Bruce Springsteen’s List of His Favorite Singers Only Included 1 Beatle
Like many artists in his generation, Bruce Springsteen said that the first time he heard The Beatles’ music, he felt as though he’d been struck by lightning. The band’s music changed the trajectory of his life. He sought out their music at every opportunity and has praised them. On his list of his favorite vocalists, though, he only included one member of the band.
Bruce Springsteen included only one Beatle on his list of favorite singers
When Rolling Stone asked Springsteen to list his 25 favorite singers, he put Ray Charles in the first spot. The rest of the list included vocalists like Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Smokey Robinson, Darlene Love, and Van Morrison. He also included a Beatle on his list.
Over the years, Springsteen has performed with Paul McCartney multiple times. He didn’t include McCartney on the list, though. Instead, Springsteen placed John Lennon in the fourth spot.
Bruce Springsteen shared how he felt when he first heard The Beatles
Springsteen could remember exactly where he was when he first heard a Beatles song.
“The Beatles. I first laid ears on them while driving with my mom up South Street, the radio burning brighter before my eyes as it strained to contain the sound, the harmonies of ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand,’” he wrote in his book Born to Run. “Why did it sound so different? Why was it so good? Why was I this excited?”
He said he scoured his New Jersey town for every one of the band’s records.
“I lived for every Beatles record release,” he wrote. “I searched the newsstands for every magazine with a photo I hadn’t seen and I dreamed . . . dreamed . . . dreamed . . . that it was me.”
He cut his hair to look more like the band, and he began to dress like them. He admitted that this put him at greater risk for bullying, but he didn’t care. Springsteen wanted to emulate the band in every way he could.
“My curly Italian hair miraculously gone straight, my face clear of acne and my body squeezed into one of those shiny silver Nehru suits,” he wrote. “I’m standing tall in a pair of Cuban-heeled Beatle boots. It didn’t take me long to figure it out: I didn’t want to meet the Beatles. I wanted to BE the Beatles.”
John Lennon once spoke about the American artist
Lennon once spoke about Springsteen’s successful career. He said he worried about the point in Springsteen’s life when the press and his fans turned on him.
“And God help Bruce Springsteen when they decide he’s no longer God,” Lennon told Rolling Stone in one of the final interviews of his life. I haven’t seen him, but I’ve heard such good things about him.”
Lennon said that public opinion always turned on musicians. He’d experienced it himself.
“Right now his fans are happy,” Lennon said. “He’s told them about being drunk and chasing girls and cars and everything, and that’s about the level they enjoy. But when he gets down to facing his own success and growing older and having to produce it again and again, they’ll turn on him, and I hope he survives it. All he has to do is look at me or at Mick [Jagger]. So it goes up and down, up and down – of course it does, but what are we, machines?”
