Closers

Today's post is all about closers.  First, the closers in order of most played to least played:

Twist & Shout	19
Rosalita	18
Dancing In The Dark	11
Glory Days	9
(Your love takes me) Higher & Higher	7
Thunder Road	4
American Land	2
Detroit Medley	2
Hungry Heart	2
Mony Mony	2
Rockin' All Over the World	2
Seven Nights to Rock	2
Bobby Jean	1
Born In The USA	1
Jersey Girl	1
Kitty's Back	1
Wooly Bully	1

I think this is pretty interesting - obviously covers and Born in the USA comprising a significant number of the closers.  Here is the breakdown by album:

Covers	35
Born in the USA	22
The Wild, the Innocent, and the E. Street Shuffle	19
Born to Run	4
The River	2
Seeger Sessions	2
75-85 Live	1

While covers comprising almost half of closers and the Born to Run album being nearly absent might seem surprising, when you break it down song by song, it all makes sense (although I suspect many Springsteen fans would prefer a Springsteen original to close his shows).  In fact, there is a pretty compelling case for every song played more than 2 times being a closer.

Twist & Shout - the first song Springsteen played on a guitar
Rosalita - was his closer for years in the 70's/80's (incidentally, Thundercrack played that role before Rosalita took over as the default closer.... while the die-hard fans would love that, I think Springsteen's choice of closers tends to be more geered toward crowd pleasing... perhaps to make up for his willingness to include more obscure songs in most of his set lists).
Dancing in the Dark / Glory Days - upbeat BITUSA songs that people (especially casual fans) get psyched about
Higher and Higher - this started around the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame show, and you can see how much Springsteen genuinely enjoyed playing this - I think this became so popular towards the end of the show simply because he loved playing it!
Thunder Road - great closer - epic song, fantastic ending.

I wouldn't by any means consider myself a Springsteen fan that prefers the shows geered toward "casual fans", but I must say that overall I found the closers to be a great group of songs.  The only dissapointments probably being Mony Mony and Bobby Jean (both songs I really like, but I don't see as great closers... I actually really really like Bobby Jean, but seems like a sort of depressing way to end the show).

Of course, if it were up to me, Rosalita and Thunder Road (and maybe Thundercrack) would have higher numbers and covers might have a place in encores, but not as closers... but it's precisely the E Street Bands unpredictability (and being awesome) that keeps everyone coming back for more!