Bruce Springsteen - Johnny 99

An extremely appropriate song given the economic situation.

P.S. has anyone seen the demo version floating around on the internet?

Damn! This song sends me over the edge every time.

The man's sincerity isn't false though. He grew up lower working class, kind of on the edge of poverty and he hasn't forgotten what it was like.

not a bruce fan but the words in this song are class

Nebraska would blow any Dylan album away. There isn't a single song that isn't moving and great, Dylan never had an album that was from top to bottom complete. (this is not a shot that Dylan isn't one of the greats, rather he had incredible singles were Springsteen could produce entire albums which were incredible)

@CMsurvive11 clearly you haven't listened to many Dylan albums....

The similar album to Nebraska was Freewheenlin by Dylan. For me, Bruce's socially conscious songs tend to depress me after a while instead of making me think about the situation. He inhabits the song from the point of view of the main character. A good example is the Devils and Dust tour. I bought the album, like always, and saw the show, like always. It gets numbing after 10 or so songs. I have seen many Bob Dylan shows, and for me, they don't hold a candle to a Bruce show, but nobody does.

But any discussion about who is the greatest songwriter/lyricist ever begins with number 2. Dylan is soooo much better than everyone else by such a large margin that it doesn't enter the discussion. And has he made an album as good as Nebraska? He's made 5 of them. As John Mellencamp said: "Highyway 61 is the greatest album of all time. Nobody has ever written a song as good as any song on that album and nobody ever will." He's received 8 official nominations for the Nobel Prize for literature..

To understand Dylan, listen to "It' Alright Me, I'm only bleeding."

All that being said, overall I think Bruce is the best performer in rock history. Dylan isn't much of an instumentalist, he's a strums the guitar and plunks the keyboard. His voice is well, his voice. Bruce can write, play the hell out of a guitar, which I don't think he gets enough credit for and he ain't too bad on that harp. And we all know about his shows. Overall, Bruce is the man.

C'mon man..be serious.