Buddy Marcel sent me Ben Mankiewicz's Huffington Post list of his top 25 Springsteen songs. I'm a fan of Mankiewicz. I think he fits morning and afternoon mood on TCM, whether he's introducing some cartoons or superstar classics. I think he's deserving of Robert Osborne's top spot when The Velvet Let's Go Out to the Movies and Get Ourselves a Snack retires. That said, Mankiewicz's Bruce list is near derangement.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a fan of Lucky Town, Factory, Glory Days, This Hard Land, Magic, and Murder Incorporated — heck, the last one there converted me in 1995 — but there's no way they're spots 25-20. In the teens, Thunder Road loses to Ramrod? In the single digits, Born to Run… doesn't get a single digit? Number 10? Seriously? That's indecent.

But then I got to the highest spots. Three was Incident. Two was Price You Pay. One was Backstreets. There was a video with each song in the list, and I watched the live Price You Pay video. The performance was a recent one, maybe at the complete River show Rob and I saw in New York, but the song retained its power. And I freaking love that song.

It's all about confronting fear in the face of seemingly inestimable but clear challenge, and the result doesn't arrive until the final lines. The song has to work its way there, through the geographic, through the temporal, through the Biblical, through to the local and the ultimately personal. The song is terrifying until you break through — if you have even gotten that far — and find control of it, trying to define yourself.

Then I got to Mankiewicz's note on the page: "The list is not a matter of opinion. It is fact. Until I change my mind in eight minutes." I've said about the same for every Springsteen list I've ever attempted. My NU friend Jeremy, also a friend of the previously mentioned NU Marcel, has called some of my lists near derangement. (About a list a decade ago, "Rockaway the Days? Really?") Then I read Mankiewicz's Huff Post lede: "November 16 — that's Christmas, Hanukkah (Hannakuh? Channukah? I'm a horrible Jew) and a birthday all rolled up in one for Springsteen fans." Sounds crazy? Yeah… so… I've actually been thinking of taking that day off. The Darkness box set comes out that morning. I've been waiting years for this set. I'm thinking of buying the set and taking the rest of the day off to watch and listen on my couch. Work can run on.

Anyway. I'm supposed to talk to my friend Crash this morning for her grad school class about what it's like to be a big fan. So, this stuff's on my mind. Ben Mankiewicz, fellow Bruce fan and D.C. kid, here's to you. Your list is crazy and prone to change in eight minutes, and so are all of mine. If you want to hang out and watch the box set — I'm betting you have access to bigger screens than I do — you let me know.

Yes, Vampire Weekend's cover of I'm Going Down was surprising. Yes, Vampire Weekend's subsequent slightly less soulless acoustic cover of the song was also surprising. Yes, Jimmy Fallon going Glee on Born to Run to open the Emmys was surprising. Yes, the Darkness-era video of Bruce and Steve playing an early version of Sherry Darling in maybe a basement somewhere was surprising and, along with the coming box, deserving of entire postings here. But the Springsteen-related video to surprise me the most of late was TV's Dr. Oz analyzing the Backstreets line "getting wasted in the heat." To mark the end of summer, kinda:

And why not…

Also: Song history from solid Lebanese tribute site Springsteen Lyrics.

Somehow, when I went to the family's house for lunch yesterday, my mom knew Springsteen had shown up at the Pony to jam with a friend. I knew it was high time to post this video, via a taper and Backstreets.

Bruce joined Texas rocker Alejandro Escovedo on stage a week or so ago, and an eight-minute Beast of Burden was the standout. They also played my spring song, Always a Friend, but it was a bit ramshackle. It was with the Stones where Bruce felt comfy. Had he stumbled in from the boardwalk that night, Keith would have approved of these solos.

I mean, come on, try to stay still during this song. Not possible. Try it. It's not possible. Baby, put me out, put me out, put me out of misery…

Just noticed this in the month's NYT story: "The obvious touchstone is the mid-1970s period of Mr. Springsteen, who's become an admirer of the band, joining them onstage at the Glastonbury Festival last year, offering them an opening slot on his tour and providing counsel."

Good call not to do it. But I would've fought you for those tickets.

Woke up this way. Got more this way all day. Boom boom boom boom. Read a book? How can I read some book when I'm playing loud music? It's frustrating and the insomnia won't like it. Boom boom boom boom.

One of the things I'm thinking about doing next week during furlough or free time (depending how HR resolves it) is compiling a best-of Lost Masters, the many-many-disc Springsteen studio bootleg set (that has its own best-of set but not my best-of set). This song is one that came up recently in a Max Weinberg interview. Weinberg tells Rolling Stone that "Electric Nebraska," the Holy Grail of Brucelegs, the E Street Band amped-up recordings of the starkly acoustic Nebraska album, exists.

He cites White Lies as one of the songs from the sessions, which — I hate to say it — undercuts his memory. The song actually comes from The River sessions. But whatever. We now have more claims Electric Nebraska exists, and we know White Lies exists and rocks. The lyrics show up later in the mediocre Mary Lou and the decent Be True, and neither does as good a job of fitting this morning, which is fired up.

They've hung out before, at her London after-show party. Last night…

Last night, they led Sting, Elton John, Debbie Harry, and Bond vocal legend Shirley Bassey in singing Don't Stop Believin'. And there's video!

