David Letterman’s last episode on NBC featured a memorable performance from Bruce Springsteen

There was no better way for David Letterman to tell the NBC execs they weren’t the boss of him: by deploying the real Boss!

On June 25, 1993, Letterman left NBC with a spring in his step, moving from 30 Rockefeller Center to the Ed Sullivan Theater and a new gig at CBS. He also made sure his last show at the old shop was an absolute barn burner — featuring some greatest hits clips (including the time he tried, and failed, to bring a fruit basket to his new corporate chieftains), a particularly hilarious visit from Tom Hanks, and Bruce Springsteen tearing it up with one of his best TV appearances and a fiery version of his hit “Glory Days.”

Letterman’s departure from Late Night With David Letterman, with Jay Leno taking over the Tonight Show gig from Johnny Carson that the Indiana-bred funnyman thought was rightfully his, was a major showbiz story, leading to a well-publicized bidding war for Letterman’s talents and lawyers declaring that some of his gags were the “intellectual property” of NBC. (Indeed, the legal term “intellectual property” was not part of the popular vernacular the way it is now, and we have the Letterman-NBC feud to blame.) This whole song-and-dance was even made into an HBO film called The Late Shift directed by Betty Thomas.

In introducing Springsteen, Letterman said that in the 11 and a half years the show had been on, the New Jersey rocker was the only guest he wanted to have on but never did. With a “better late than never,” he welcomed the Boss.

Wearing a flannel shirt and jeans, he joined the World’s Most Dangerous Band, Paul Shaffer’s group that would soon change its name to the CBS Orchestra. Joining Springsteen were, on drums, Anton Fig; on guitar, Sig McGinnis; on keys, Shaffer; sitting in on sax and tambourine for the night, David Sanborn; and for reasons that remain elusive to our cursory internet research, Francisco Centeno on bass, and not Will Lee. (Weirdly enough, other than Shaffer, Lee was the musician with the longest tenure in the band — but he wasn’t there that night!)

They played the appropriate tune for a send off — “Glory Days” — and if you’ve never seen the clip, luckily it lives forever on YouTube thanks to some people who have uploaded it, in soft violation of NBC’s intellectual property rights.

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“Glory Days,” a track on Springsteen’s 1984 album Born in the U.S.A., was already a well-loved classic in 1993. When released as a single in 1985, it reached No. 5 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart, thanks in no small part to the energetic video, which was directed by the acclaimed filmmaker John Sayles.

The bar sequences in the video were shot at the Hoboken, N.J., club Maxwell’s, a legendary establishment that opened in 1978 and lasted until 2018. (It was the home base for two very important indie rock groups, The Feelies and Yo La Tengo.)

But as cool as that video was, it wasn’t as cool as Springsteen jumping up on top of Shaffer’s keyboard rig — leading Letterman to later joke, “If I had known that, I’d’ve gotten on the piano years ago!”

“Glory Days” is a 4-minute and 14-second song on the album, but the Late Night performance was about six minutes. This reporter remembers the episode going a little over its time, a final “so long!” from the show to NBC.

The Boss would make three more appearances on a Letterman stage. In April 1995, he and the E Street Band stopped by the Late Show With David Letterman and played “Murder, Incorporated” and “Secret Garden,” and then again in December of that year, he came with just his acoustic guitar to sing “Youngstown.”

In 2002, Springsteen and the E Street Band performed “The Rising” and “Lonesome Day” — and for the first time he sat on Letterman’s couch to trade some zings. Click below to hear a fine retort when Letterman asks Springsteen if he ever sings along to his own songs in the car.