Bruce Springsteen Joins Colbert on 'The Late Show,' Picks His Top 5 Favorite Songs

Rock legend Bruce Springsteen has a new autobiography coming out early next week titled Born to Run, and in order to help promote it, he booked a rare, four-segment appearance on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert last night. While ranking things into lists might have been a mainstay of the Late Show's old host David Letterman, Colbert asked The Boss midway through the interview to name his top five picks from his own catalogue.

"That's a tough one," Springsteen said before gamely launching into it. "I'd have to put 'Born to Run' up there. I guess for me, 'The Rising' was a big song. Well, what do we play every night? We play 'Thunder Road' pretty regularly. 'Nebraska' was a good one." At the end, Springsteen seemed to be having a little bit of trouble, so audience members started calling out names of famous tracks just like it was one of his four-hour mega-concerts. Finally, he settled on "Racing in the Streets."

Fittingly, the chat took place at the Ed Sullivan Theater, the same place where Springsteen saw Elvis perform live as a kid, which inspired him to become a musician. "At 7, I don't know how much of a life I had to change, but whatever I had it struck me right away and I got my mother and we ran down to the store the next week and we rented a guitar." At the end of the interview, because it just so happened to be his birthday that day, Colbert presented Springsteen with a schematic blueprint of the historic building.

You can watch clips from the entire interview in the videos above.

Related links:

• Watch Jay-Z and Bruce Springsteen Perform at President Obama's Final Rallies

• Bruce Springsteen Pays Tribute to David Bowie With a Performance of "Rebel Rebel"

• Download a Live Recording of Bruce Springsteen's Chicago Show Before You See Him at Madison Square Garden

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