As you can see, Springsteen and Lady Gaga clearly know the song better than anyone else, and then Sir Elton's topless dancers join in. It's the best train wreck you've seen today, and I now have no doubt we'll see some kind of Bruce-Gaga collaboration in the future. For all that is good and crazy and righteous about loud, people-loving music, do it! Getty Images got this good shot of them. A duet can happen.

NYT:

Sting said that Mr. Springsteen also chose the concert's all-star finale — a song, Sting said, that he didn't know. "Everyone in the country knows it but you," he was told. It was Journey's "Don't Stop Believin' ": a 1981 arena crowd-pleaser once scorned as cheesy corporate rock. Now, from its appearance in the finale of "The Sopranos" to a best-selling version from "Glee" to a Springsteen endorsement at Carnegie Hall, it's well on its way to rehabilitation.

Another ridiculous highlight, via Rolling Stone:

Then it got even weirder. "This is a favorite single of mine from the 1980s," Springsteen said as he grabbed a new guitar. "I always knew there was a soul sing hidden inside of it." It took about 30 seconds before it became clear he was playing "Cuts Like a Knife" by Bryan Adams. Halfway through a very long version he stopped the song, fell down to his knees James Brown-style, and told an incredibly lengthy story about an old girlfriend who supposedly left him for a slightly more famous singer. It was hard to tell who was enjoying the bizarre performance more: the crowd, Springsteen, or Elton and Sting as they stood on the side of the stage in slack-jawed disbelief.

Via SPL, mp3s of that song and the entire show are here.

Update a little bit later: The Adams cover ain't bad. Gospel-ish feel, with a monologue and a "If it hurt, let me hear you holler" finale.

Walking into BGR early Wednesday night, the music was Springsteen, and I was sold. Playing was Tunnel of Love. Next up was Rosalita. I'd never heard that double-shot before in my life, and chances were this was the first time it had occurred outside of New Jersey since 1989.

Born to Run hung on a wall between Prince and plasma. 'Nough said.

The burger place, subtitled "The Burger Joint," next to The Italian Store — Lyon Village is so very declarative — was still working out the kinks. The kitchen was overcrowded, and orders were slow, even to the beer tap and back. The burger itself was decent, not yet of Elevation or Five Guys quality. The music was too loud to talk easily when we came in.

But they fixed the volume shortly. The bun and the toppings — lettuce, tomato, BGR-ordained mojo sauce for me — were delicious. The beer, while slow, was "Come back for refills" because there were no pitchers yet. (Sold.) The kinks were there, but in the words of The Animals, the intentions were good. The staff — some to stay, some to head back to the Alexandria franchise, some due for a coming Baltimore franchise — were uniformly friendly. I was glad to have them in Arlington for now.

I like the idea of it. Drive to Lyon Village shopping center, stride across the parking lot and road abutting those stores and ask oneself, staring at two doors, "Good Italian or good burgers?" How can one go wrong?

So, good stuff. A return visit is going to happen. In the restrooms, the music was the the Schoolhouse Rock take on the Preamble. Good stuff.

After, Emily and I made it to 31 Cent Scoop Night at the Baskin-Robbins up Lee Highway, 15 minutes before close. It was a good cause, aiding the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. The line had been out the door until an hour earlier, the clerk said, and he was smiling but beat. We got scoops and talked about the firehouse up the highway. When staff urged us out the door soon after, we left happily, without issue.

But a question. In BGR, there were two pictures we couldn't identify. I e-mailed four music-loving friends for their guesses, with no luck. How about you? Midnight Oil — Beds Are Burning — was a guess on the first, but there seem to be one too few people. Just who are these people?

In his Born to Run book from the time, Marsh gives us what we want.

The beauty of the arrangement has Springsteen almost breathless; he sings as if the song were new to him, as if he really had just mustered up the nerve to go up and ask that dream-date if she wanted to dance. His twelve-string guitar notes fall into the night and travel those airwaves like a message home.

Then, in the later The Heart of Rock and Soul, Marsh starts so well.

As a kid, the way people moved in movies like West Side Story struck me as weird. The real teenagers who strolled the blocks near my house moved so much more fluidly and elegantly. The tableaus they set up were finer poses and better thought-out. Where Jerome Robbins made you understand something about the possibilities of human muscles, those kids back in the neighborhood made you understand everything about passion and hope.

"Then He Kissed Me" captures what they looked like in its opening lines, sung at a stately cadence:

Well, he walked up to me and he asked me if I wanted to dance
He looked kinda nice and so I said I might take a chance.

Hearing the Crystals sing those words, you can feel not only the size of the event, but exactly how he moved, slinking his way across the floor, stopping, turning, proposing as elegantly as any cadet, and envision just how she responded, with a mixture of delicacy and suppressed eagerness, each holding back smiles of relief, both hearts jangling like the busy castanets and triangles in the record's background.

Then Marsh argues it's about oral sex. Let's forget that for a moment.

I really need to stop Googling stuff after midnight. Yes? Let's stick with the first verse, and we save this beautiful song for exactly our needs.

Time for sleep! Enough with you, Dave Marsh.

Sometimes you can just stop for a bit and let the drums talk.