As far as individual songs go, it really depends. I'm a sucker for the epics, especially "Backstreets." I really became attached to that song just through listening to it as I was walking around one night, the desperation and bitterness in the song are just so momentous; one particular section NEVER fails to reach deep into me and just rip everything out...
Endless juke joints and Valentino drag where dancers scraped the tears
Up off the street dressed down in rags running into the darkness
Some hurt bad some really dying at night sometimes it seemed
You could hear the whole damn city crying blame it on the lies that killed us
Blame it on the truth that ran us down you can blame it all on me Terry
It don't matter to me now when the breakdown hit at midnight
There was nothing left to say but I hated him and I hated you when you went away...
Let me tell you a quick a story about the song "Backstreets." When I was 13 in 1984, Bruce was at the zenith of his popularity. To put into persepctive, he was selling 17 million copies of
Born in the USA and on a sold-out 18 month tour. He sang on "We Are the World," had a song from that album called "Trapped" that received heavy airplay, and even his B-sides like "Janey Don't You Lose Heart" and "Pink Cadillac" were constantly on the radio. In other words, Bruce was EVERYWHERE.
A friend of mine in gradeschool turned me onto Bruce's music. We were on the speech team in 8th grade. My aforementioned friend, Mike, for his speech recited the lyrics for "Backstreets." It was (and probably still is) his favorite Bruce Springsteen song. We all practiced our speeches for weeks. I remember going to see him recite the speech and he won. In fact, the rules stated that the students had to go to the podium with their speech written out. But Mike knew the words backword and forward. So that he would not be disqualified, our teacher wrote the lyrics out 15 minutes before the speeches were to begin, with Mike reciting it line by line.
"Backstreets is #3 on my favorite Bruce songs, trailing only "The Promised Land" and "Born to Run." While the electric version of the latter is phenominal, the acoustic version is every bit as good. It can be found here and on the "Chimes of Freedom EP" and "the Bruce Springsteen Video Anthology."
Born to Run (acoustic)
