Dancing in the Dark

Jon Landau told Bruce Springsteen that his new album needed a single, and the singer did not take it well. According to journalist Dave Marsh, Springsteen snarled at the suggestion and told Landau to write the extra song himself if he wanted one. Despite the resistance, Springsteen sat in his hotel room that night and wrote "Dancing in the Dark" in a single sitting. The lyrics summed up his state of mind at the time, his isolation after the success of The River and his frustrations over trying to write a hit.

Six takes were recorded on February 14, 1984, at The Hit Factory, and after 58 mixes the work was completed on March 8. Released that May as the first single from Born in the U.S.A., the song became the album's biggest hit and the highest-selling 12-inch single in the United States that year. It spent four weeks at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached No. 1 on the Cash Box chart, where it stayed for two weeks. The recording also won Springsteen his first Grammy Award, for Best Rock Vocal Performance in 1985.

Brian De Palma directed the music video, shot at the Saint Paul Civic Center over two nights in late June 1984, the second being the opening date of the Born in the U.S.A. Tour. At the end of the clip, Springsteen invites a young woman from the audience to dance with him, played by Courteney Cox. He did not know until afterward that she was a professional actress brought in from New York City, and Cox later said she had been secretly hoping not to be picked.