Song · Bruce Springsteen
“Darkness on the Edge of Town” by Bruce Springsteen
From the album Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978)
“Darkness on the Edge of Town” by Bruce Springsteen appears on 13 radio countdowns from 9 stations between 1982 and 2024. It was first released in 1978 on the album Darkness on the Edge of Town. Its best result is #221 on the WYEP Labor Day Weekend Countdown 2019. In the combined RockLists rankings it is #581 indie & aaa song of all time.
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"Darkness on the Edge of Town" closes Bruce Springsteen's 1978 album of the same name, and it was the last thing he cut and mixed for it. In April 1978 he made it the title song of a record about people at the bottom fighting not just to get by but to hold on to their spirit, and this one sketches a hard-luck loser who flatly refuses to quit. It came three years after Born to Run, with a legal fight against his old manager Mike Appel holding him up for two of them.
Springsteen sings and plays guitar and harmonica, with Roy Bittan on piano, Danny Federici on organ, Little Steven on guitar, Garry Tallent on bass, Max Weinberg on drums and Clarence Clemons on saxophone and percussion. He produced it with Jon Landau, and Jimmy Iovine recorded it and mixed it with Chuck Plotkin.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Indie & Adult Alternative
Classic Rock
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1982 | 426 | 95.5 KLOS | KLOS Memorial Day 500 (1982) | 499 |
| 1996 | 248 | WNEW-FM | WNEW Firecracker 500 (1996) | 500 |
| 2001 | 1073 | WFPK | WFPK 2001 Greatest Songs of All Time | 2000 |
| 2004 | 640 | WXPN | WXPN 885 All-Time Greatest Songs (2004) | 885 |
| 2007 | 651 | WTMD | WTMD Top 897 Songs of All Time | 897 |
| 2014 | 482 | WXPN | WXPN 885 All-Time Greatest Songs (2014) | 885 |
| 2019 | 221 | WYEP | WYEP Big Spring Countdown 2019 | 1017 |
| 2019 | 221 | WYEP | WYEP Labor Day Weekend Countdown 2019 | 1099 |
| 2020 | 537 | WXPN | WXPN 2020 Greatest Songs of All Time | 2020 |
| 2022 | 907 | 90.9 The Bridge | 90.9 The Bridge Top 909 Songs of the '70s | 908 |
| 2023 | 538 | The Colorado Sound | The Colorado Sound Top 850 Songs of the 1980s | 850 |
| 2024 | 639 | Q104.3 | Q104.3 Top 1,043 Classic Rock Songs of All Time (2024) | 1043 |
| 2024 | 310 | WYEP | WYEP Best Songs of the Past 50 Years | 1049 |
Also listed as: Darkness On The Edge Of Town; Darkness At The Edge Of Town.
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