"Hungry Heart" is a song written and performed by Bruce Springsteen on his fifth album, The River. It was released as the album's lead single in 1980 and became Springsteen's first big hit without the E Street Band on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

When Springsteen met Joey Ramone in Asbury Park, New Jersey, Ramone asked him to write a song for The Ramones. Springsteen composed "Hungry Heart" that night, but decided to keep it for himself on the advice of his producer and manager, Jon Landau. Previously, upbeat and catchy Springsteen songs such as "Blinded by the Light", "Because the Night", and "Fire" had been given away and become hits for others, and Landau preferred the trend not continue.

The title is drawn from a line in Alfred, Lord Tennyson's famous poem "Ulysses": "For always roaming with a hungry heart".

Springsteen's voice was slightly sped up on the recording, producing a higher-pitched vocal. (Dire Straits had done the same thing on 1978's "Setting Me Up".) Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan of The Turtles sang backup. The mix of songwriting and production techniques was successful, and "Hungry Heart" reached #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in late 1980 and was his biggest hit until "Dancing in the Dark" hit #2 in 1984. In the subsequent Rolling Stone Readers' Poll, "Hungry Heart" was voted Best Single for the year.

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