5 Songs You Didn't Know Bruce Springsteen Wrote For Other Famous Musicians

Bruce Springsteen, both on his own and front and center with his loyal E Street Band, is a rock 'n' roll legend. Not just as a performer but as a songwriter, creating songs for himself and other famous musicians. While Springsteen is best known for hard-luck anthems and small-town laments, he often ventures outside of his comfort zone of that place where Americana meets arena rock. He can write about love, partying, rock 'n' roll itself, and confusion with the best songwriters in the genre. But sometimes, those songs don't quite fit his performance style, or they don't resonate with the public as readily or as easily as they would if they were recorded by someone else. 

And so, since even before he became a household name in the 1970s, Springsteen has farmed out his compositions to more appropriate acts. He's got a pretty good rate of return, too, as many of those songs became massive hits for other people. Here are five very well-known songs performed by a bevy of rock and pop acts that were all wholly originated by Bruce Springsteen.

"Blinded by the Light" first appeared on vinyl in 1973 as the opening track on Bruce Springsteen's first studio album, "Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J." The LP peaked at a lowly No. 60 on the Billboard album chart, and the single couldn't even crack the Hot 100, rendering the track a flop. About four years later, the song Springsteen wrote on his own and recorded almost unassisted found new life and popularity when a faded rock band went chasing hits. 

Manfred Mann hadn't enjoyed a Top 10 hit since 1968. After tooling around with jazz, he regrouped under the name Manfred Mann's Earth Band and recorded a freewheeling, hard-rocking, and lightly psychedelic version of "Blinded by the Light," loaded with '70s song lyrics that left everyone scratching their heads. "With a boulder on my shoulder, feelin' kinda older / I tripped the merry-go-round," Springsteen wrote, as well as relating the experience of being "revved up like a deuce" and not, as is commonly misinterpreted, "wrapped up like" a feminine hygiene product with a similar name. In February 1977, the cover hit No. 1 on the pop chart. So although Springsteen is a rock legend with zero No. 1 hits, he at least landed a chart-topper as a writer.

"Fire" wasn't supposed to be a Bruce Springsteen record. The musician wrote "Fire" specifically for, and unprompted by, Elvis Presley, one of his longest-lasting musical heroes. But as fate would have it, Springsteen finished "Fire," a sultry, playful love jam that's heavy on the low end, in 1977, the same year that Presley died at the age of 42. And so, the first act to record "Fire" wasn't Presley but a contemporary rockabilly singer who emulated Presley, Robert Gordon. Springsteen played the keyboards on Gordon's recording of his composition, which appeared on the 1978 LP "Fresh Fish Special." 

Later in 1978, genre-hopping sibling act the Pointer Sisters included "Fire" on their album "Energy." When released as a single, it was a smash — the Pointer Sisters would never chart higher than they did in early 1979 when "Fire" went all the way to No. 2. In fact, the song is more closely associated with the Pointer Sisters than it is with the person who composed it. Springsteen included his "Fire" on the "Live / 1975–1985" collection, and the single only made it up to No. 46 in 1987.

Party rocker Gary U.S. Bonds notched seven Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 between 1960 and 1962, including the No. 1 hit "Quarter to Three." Bonds was subsequently written off as awkwardly out of date by the music industry, and by the late 1970s, he was playing to small crowds in clubs and bars. One evening in 1978, Springsteen learned that Bonds was performing in a New Jersey nightclub. Springsteen was a Bonds acolyte, regularly playing "Quarter to Three" as an encore at his shows. That's the song they performed together the night they met, despite Bonds having no knowledge of the Boss.

The friendship and professional partnership blossomed, and Springsteen produced Bonds' first album in decades, 1981's "Dedication." Not only did Springsteen and various members of the E Street Band offer their services throughout the LP's tracks, but Springsteen also wrote the standout song and single, "This Little Girl." After rousing Bonds from sleep to ask if he liked the bones of the song he'd developed, Springsteen remained awake to fully compose the song. A '60s throwback with an '80s production sheen, "This Little Girl" reached No. 11 on the Hot 100.

The Barbusters are a fictional band that scored a real Billboard hit. In 1987, the not-real bar band's "Light of Day" was a minor success, reaching No. 33 on the Hot 100. "Light of Day" is also the name of the musical drama in which the song originated — the Barbusters' music was actually played and recorded by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. Jett co-starred in the movie with Michael J. Fox, and the pair played siblings who fronted a Cleveland band.

The Barbusters' songs featured in "Light of Day" were written by multiple parties, including Jett, Andy Fraser of Free, and Bruce Springsteen, at the time one of the most visible and popular rock stars in the world. Springsteen got involved with "Light of Day" in order to pay off a perceived debt. In the mid-1970s, when his career was just starting to take off, he received a script from filmmaker Paul Schrader about a gritty band called "Born in the USA." Springsteen didn't want to get into acting, but about a decade later, he used the title "Born in the USA" for a blockbuster album and hit single. When Schrader finally got to make his rock movie in the late '80s, under the name "Light of Day," Springsteen sent along what would be the movie's title song. "My polite attempt at paying Paul back for my fortuitous and career-boosting theft," Springsteen wrote in his memoir "Born to Run."

Throughout the '60s and early '70s, the Hollies were known for soaring, affecting, and sophisticated pop like "Bus Stop," "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother," and "Stop, Stop, Stop." After the return of singer Allan Clarke in 1973, the band were in the midst of an attempted comeback. The only song on the 1975 album "Another Night" not written by members of the Hollies was "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)." Composed by Bruce Springsteen, he'd recorded it on his initially ignored 1973 LP "The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle."

Clarke wasn't just a big fan — he was an early adopter. He became aware of the still little-known Springsteen when a friend who ran a music publishing company shared some of the songs the aspiring rocker had sent in for consideration. As a solo act, Clarke recorded Springsteen's "If I Were the Priest" and "Born to Run." With the Hollies, he took on "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)," an evocative and emotional glimpse of summer in a New Jersey vacation town. As a single and with the slightly altered title of "Sandy (4th of July, Asbury Park)," the sadly gorgeous song underperformed. Appearing on the Hot 100 for two weeks, the Springsteen cover peaked at No. 85.