In the cannon of great Springsteen lyrics, that has to be one of the best. And 40 years after "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)" was released it still resonates. Whenever it makes the setlist, thousands of his fans sing along, loudly, at his sold out arena and stadium concerts, around the country and the world. That song, and the album it came from, told tales of colorful characters from the New Jersey Shore and New York City: Little Dynamite, Little Gun, Sloppy Sue, Big Balls Billy, Little Angel, Sandy, Kitty and Wild Billy. And if those characters aren't recognizable south of the Mason Dixon or west of the Great Lakes, much less across oceans in Europe or Australia, everyone can relate to the universality of that lyric. It works when you're twenty, and it works when you're sixty.

E Street Band alumni David Sancious played keyboards on The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle, and he still marvels at that phrase. "That's one of my favorite lines he's ever written," he tells Radio.com. "He's a deep guy; there's not a lot of twenty year olds who would have the insight to come up with something like that, but that's one of his gifts, he's a very deep person." But that insight and depth didn't come at the expense of a good time. Observe this late-'70s live performance of the song, which made a night out a story of operatic proportions. Yes, one day it might seem funny, but Springsteen & The E Street Band were dead serious about giving their fans a live show to remember.