Street racing might not be a subject you'd expect in a Bruce Springsteen song, but The Boss not only did a tune about, it's one of his very best. The Ultimate Springsteen Countdown does not discriminate and there's no denying the power of some ballads.

Asbury Park — the downtrodden New Jersey seaside town that's been such a thread in Springsteen's career — also makes two appearances in Songs 30-21. You'll also find some Springsteen songs that almost never came about and the great one whose creator is almost letting it die by refusing to ever play it in the live shows that fuel so much of The Boss' legend.

Only 20 songs left after this week .... Do you know which ones are destined for the Top 10?

Song 30: “Prove It All Night”

Album: Darkness On the Edge of Town

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It’s all about momentum, I suppose. In the mid-1980’s, Bruce Springsteen could have coughed up a hairball and it likely would have shot up the charts with no sweat. But when this sure shot of a single was released to introduce the world to Darkness On the Edge of Town in 1978, it sputtered to a lackluster No. 33. That’s not to say that Bruce wasn’t popular at that time; it’s just that the popularity was reserved for the rock cognoscenti, not so much for the pop charts.

No matter, because “Prove It All Night” has stood the test of time. That blast of power chords intertwined with the 11-note electric piano riff has been an indelible construction around which the E Street Band has worked numerous live variations for the past three decades or so. No matter what tangents they wander off to, they know they can always return to that main hook and bring the crowd back to ecstasy.

Springsteen also uses one of his favorite tricks to great effect here. In the final verse he drops most of the music away, in this case leaving just the thump-thump of Max Weinberg’s bass drum alongside his vocal. It leaves room to reintroduce the rest of the musical elements for a thrilling run up to the refrain, which hits with even more intensity.

This is a straightforward song lyrically; the music provides the emotional punch, much like “Cover Me.” It coulda, shoulda, woulda been a hit, but “Prove It All Night” has won the hearts of Boss fans everywhere, which trumps chart success every time.

Song 29: “Racing in the Street”
Album: Darkness On the Edge of Town

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This has to be the most somber song about street drag racing that’s ever come down the pike. No frenetic guitars or crashing drums to accompany a death-defying ride around some hairpin curve. All that you get is the elegiac piano of Roy Bittan, interwoven with Max Weinberg’s gentle drumming and Danny Federici’s empathetic organ.

The lyrical references to Martha & The Vandellas “Dancing In The Street” are strictly ironic, because none of the ebullience that marked that classic hit is present here.

The music is perfectly apt though, because there is no real triumph to be had in “Racing In The Street.” The drag racing found here is as much of a dead-end routine as the 9-to-5 drudgery that bedevils other characters in Darkness On the Edge of Town. The rush that this guy gets from the race wears off fast and the comedown is impossibly hard.

In the case of the narrator, his racing is just a way to escape his crushing home life, where his girl, whom he once scored as a kind of trophy from another racer, faces a crippling depression. The depiction of this malaise is harrowingly accurate: “She stares off alone into the night with the eyes of one who hates for just being born.”

So what to make of the final verse?

“For all the shut-down strangers and hot rod angels, rumbling through this promised land/Tonight my baby and me, we’re gonna ride to the sea and wash this sins off our hands.”

I guess you can interpret those lines as some sort of transcendent victory, but I’ve always heard it as the pipe dreams of someone with no way out. After all, is it really realistic that some sort of trip will solve all the problems of this couple? Not likely, and Springsteen knows that. Much like those drag races, that midnight ride might provide a temporary relief, but no permanent answers. Otherwise, “Racing In The Street” wouldn’t set such a pace so downright funereal.

Song 28: “My City of Ruins”
Album: The Rising

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“My City Of Ruins” was written as a bittersweet tribute/rallying cry to Asbury Park, New Jersey, Springsteen’s adopted hometown that has fallen on hard times. Its lack of specificity in the lyrics turned out to be a positive, because it was then used after 9/11 as part heartbroken meditation and part engaging anthem.

It’s a testament to the song’s elasticity that it could be interpreted both ways.

Actually, the song is so good that it could be a balm to anyone trolling the depths of despair; I honestly believe that, had it been released at a time when rock artists actually received radio airplay, it would rank right alongside the likes of “Hey Jude” or “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” as songs of spiritual and emotional uplift.

The song might be as close to gospel as the E Street Band has ever traveled. Danny Federici’s organ solo has a little Garth Hudson to it, with hints of playfulness to help deflate the heavy proceedings. The strings are well-utilized, and the backing vocals are superb.

But most notable of all is Bruce’s vocal performance, which stands with his best ever. In the early verses, his dejected state is palpable; when he asks, “Tell me how do I begin again?”, it was in the desolate voice of a wounded nation.

