting. ________________________________________________________________________

4. The River, September 22, 1979

Bruce introduces the recently minted title track of his epic double. It's about his sister and his brother-in-law, he reveals. ________________________________________________________________________

5. Glory Days, promo video, 1985

WATCH VIDEO HERE!

Worth gawping again at this hideous conflation of "heartland" Boss clichés. Blue collar Bruce operates a piledriver by day, dreams of high school baseball prowess, rocks out in a bar with the guys. Who made this turd? Step forward, John Sayles!
________________________________________________________________________

6. Thunder Road, MTV Plugged, September 22, 1992

Controversial - ie. BS refused to kowtow to MTV's Unplugged concept, brought electric instruments instead - TV spesh transfigured by a great reading of Born To Run's loser paean. ________________________________________________________________________

7. Come Together, with Axl Rose, 1994

Car crash Beatle cover at '94's Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame ceremony. It's wrong... but you just have to look. ________________________________________________________________________

8. The Ghost Of Tom Joad, promo video, 1995

WATCH VIDEO HERE!

Penance?
________________________________________________________________________

9. Back In Your Arms, 1995

Springsteen's Blood Brothers rockdoc captured the E Street Band at New York's Hit Factory, recording all-new bonus tracks for '95's Greatest Hits collection. There's something a bit stagey about it and Back In Your Arms is no sane man's idea of a Top 20 Bruce song, but - hey! - that's what Chuck Plotkin looks like!

________________________________________________________________________

10. Born In The USA, 1998

Bottleneck acoustic and a ton of reverb as BS delivers the "Nebraska version" of his oft-misunderstood state-of-the-union address for Spanish TV. Take it away, "El Boss"! ________________________________________________________________________

11. Inducting U2 into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, 2005

Think what you like about U2, but this epic filibuster is full of insights into how Bruce sees rock'n'roll: "It's embarrassing to want so much and expect so much from music."

________________________________________________________________________

12. Devils And Dust, April 4, 2005

From VH1's Storytellers programme, Bruce lets fly his Iraq War barb in a hushed, intimate setting. Then he explains it, masterclass-style. And as if that wasn't enough, he does Thunder Road, on piano! ________________________________________________________________________

13. John Henry, May 9, 2006

Bruce's off-piste Seeger Sessions record goes live at London's LSO St Luke's with this fervent reading of the American trad folk trope.

________________________________________________________________________

14. Dream Baby Dream, 2007

Bruce covers Suicide: who saw that coming? And, aided only by his pump organ, he squeezes every ounce of ache out of the Vega/Rev electro-punk classic.

________________________________________________________________________

15. A Night With The Jersey Devil, 2008

WATCH THE VIDEO!

One-off acknowledgment of his home state bogey, rendered in saturnine blues hues, that turned up on Springsteen's web site in October '08 as a Halloween present for fans. Now available as a video track on the bonus DVD in the Deluxe Edition of Working On A Dream (Columbia, 2009).

________________________________________________________________________

16. Born To Run, at Glastonbury, 2009

Last year's super-intense set - the talk of the entire UK festival season - was a rare case of Springsteen preaching to the unconverted. By the time he was ready to roll out his signature tune, there were few of those left around.

________________________________________________________________________

And The Spoofs...!

Sesame Street: Born To Add

"When we're all in the streets and we see one car / we always add one and make it two..." Genius!

________________________________________________________________________

Ben Stiller's Legends Of Springsteen: #1

Stiller has fun with that "four hour set blah blah blah" shtick: "One-hun-hurn-hern!"