Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run

Released - August 1975

Genre - Rock

Producer - Bruce Springsteen; Mike Appel & Jon Landau

Selected Personnel - Bruce Springsteen (Vocals/Guitar/Harmonica/Percussion); Roy Bittan (Piano/Organ/Keyboards); Clarence Clemons (Saxophone); Danny Federici (Organ/Percussion); Garry Tallent (Bass); Max Weinberg (Drums); Ernest Carter (Drums); Suki Lahav (Violin); David Sancious (Piano/Organ); Steve Van Zandt (Backing Vocals/Horn Arrangements); Michael Brecker (Saxophone); Randy Brecker (Trumpet); David Sanborn (Saxophone)

Standout Track - Born To Run

There's an odd contradiction at the heart of all that Bruce Springsteen has come to represent. While his working class origins and his passionate empathy with the everyday struggles of the honest American are entirely at the centre of the heroic figure he has become, his legend has seen him become such an iconic hero that today those working class origins seem slightly absurd. He's become adopted as an emblem of traditional American values, yet often at the expense of what he's trying to say - 1984's "Born In The U.S.A." was preposterously adopted as a patriotic anthem by the Reagan administration despite the fact that its lyrical content made it very clear that it was a scathing attack on America's actions in Vietnam. It's with Born To Run in 1975 that this strange legacy first began to take shape. Today, even though all his songs and all he represents is bound up inevitably with the idea of working class struggle, he's achieved such megastardom that the idea of the Boss once being on the brink of being dropped by his management unless he could come up with a decent hit seems utterly out of place.

But that was the situation Springsteen found himself in by 1974. First touted by manager Mike Appel as a sort of latter-day Dylan for the 70s, his debut album Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J., was a fairly tedious affair that saw Springsteen trying way too hard to justify such claims with verbose folk ballads with little depth or musical virtue to them. The follow-up, The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle was a massive step forward musically, seeing him and his band-mates (soon to be dubbed "The E Street Band") settling into a more conventional R&B/rock & roll vibe, but while it achieved some critical notice, it struggled to capture the imaginations of the American public. Its sprawling songs, from the epic "New York City Serenade" to the extended jam "Kitty's Back" were a long way from catchy, radio-friendly material, so the gauntlet was thrown down - Springsteen needed to deliver a big hit single or risk being dropped altogether. Born To Run saw him call in some new helping hands in the form of pianist Roy Bittan and drummer Max Weinberg, both of whom would become long-term members of the E Street Band to this day, and producer Jon Landau. Having seen Springsteen live in 1974, Landau had written a review in which he described the singer-songwriter as "the future of rock & roll." Tensions between Springsteen and Mike Appel, who had produced his previous albums, were already beginnnig to show, and to help smooth things over and increase productivity, Landau would co-produce the new album along with Appel and help Springsteen to realise the sounds in his head. He reportedly was trying to recreate a Phil Spector-esque Wall of Sound approach, and the resultant sound of Born To Run is suitably air-tight, no longer sounding like a band jamming loosely together but like a well-oiled machine augmented to perfection. It's an approach that frustrates me on certain types of music as it sometimes sucks the life out of the music, but when the songwriting is as tight and anthemic as on this album, a pristine sound actually serves to sell those choruses all the better.

It would be possible to be cynical about Born To Run and point out that it sounds exactly like what it is - a calculated bid for stardom. But it's a testament to just how good it is that it succeeded 100% in its aims. The stories he tells within these songs are less wordy, less exhaustively autobiographical in their recreations of New Jersey locations and aim for a more everyman appeal. "Thunder Road" and "Born To Run" are both coming-of-age tales that see their young protagonists yearning for a freedom that's kept from them by authoritative powers, while "Backstreets" and "Jungleland" are more downbeat epics of loss and relationships fractured and broken by the social pressures that surround them. "Born To Run" itself, of course, was Springsteen's big single, and it was only after hearing an early pressing of it that the record company agreed to continue funding a full album, knowing that they had a hit single on their hands. It finally manages to take the rousing, anthemic sound of Springsteen's songwriting and condense it into a memorable, chest-thumping, iconic piece of music, and the engine-like roar of Springsteen's guitar playing has rarely sounded better.

Speaking of which, Born To Run is the point at which Springsteen's guitar first becomes, essentially, a secondary instrument within the ensemble of the E Street Band. Whereas his two previous albums had been largely guitar-centric, here the songs were composed principally on piano, so Bittan's piano is the principal melodic instrument for many of the songs, such as the delicate tune it chimes out on "Thunder Road" or, most notably, the extended piano-and-organ intro to "Backstreets." Were it not for the pure undeniable anthemic qualities of "Born To Run," "Backstreets" might be the big standout of the album. From its stately prelude to Springsteen's howling finale, it's one of his most powerful and primal marriages of writing and performance. "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" is one of the other great highlights, an autobiographical account of the formation of the E Street Band whose punchy horn chorus is a great showcase for saxophonist Clarence Clemons and a full horn section that includes veteran session musicians like Randy and Michael Brecker. As a side note, "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" contained one of the most genuinely emotional moments when I saw Springsteen live a couple of years ago, when archive footage of the recently-deceased Clemons was played onscreen as Springsteen eulogised him with the words "The Big Man joined the band." Clemons's iconic role within the band was cemented by the cover of Born To Run which saw Bruce leaning companionably on him (since we don't have gatefold sleeves any more, most versions of the cover reduce poor Clemons to just an arm and a bum, but at least he gets some kind of credit), and his great sax playing form some of the best moments of the records.

It's a shame that in an album consisting of only eight tracks, three of them prove fairly unmemorable, with "Night," "She's The One" and "Meeting Across The River" all being fairly generic, but the epic "Jungleland" finishes things off in fine style, a nine-minute epic that feels a little like a two-fingers up to those who might have dismissed his lengthier pieces from The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle as uncommerical. Despite its orchestral grandeur (complete with strings), it became a staple of rock radio stations and a concert favourite and proved that, even though he was able to condense his musical sensibilities into radio-friendly chart singles, he was still able to cut loose and create a piece of great drama and scope.

Born To Run was, of course, an enormous success, largely thanks to its title track, which became ubiquitous. As I mentioned in my review of Bad Company's Straight Shooter, 1975 sees a discernible return to prominence of traditional, unabashed rock & roll as patience with androgynous art rock and pretentious prog wore thin. Springsteen's traditional working class hero values and anthemic rock and roll songwriting fit perfectly into that template and he became America's biggest new rockstar. While various tours would see him capitalise on that success and spread his fame worldwide, it wouldn't be until 1978 that the world actually got to see him follow up his success with a new creative project. Springsteen's creative differences with Appel became more pronounced and he would soon instate Landau as his manager, prompting several years of legal wrangling over the rights to his back catalogue of recordings, meaning no new album could be made until a settlement would be reached. All the while, the success of Born To Run would continue to cement him as a legendary figure and the album to emerge from it all may not have achieved quite such iconic status but is just as compelling and masterful an example of the man's genius.

Track Listing:

All songs written by Bruce Springsteen.

1. Thunder Road

2. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out

3. Night

4. Backstreets

5. Born To Run

6. She's The One

7. Meeting Across The River

8. Jungleland