But the resilience he embodies in the “With these hands” buildup provides the inspiration. Finally, the “Rise up” command arrives, and that’s the most moving of all. Springsteen sings this part with tinges of the fear that enveloped us all and oodles of the power needed to overcome it. Whatever it was for originally, “My City Of Ruins” was always destined to be a song for anyone who needs it the most.

Song 27: "Spirit In the Night”
Album: Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.

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Would that we all have had a night, sometime in our lives, as rowdily random and magically momentous as the one the ramshackle crew accompanying the narrator of “Spirit In the Night” had at Greasy Lake. How much would you say actually happened to Bruce Springsteen, and how much was pure imagination? I’m going with a 70/30 split myself.

One of the ironic things about the song is that part of the reason it came together so well is that Bruce had to record it on the fly. Clive Davis didn’t hear a single in the first batch of songs from "Greetings From Asbury Park N.J.," so Bruce assembled an ad hoc, small band to record this and “Blinded By The Light.”

That resulted in a less cluttered but more precise performance, led by Vini Lopez’s kicky drumming and Clarence Clemons’ soulful running commentary on the sax. The call-and-response vocals in the chorus are the right touch as well, as it sounds like all of the characters in the song seconding Springsteen’s shaggy-dog story.

And what a bunch of characters it is. Bruce changes all the names to protect the guilty, and their acts of debauchery are gloriously pointless, and yet they’re infused with a kind of mystical power by the supernatural elements of Greasy Lake. In the midst of it all, the narrator/Bruce has a one-night fling with Crazy Janey, she of the loose morals and powerful kiss.

It’s all romantic yet fleeting, but then again, “Spirit In The Night” understands that the two sometimes go hand in hand. Hell, maybe we all have had nights like the one depicted here, after all. We just didn’t have someone as talented as Springsteen taking notes.

Song 26: “Dancing in the Dark”
Album: Born In The U.S.A.

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Let’s go hypothetical here. What if Jon Landau had let well enough alone and allowed Bruce Springsteen to release Born In The U.S.A. without the killer single that he felt it lacked?

Does the album produce seven Top 10 singles and sell millions upon millions of copies? Does the tour that follows become a unprecedented, gigantic beast? Does Bruce Springsteen become the superstar he is today, more than the guy who, prior to the song, got a lot of critical love and toured well but wasn’t as much of a record-selling household name as, say, Billy Joel or The Eagles?

We can speculate, but we can’t know for sure. We do know that Landau’s insistence that Springsteen, who had already written 70 songs as album candidates, go home and write more might just be his ultimate contribution to Bruce’s success. And that in no way mitigates all of the other massive contributions Landau made.

That’s just how important “Dancing In The Dark,” the song a cheesed-off Springsteen wrote that night, turned out to be. Because it wasn’t just a cheap grab at a hit single. I mean, it’s not like he wrote “O Mickey” or something. This song does not deviate in any way from his high artistic standards; if anything, it’s among his best, at least in my humble opinion.

But it did introduce his amazing talent to whole new legions of people, and that was the key. With its dance-rock synthesizer and crashing beat, you could bop to it at a primal level without ever hearing the anguish and unease in the lyrics.

If the teeny-boppers missed the subtle parallels he was drawing between artistic frustration and sexual longing, then at least they could hear his undeniable charisma when he belted out “Hey baby!” (And they could see it, even behind his spastic dancing, in the video.)

Peaking at No. 2, “Dancing In The Dark” truly changed everything. So we can speculate endlessly about what might have happened if it had never existed. As long as we don’t forget to thank Jon Landau for making sure that it did.

Song 25: “The Price You Pay”
Album: The River

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Why, oh why, Bruce, Part One. As in why have you consigned this song to oblivion by refusing to perform it live? By depriving it of the live venue which feeds and nourishes a song, “The Price You Pay” is slowly dying, dammit!

And it’s just too good to die.The E Street Band has never sounded more crisply melancholy on a song that can stand alongside of any of the Boss’ anthems and more than hold its own. It’s got the scope of an epic and the emotion of something much more personal.

The Biblical allusions speak to the wide-screen ambition of the track, even as it stays determinedly downhearted. The stories are fascinatingly vague, hinting at a whole generation that’s been let down in an irreparable way, betrayed by promises and forced to settle for a version of themselves far more compromised than they ever could have imagined. In that way, it reminds me of Jackson Browne’s “Before The Deluge.”

Springsteen is not about to give in though, and in an act futile in effect but powerful in gesture, at song’s end he threatens to tear down the sign that acts as a kind of scoreboard tallying up the defeated souls. “The Price You Pay” is deceptively layered, the kind of song that reveals something new on every listen. If only Bruce gave his audiences a few more chances for such revelation by busting it out at a show once in a while.

