walking upstream…
Bruce Springsteen
photo: bryan berlin · cc by-sa 4.0 ↗Bruce Springsteen
sourcesWikipedia · American Songwriter
Born in Long Branch, New Jersey in 1949, Bruce Springsteen spent the early 1970s playing Jersey Shore bar bands before signing to Columbia Records, where 1975's Born to Run turned him into a global rock icon soon nicknamed 'the Boss.' Backed for most of his career by the E Street Band, he built a catalog that swings between wall-of-sound arena rock and stripped-down, Woody Guthrie-indebted folk records like Nebraska and The Ghost of Tom Joad, always centered on the lives of working-class Americans. Still touring and recording into his seventies, Springsteen has become a mentor figure to younger heartland songwriters, including Zach Bryan, who has called him one of his biggest heroes and brought him into the studio for 2024's 'Sandpaper.'
the sound in question
1975
Born to RunBruce Springsteen
walk the tributaries ↓
Woody Guthrie1940s · Folk / Protest music / Americana
Springsteen has said that discovering Woody Guthrie's music pulled him out of a period of hopelessness in the late 1970s and pointed him toward songwriting as social witness; he began performing Guthrie's 'This Land Is Your Land' in concert soon after and later built a full album, The Ghost of Tom Joad, around Guthrie's Dust Bowl-era populism and Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath.
listen: upstream & heresource: Bruce Springsteen, Woody Guthrie, and Pete Seeger ↗
1944
This Land Is Your LandWoody Guthrie
1995
The Ghost of Tom JoadBruce Springsteen
listen forPlay Guthrie's plainspoken, talking-blues 'This Land Is Your Land,' then Springsteen's hushed 'The Ghost of Tom Joad' — both strip the arrangement down to almost nothing so a story about displaced, struggling people can carry the whole song.
Elvis Presley1950s · Rock and roll / Rockabilly
Springsteen has repeatedly credited seeing Elvis Presley perform on television as a child with the moment he decided he wanted to be a musician, and his early, youthfully exuberant rock and roll songs draw directly on Presley's raw rockabilly energy.
listen: upstream & here
1954
That's All RightElvis Presley
1973
Growin' UpBruce Springsteen
listen forPlay Presley's loose, hiccuping 'That's All Right,' widely cited as an early rock and roll record, then Springsteen's own coming-of-age anthem 'Growin' Up' — both bottle a restless teenage energy inside a stripped-down, guitar-forward rock and roll frame.
Bob Dylan1960s · Folk / Folk rock / Rock
Springsteen has cited Bob Dylan as a defining influence on his ambition as a lyricist, crediting Dylan with proving rock and roll songs could carry the same density and ambition as literature.
listen: upstream & here
1965
Like a Rolling StoneBob Dylan
1975
Thunder RoadBruce Springsteen
listen forListen to the tumbling, image-packed verses of Dylan's 'Like a Rolling Stone,' then Springsteen's 'Thunder Road' — both stack vivid, cinematic detail after detail inside a single song rather than settling for a simple verse-chorus structure.