Bruce performed the song 2 times:

 

The only surviving recording is from 1972, during the Bruce Springsteen Band period.

 

 

1972-02-04 Back Door (The), Richmond, VA

 

1968-09-00 Ocean County College, Toms River, NJ
Springsteen (along with fellow Earth-band members John Graham and Michael Burke) entered Ocean County College in September 1968. Bruce ended up staying for three semesters, dropping out in December 1969 shortly after his parents moved to California. Earth is believed to have performed several times at Ocean County College during the September to December 1968 period. Springsteen even contributed a piece of poetry to Seascape, the school's Literary Yearbook. The twenty-six mentioned songs are taken from the only known Earth-era repertoire listing. The document is likely to have been created by Springsteen in September or October 1968. The amount of tracks displayed, their sequencing, plus the header and numbering notation by Bruce, all point to this as being an inventory of Earth's live repertoire of 'cover' material. For this reason it is of greater historical significance than an individual gig setlist, particularly in that no Earth audio is circulating. A few of these songs are performance hold-overs from the The Castiles-era. Since Earth was a three-piece band it's hardly surprising that material from both Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience (the era's two premier three-piece bands) are abundantly represented. 

 

FIRE / GET OUT OF MY LIFE, WOMAN / SHAPES OF THINGS / DEAR MR. FANTASY /OUTSIDE WOMAN BLUES / SWLABR / CROSSROADS / POLITICIAN /SPOONFUL / TOAD / SUNSHINE OF YOUR LOVE / PURPLE HAZE / FOXY LADY / SLOW BLUES IN G / FAST BLUES BREAK IN G / THE WAR DRAGS ON / SITTIN’ ON TOP OF THE WORLD / HELP ME / SMOKESTACK LIGHTNING / I’M A MAN / HOOCHIE COOCHIE MAN /JEFF’S BOOGIE / THE MORNING: ANOTHER MORNING / RIDE ON , BABY / BORN TO BE WILD /

  

photo credit Billy Smith

 

"Sitting on Top of the World" (also "Sittin' on Top of the World") is a country blues song written by Walter Vinson and Lonnie Chatmon. They were core members of the Mississippi Sheiks, who first recorded it in 1930. Vinson claimed to have composed the song one morning after playing at a white dance in Greenwood, Mississippi. It became a popular crossover hit for the band. "Sitting on Top of the World" has become a standard of traditional American music. The song has been widely recorded in a variety of different styles – folk, blues, country, bluegrass, rock – often with considerable variations and/or additions to the original verses. The lyrics of the original song convey a stoic optimism in the face of emotional setbacks, and the song has been described as a "simple, elegant distillation of the Blues". The title line of "Sitting on Top of the World" is similar to a well-known popular song of the 1920s, "I'm Sitting on Top of the World", written by Ray Henderson, Sam Lewis and Joe Young (popularised by Al Jolson in 1926). However the two songs are distinct, both musically and lyrically. Similarities have also been noted that "Sitting on Top of the World" was derived from an earlier song by Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell, "You Got To Reap What You Sow" (1929).