“Dancing in the Dark” is Bruce Springsteen’s most poppy song. It’s got that big hook. It was remixed to be spun by club DJs. Its video features a doe-eyed Courteney Cox.

“The original is really peppy, really fun,” Ward Hayden told the Boston Herald. “But it’s a song of despair. It’s a song about not knowing where to go, not being happy with your situation and blindly trying to find your way out.”

Ward Hayden & the Outliers’ take on the tune slows it down and frames the grim lyrics — “Stay on the streets of this town and they’ll be carvin’ you up alright/They say you gotta stay hungry, hey baby, I’m just about starvin’ tonight.”

“I felt like we might have done it the way he wrote it,” Hayden said.

New England’s best honky tonk and alt country outfit, the Outliers spent the last couple years digging through Springsteen’s catalog. The results are two albums of cover songs — “Little By Little” came out last month with release parties at the Lizard Lounge on May 22 and 23; follow-up “Piece By Piece” will be out in the fall.

The impulse for the LPs came from Hayden hearing a fellow country singer tear down Springsteen in an interview, saying people should stop listening to him.

“I was a little bit disturbed by it,” Hayden said.

The idea was to go into the studio and record two songs as a sort of counterpoint — “Brilliant Disguise” and “Cadillac Ranch.” But, with no real mission or intention, Springsteen tribute sessions continued over a few years and across a couple studios. Between these sessions, Ward Hayden & the Outliers released a set of originals — 2023’s excellent, twang-and-ballad filled “South Shore” which features the very Boss-like “(Breaking Up with) My Hometown.” Eventually, Hayden decided the band had spent too much time and money to not put out the covers.

“Once we had the 16th song (done), I said, ‘We’ve got to prioritize this,” he said. “But we couldn’t fit it all on one vinyl so there are two. So many of these songs just lent themselves so well to a country lean with elements of early rock ‘n’ roll and a lot of the styles that we do.”

Some of the songs dig into novel reinventions like “Dancing in the Dark” — a fiddle doubles the iconic harmonica line “Promise Land;” “If I Should Fall” highlights Hayden’s distinctive voice (a magic set of pipes somewhere between Roy Orbison and Dwight Yoakam). Others relax into the barn burners they always wanted to be, see “Cadillac Ranch.”

“We tried some that didn’t work,” Hayden said with a laugh. “But Springsteen might be more country than people realize. He was inspired by Hank Williams according to his autobiography.”

Hayden is right about the country connection. Last week, Springsteen released the very-Ward Hayden & the Outliers “Repo Man,” a song from shelved 1995 country album “Somewhere North of Nashville” — the record will be released June 27 as part of Springsteen’s “Tracks II: The Lost Albums.” Maybe the Boss should return the favor and record a set of Outliers songs. A natural starting point would be “(Breaking up with) My Hometown.”

For tickets and details, visit wardhaydenandtheoutliers.com