Springsteen unveils "Working on a Dream" to football fans

It's hard to believe now that the special guest for the 1970 Super Bowl halftime show was Carol "Hello, Dolly!" Channing. In 1977, the halftime song was "It's a Small World (After All)." And twice in the early 1980s, the feel-good troupe Up With People provided the entertainment. My, how far we've come.

This year, organizers will surely pull out all the stops to ensure Super Bowl XLIII doesn't look like a high-school pep-rally compared with the Olympic Opening Ceremonies in Beijing. First, they need a musical guest of Olympic proportions. They need the Boss.

To begin the hype of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's appearance at Tampa's Raymond James Stadium on February 1, NBC debuted a studio cut from his upcoming album, which will be released during the week of Barack Obama's presidential inauguration. The song is called "Working on a Dream," and was played to a montage of football clips—a pairing that worked well due to its swelling, anthemic, uplifting chorus. (Other pairings that we could see: Ford trucks, political rallies and four-hour concerts). No wardrobe malfunctions (or Disney songs) are expected.

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