"Hungry Heart" is a ballad 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 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart peaking at number five. History 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, a technique first used by Brian Wilson in the production of "Caroline, No" in 1966. (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 No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in late 1980 and was his biggest hit until "Dancing in the Dark" hit No. 2 in 1984. In the subsequent Rolling Stone Readers' Poll, "Hungry Heart" was voted Best Single for the year. "Hungry Heart" was used on several movie soundtracks over the years; including the obscure 1982 Israeli film Kvish L'Lo Motzah (a.k.a. Dead End Street, which was the first motion picture to feature Springsteen music), the 1983 Tom Cruise hit movie Risky Business, the 1992 dramedy Peter's Friends, and the 1998 Adam Sandler comedy The Wedding Singer. In 2000 the song was used in the film The Perfect Storm as well as in 2013 in Warm Bodies. It was also featured in the eleventh episode of season 2 of The Handmaid's Tale. The single was his first British hit in the United Kingdom, although only reaching No. 44 on the UK Singles Chart. It did better in 1995 when reissued in conjunction with his Greatest Hits album, and reached No. 28. On the day of his murder in December 1980, John Lennon said he thought "Hungry Heart" was "a great record" and even compared it to