Bruce Springsteen's Net Worth Makes Him "The Boss"
A National Local Hero
As any Bruce Springsteen fan can tell you, there are really only two types of people. The majority love “The Boss” and all he stands for. And the rest? Well, they obviously don’t appreciate real rock’n’roll. Plus, they probably hate America, and working for a living, and blue jeans. In short, if you’re not on board with Bruce Springsteen, you must not be a very good person.
Now ask those same fans to name some Springsteen songs or albums… other than “Born in the U.S.A.” You might have to give them a minute. Some will come up with “Born To Run,” at which point you can make some sort of “born” identity wisecrack. So what else? There have to be more, right?
That’s when you discover there are really three types of people across the U.S. There are some who maybe don’t get “The Boss” or care for his particular style of workingman’s rock’n’roll. There are no doubt a solid minority scattered here and there who know every album and most of his lyrics and who aren’t surprised when someone points out that “Born in the U.S.A.” isn’t nearly as patriotic as it first sounds.
But there’s a third group – the rest of us, who think we know who Bruce Springsteen is and probably don’t change the station when his “E Street Band” comes on, but who also can’t come up with a third song he’s done, although we’re pretty sure he’s a way bigger deal than that. Like standing for the flag or putting our right hand over our heart for the Pledge of Allegiance, we kinda feel like we’re supposed to swoon or salute or respond in some specific red, white, and blue way when his name is mentioned.
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Springsteen is one of that handful of artists who’s not simply a commercial success – he’s an icon. A symbol of something many Americans want to believe about ourselves. And, like so many other symbols, it’s not really about knowing more about him so much as it is projecting onto him our own ideas about what music and patriotism really—
Oh! “Dancing In The Dark”! Told you there were more!
What was that you were saying about projecting our own something or other?
The Ties That Bind
Springsteen’s story does actually fit pretty well into the typical American version of a “rock hero’s journey.” Born in New Jersey to a working class family whose immigrant roots were still alive and at the table, Springsteen grew up surrounded by the rough, blue collar mentality and typical working class struggles he’d later both celebrate and lament in his lyrics. Bruce spent his early years in Catholic school, then transferred to the local public high school in 9th grade.
Like a made-for-TV movie, he struggled with authority, never getting into serious trouble but remembered as something of an outsider, more interested in playing his cheap guitar and feeling misunderstood than pleasing his teachers.
He probably didn’t have the bandana hanging out of his back pocket just yet, but he might as well have.
Springsteen has never really done anything other than music, but you’d never know it to hear him sing. His songs celebrate working people and their struggles like few have in our generation. Like Woody Guthrie in the early 20th century or Bob Dylan in the 1960s and 1970s, Bruce Springsteen’s music resonates with people not because it’s complicated or even all that sophisticated. People love it because it’s genuine, and for many they feel like it’s about them.
Whatever the reason, it’s working. While I wasn’t necessarily kidding about how few people can name more than handful of Bruce Springsteen songs, far more than that would recognize almost anything in his catalogue if it came on the radio or you started blasting it on your mp3 player or streaming device of choice. He’s been prolific enough over the years that Rolling Stone had enough material to compile a list of the Top 100 Bruce Springsteen songs. That doesn’t mean they put all of his songs in order - they only picked out the REALLY good ones. Even then, the list only narrowed to 100.
So, yeah… maybe he’s doing something right.
Glory Days
Does being the voice of the little guy pay well? Maybe not always, but it can. Bruce Springsteen’s net worth certainly suggests that one need not be poor or middle class in order to connect with those who are. Springsteen’s estimated net worth is right at $650 million in 2024, meaning if you made $100,000 a year and had zero expenses, it would take you about 6,500 years to catch up.
No pressure.
To be fair, it took Bruce a few years as well. (Not quite 5,000 of them, but his success wasn’t exactly overnight either.) He played for several years around New Jersey and surrounding areas as he put together what would become known as his “E Street Band.” He was signed by Columbia Records in 1972 and in 1973 released his first album, Greetings From Asbury Park. Critics were fairly positive, but… it didn’t really sell. That was OK - Springsteen kept doing what he did, and record labels were a bit more patient in those days.
That’s good, because his second effort, The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle was received with a shrug as well. Critics were taking even more notice, but the sales just weren’t what Columbia had hoped. And yet, these were different times. What today would mean your relegation to The Masked Singer five years from now in the 1970s simply meant you really needed number three to pay off.
It did.
1975’s Born To Run rocketed to #3 on the Billboard charts and the title track was almost instantly burned into rock’n’roll canon.
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If you were alive in the 70s and think back, you may recall that 1975 was a big year for Earth, Wind, and Fire (“Shining Star”), the Bee Gees (“Jive Talkin’”), Glenn Campbell (“Rhinestone Cowboy”), and B.J. Thomas (“Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song”).
Nothing against any of those artists (although if I were busting out any Bee Gees these days I’d probably go a bit further back), but nothing else on the charts was anything like “The Boss.” Arena-sounding guitars, lyrics about love and loss and struggle and dreams… it’s what Nickelback might have sounded like if they were actually any good.
Tougher Than The Rest
From there, Springsteen and the E Streeters just kept doing what they do. Unlike some commercially successful artists at the time, Bruce and company weren’t content to just put in their time in the studio and let the guys at the boards clean it up. They recorded for as many hours as it took to get it just right, pouring just as much sweat and raw emotion into the twenty-seventh take as they had the third.
Springsteen’s live shows, too, soon became known for their marathon lengths. While other bands were maybe offering 90 minutes or - if they were particularly devout - a couple of hours, E Street would go for three or four hours if the crowd were with them.
Whether you know all the lyrics to “Prove It All Night” or not, you gotta respect the commitment to fans and to the music.
Then came the year 1984. President Reagan was sailing comfortably to a second term and America was feeling more optimistic and good about itself than it had since the end of World War II. Springsteen wrote and recorded a song about a Vietnam veteran who sacrificed everything for his country and can’t seem to get his life back when he comes back home. Like a good country song, he lost his woman, his job - I’m pretty sure his dog rejects him in one verse cut at the last minute.
“BORN IN THE U.S.A.! I WAS BORN IN THE U.S.A.! I WAS BORN IN THE U.S.A.! I WAS BORN IN THE U.S.A.!”
The chorus was defiant, declaring into the darkness that the character narrating deserved better. After all, he was…
You get the idea.
This being America, audiences largely overlooked the subtleties (meaning all of the words to the song other than the chorus) and received it as a massive patriotic anthem. Springsteen was bewildered, but also suddenly very, very rich. It’s not like he’d sold out and did a cheesy dance number or posed nude.
The song was what it was. If people wanted to buy it and play it loudly and feel good about it, more power to them. Plus, he won a Grammy for the album, so… legit industry cred, friends.
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Lessons From Bruce Springsteen’s Net Worth
I don’t want to oversell what we can learn from the Boss’s success. I mean, “be born with an amazing wealth of natural talent” may be good advice, but it’s not like most of us can control that part, right?
Still, you know by now that I’m a fan of drawing whatever lessons may be there, and in the case of Springsteen, it’s easy. If you write, paint, sing, build, speak, share, etc., never shy away from being who you are and building on what you know. Maybe Springsteen didn’t work in every factory or ride every train, but those struggles were still his struggles and those people were his people. You can learn techniques and practice skills, but sincerity has to be, well…
Sincere.
Love him or merely accept that he’s ubiquitous on classic rock radio, you can’t deny that Springsteen is sincere. He’s the real deal, for better or worse. And in his case, he can take that to the bank.