Song 24: “Loose Ends”
Album: Tracks

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Why, oh why, Bruce, Part Two. As in why in the name of all that’s righteous would you leave this shimmering rock bomb on the shelf and off an official album release? We had to wait until Tracks to enjoy this killer. It was recorded in ’79 in the run-up to The River, which had, like, 87 songs on it. You mean to tell me that this one couldn’t have been crammed on a side?

Hell, they should have created another side of the album just to contain the E Street Band’s swagger on this song. Roy Bittan’s hook is one for the ages, and the drum and sax interplay in the instrumental break is a master class conducted by Professors Weinberg and Clemons. Rarely has the band ever brought this much thunder.

As for the lyrics, depicting a self-imploding relationship, they have a sing-ability that’s a refreshing change-of-pace. I can deal with Bruce doing the 34-more-syllables-than-the-line-can-hold thing; that’s actually a hallmark of some of my favorite songwriters, from Dylan to Costello. But the concise way these words fit the meter of each line really add to the power-packed punch the song delivers.

Maybe Bruce felt that the lines in the chorus about the noose were too harsh an image. Maybe he felt that he had other similar songs that fit The River better. I don’t know. If there’s a fan out there who does, please enlighten me. I doubt I’ll agree with the reasoning, though. No shelf should ever have contained “Loose Ends.”

Song 23: “Your Own Worst Enemy”
Album: Magic

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Imagine a song with music by The Left Banke and lyrics by Warren Zevon and you’ll get an idea of the sensibility behind this brilliant Magic track. Has there ever been a production quite so lush that’s been employed in the service of such a psychologically dark song?

Anyone who doubts Springsteen’s melodic abilities should have this as required listening. Buoyed by all the strings and horns and soaring harmonies and high-drama percussion, the tune always threatens to float off into the ether much like the symbolic flag at the end of the song, but Max’s steady beat keeps it in reach. This is a melody that you could imagine Dusty Springfield singing with all the world crashing down around her, and I can’t think of a higher compliment than that.

But Bruce has more on his mind here than something as simple as a doomed romance. He warns of the self-destructive tendencies latent inside every one of us that often crop up when we’re at our most content. Springsteen addresses the audience in the second person, but you can tell that he knows these tendencies well. This could be the same guy from “Darkness On The Edge Of Town” or “Brilliant Disguise,” still unable to get out of his own way. “Your Own Worst Enemy” is one of Springsteen’s moodiest compositions, harpsichords and all.

Song 22: "Hungry Heart”
Album: The River

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There’s not much I can say about “Hungry Heart” that couldn’t be gathered by listening to the first 15 seconds or so. By that time, you’re hooked. No matter how many times I hear it, it jumps out of the speakers with magnificent vitality every time.

This is another example of Jon Landau rescuing a song from Bruce’s scrap heap. Springsteen had promised the song to The Ramones, but Landau heard the hit single that Bruce had been lacking to that point, and convinced him to renege. The producer’s ear for what would work blasting out of a car radio was always sharper than the one his most successful artist possessed.

Landau also helped add the production luster that sent this song into the Top 10, Springsteen’s first song to reach those heights. Max’s opening drum snap immediately gets your attention, allowing you to fall sway to the irresistible piano plinking of Roy Bittan. Clarence struts and bops throughout, Danny Federici provides a glistening organ solo, the backing vocals (partly provided by two members of 60’s rockers The Turtles), and Springsteen urges the band along with his whoops and yelps.

The lyrics have a cosmic simplicity about them, revealing universal romantic truths as if they’d never been discovered. And each verse works like a little self-contained song all its own, leading up to the belt-along-with-it choruses. In short, there’s not a moment of “Hungry Heart” that feels anything less than exhilarating.

Song 21: “4th Of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)”
Album: The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle

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The music, propelled by Danny Federici’s irresistible accordion, provides ample nostalgia, but Bruce isn’t having any of it. This Fourth of July is indeed an Independence Day for this character, leaving the “boardwalk life” for good and trying to get the girl to go with him.

Write what you know, they say, and Bruce clearly knows this scene inside and out. But all the signposts are suddenly seen in a negative light:The rides, the pinball machines, the loose girls. Even his beloved Madam Marie (a real Jersey legend who just passed away a couple of years ago) is busted by the cops for telling the truth. The romance that bewitches the tourists is nowhere to be scene in the narrator’s viewfinder.

It needs to be noted that this guy seems to be escaping the scene only after a few failed relationships; you have to wonder if his departure is tied to his romantic failure. You also get the feeling that Sandy can see right through his rap, and that his malaise might not be any different no matter what the setting.

Nonetheless, the fireworks “hailing over Little Eden” are one of the most indelible visual images in Springsteen lore. Anyone who has ever vacationed on the Jersey shore will recognize it fondly in these lyrics; those who haven’t should have no problem visualizing it via Bruce’s magical descriptions. But it goes to show you that there is sadness in even the most idyllic conditions, even on a night as special as the Fourth of July.

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