The Frankie goes to Hollywood version of Born To Run is a little classic as is the Stranglers verison of 'Walk on By' or the Jam version of "Move On Up"
Speaking of great covers the best song Patty Smith did ,by a country mile, was "Because The Night " ( Brucie ) and even Natlie Cole ( daughter of Nat ) could not muck up "Pink Cadillac" ) another Bruce stomper.
He is one of the few really great song writers who has the voice and stage presence to match . Bowie ,Smokey Robinson are others .

What a wonderful country America is .The grandeur and dream of it from poets to artists to architects to art film and of course political thought.Yes some still want is tucked into that old ladies armpit Europe

Listen to a nice bit of Elvis Costello :) You can see what I groove to by following the link attatched to my name.

You said you'd never go back to Cardiff after the locals stalked you from the station!

Ernie, I was born to run then too!

Nice picture...but how did Victor Meldrew get on stage at the back?

Aha! So that's why you don't like Cardiff!

Also, 'Incident on 57th Street' is my favourite Springsteen song even though it is at least 6 minutes long

Yes, not bad, John, but it was from the time he was spending his time writing an imaginary soundtrack to Marty Scorsese movies.

Atlantic City says the same thing, but more concisely.

But the rest of Nebraska sounds like a demo tape...and not even a good demo tape. I usually like songs with my name in the title but 'Johnny 99' is the poorest of them all. However, I did pick up the combined 'Nebraska/Ghost of Tom Joad' CD set for £6 which I think represents very good value.

'Here in Youngstown...'

John, I really meant the live, band version of Atlantic City. I'm not wild about Nebraska, but I gather Springsteen thinks it contains his best songwriting.

I have it on good authority that there were a number of middled aged social workers embarrassing themselves in that audience too.

Think about Nebraska as a whole, including the songs that didn't make it onto it ('Born In The USA' and 'From Small Things Big Things Come' - the song he gave to Dave Edmunds and opened with on Saturday night).
It's the confirmation of the turning point in his career that started with The River, from the kind of magical operatic tones of 'Born To Run' or 'Jungleland' to a much more noirish vision of the USA as being a dystopic society. yes, the album sounds like a demo tape, but then film noir never was in cinemascope was it? When he tried doing those sorts of songs with a much bigger, more epic production you got 'Born In The USA - the album' - successful but conceptually flawed.