Bruce Springsteen – ‘Born to Run’
Bruce Springsteen has always sought something more out of rock and roll. From the moment he strummed his first chords, The Boss believed there was a power in his favourite music that spoke beyond the typical party theme that everyone danced to. There was another area of rock on the other side of the highway, and Born to Run is the sound of Springsteen going that extra mile.
After playing for the past few years with The E Street Band on Greetings from Asbury Park, it became widely seen that Springsteen was the future and the second coming of Bob Dylan. Although Bruce shared Dylan’s love of wordplay, the songs on Born to Run are incomparable to the voice of the 1960s and show Springsteen isn’t a replica of anybody else.
Across eight tracks, Springsteen paints a picture of what it means to be a down-and-out working-class kid in America, dreaming of a better life. Starting with ‘Thunder Road’, Springsteen sets up the scene with a screen door slamming and envisioning a life he can have with Mary outside their nowhere town. Starting with a simple piano accompaniment, Springsteen admits that he and Mary aren’t that young anymore, so they should soak up life while they can still make something of themselves.
As the sounds of E Street get stronger with every hit, Springsteen grows more desperate in his vocal delivery, saying that he knows he’s in a dead town full of losers, but he’s determined to win at all costs. Once the sound of Clarence Clemons’ saxophone kicks in, Springsteen goes into a glorious outro, which is akin to stepping into a car and driving off on a mission to find paradise on Earth. The same sentiment is expressed in the title track, which serves as Springsteen’s de facto anthem. As much as the dreams of the narrator and Wendy might seem out of reach in this effort, he would rather go down swinging than have to face a world where he didn’t try to fulfil his dreams.
No man can reach utopia alone, and Springsteen owes most of his power to The E Street Band. After working down to the bone during rehearsals, every member stepped up to the expectations in these songs. While Stevie Van Zandt remained Springsteen’s musical blood brother, the rolling piano of Roy Bittan plays a vital role in every song, combining the bombast of rock’s glory days while also looking towards the future.
Although Max Weinberg doesn’t play flashy notes on every song, his breaks on the title track and ‘Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out’ incorporate a sense of groove that can’t be matched. ‘Freeze-Out’ also details the semi-autobiographical story about the group’s formation, from Springsteen’s run-ins with the law to Clemons’ ‘Big Man’ persona coming out in full force once he’s introduced.
In every one of these songs, Springsteen inhabits ghosts of both past and present. On ‘Backstreets’, he takes a trip back to his childhood that’s lost to history, where he goes hiding on the backstreets of town.
The main thesis of the album also has to do with the setting of each song. These tracks occur exclusively at night, evoking a rock and roll stage play with Springsteen as the narrator. Although the night is a dark setting for each tale, its namesake track ‘Night’ gives a more nuanced look at what happens after dark. Some of the seediest people might come out at night, but Springsteen views the night as an escape from the blue-collar lifestyle.
Since this is the mean streets of New Jersey, the album isn’t safe from a sprinkling of shady characters. In ‘Meeting Across the River’, Springsteen mentions overseeing a deal going down with a dubious character and asking his friend to stuff his pocket to make it look like he’s armed.
Despite the chill of the night air and the dark undercurrent of these songs, Springsteen is a natural romantic throughout. The myth of the rock and roll hero is only enjoyable if there’s someone by their side, and Springsteen captures teen angst better than anyone on ‘She’s the One’. While not every companion in this album is a standout in a traditional sense, Springsteen mentions that it’s about the shape of their heart rather than what’s on the surface.
That romantic edge also translates into the album’s final track, ‘Jungleland’, Springsteen’s rock and roll take on a theatre piece. Spanning over nine minutes, the song is a journey through the late-night mayhem of New Jersey. Though there is a sense of bombast throughout the song, the second act is different, as Clemons’ saxophone line drenches the tune in melancholy before Springsteen comes back.
As he looks upon his city, he returns to make an honest stand before his heroes end up wounded in the streets. The defeat in his voice on the lines “they end up wounded/not even dead” is palpable, as if dying for what they believed in would have been better than being confined to their nowhere town all over again. It might not be the most romantic ending, but it’s more realistic than most critics would care to admit.
Springsteen made a masterpiece with this album by taking a genuine approach to rock music. While there aren’t many pieces to the puzzle here, each serves its role perfectly. As these characters hope for redemption by the end, it’s never clear whether it comes to them.
As the rest of the rock scene became dominated by hard rock bands that were used to pushing the envelope in the ’70s, Springsteen remained proud of his roots. ‘The Boss’ believed in the church of rock and roll, and that passion was more than enough to get any rock fan on board.