Watch Fallon and Springsteen sing 'Born to Run,' Bridgegate edition

(Image credit: NBC/YouTube)

last updated 8 January 2015

If the Jimmy Fallon-era Tonight Show is going to be like this, Jay Leno is joking on borrowed time. On Tuesday's show, Fallon performed one of his impressive in-character musical tributes, this time channeling Bruce Springsteen.

Fallon isn't the first late-night comedian to use Springsteen's breakout song "Born to Run" to poke fun at the scandal ensnaring New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), whose top aides created traffic jams on the New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge, apparently as political payback to a Democratic mayor. But his parody is perhaps the perfect late-night response to Bridgegate — better, certainly, than the fat jokes.

Fallon's song is funny, though not all that mean-spirited, and it involves Springsteen, one of Christie's professed idols. When Springsteen joins in the performance, it's just icing on the cake. Fallon and Springsteen aren't always perfectly on the beat, and at some points Fallon does a better Springsteen than Springsteen himself (maybe it's the wig?), but it's no easy feat to come up with the pitch-perfect joke about the big political story of the day. Kudos to Fallon. Christie can take it.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.