The bands Bruce Springsteen called his musical Mount Rushmore: “That’s how my playlist goes”
If you were to forget the tumultuous history of American politics and instead focus solely on the nation’s musical output, then you could easily replace one of the carved stone faces of Mount Rushmore with that of New Jersey hero Bruce Springsteen.
It is difficult, after all, to think of many others who have had such an enduring and all-encompassing influence on the cultural output of that nation. Chronicling the stories of ordinary working-class people in his home state, ‘The Boss’ has always been a voice of reason and truth – something that certainly cannot be said for the actual politicians preserved on the real Mount Rushmore. If Springsteen were to concoct his own Rushmore of influences, though, who would make the cut?
Springsteen has never veiled his ever-expanding repertoire of musical influences in much ambiguity. From his earliest successes, the songwriter has always been quick to cite his sources, which stretch from the pop smashes of the Motown age to the revolutionary output of one of his all-time favourites, The Beatles.
Inevitably, the Fab Four would make it into Springsteen’s band-based Mount Rushmore. After all, it was the band’s momentous performance on The Ed Sullivan Show back in 1964 that formed the songwriter’s musical awakening, without which he might never have realised his incredible songwriting potential. The Beatles are not, however, the only band to have impacted Springsteen’s sensibilities over the years.
During one discussion on the SiriusXM show From My Home To Yours back in 2023, the topic of Mount Rushmore artists came up, and Springsteen revealed once and for all the four bands that would make it into stone. Wasting no time in debating, the songwriter declared, “It’s Beatles, Stones, Animals, that’s how my playlist goes, you know.” Before adding, “But any Dave Clark Five fans?”
Those four choices would certainly make for a Mount Rushmore of the British invasion period, being the biggest outfits of that era, but they offer a potentially narrow scope for the entirety of Springsteen’s taste. After all, ‘The Boss’ has drawn upon everything from the folk stylings of Bob Dylan to the soulful mastery of Marvin Gaye, both of whom you might expect to make an appearance in his rankings.
Then again, it is worth remembering that those four groups were all dominating the rock and roll airwaves during Springsteen’s youth, when he was still finding his feet as a budding young songwriter.
Whatever influences he picked up during his later years, it was the initial spark of those British invasion groups that set him on his journey, which might explain the relatively one-track nature of his selected musical Mount Rushmore.
At the same time, it’s difficult to denounce any of the included artists for their impact on the lineage of rock and roll. Without the likes of The Rolling Stones or The Beatles, in particular, the very fabric of rock and pop music would be virtually unrecognisable, so it would be hard for anybody – even someone with as broad a taste as Springsteen – to omit them from the rankings.
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