Springsteen’s ‘Born to Run’ Album is Everything a Rock Record Should Be

It’s the Sistine Chapel of rock and roll

How do you review the Sistine Chapel? You don’t; you simply stand back and marvel at it. I feel the same way about Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run album, though I did give it a shot back in August with a nine-part series for the album’s 46th anniversary (you can find that here). But since I recently began song-by-song reviews of Springsteen’s albums, I will have to try my best to express the inexpressible here.

There are certain dates that are indisputably pivotal in the history of mankind; for some people it’s July 4, 1776 while for others it’s December 25, 4 B.C. (give or take a year). For me, it’s August 25, 1975, the year that the greatest record ever made, containing the greatest song ever, was released (if you thought this was not going to be a biased review, you’ve never read my stuff before). On that balmy 90-degree day (in Ocean City, New Jersey at least) everything changed. Everything.

Born to Run is Springsteen’s third studio album, and though it’s hard to believe now it was basically his last chance as far as Columbia Records was concerned. His first two albums were critically acclaimed but had not sold well and the record execs were past impatient with their new would-be star. He needed a hit; what he delivered was a monster home run that cleared the left field wall at Yankee Stadium and hasn’t landed yet, 16,990 days later.

A few bits of trivia before we get into the songs themselves:

• Born to Run was Springsteen’s first album to reach the Billboard charts, peaking at #3, while the “Born to Run” single reached #23 on the Billboard singles charts.
• Born to Run has sold 6 million copies in the United States and another 3 million copies worldwide.
• According to Rolling Stone, Springsteen has played “Born to Run” in concert a whopping 1,744 times, more than any other song. Coming in a distant second is “Thunder Road” at 1,424 times. Does the fact that over a 50-year career the top two are from the Born to Run album support my declaration of its greatness? What a silly question.
• It has the most iconic cover photo ever. I will brook no argument about this.

Below is my track-by-track look at Born to Run, along with a playlist of the entire album at the end.

“Thunder Road.” By any other artist, at any other time, on any other album, this would be the best song by far. It’s kind of like Lou Gehrig having the “misfortune” of playing on the same team as Babe Ruth (ok, no more baseball analogies). As the first track on the album, it sets the tone for all the magic that follows. From a sheer poetic standpoint it may be the best song he’s ever written, and it taught me more about what makes great poetry than four years of English Lit classes ever could. Just consider:

There were ghosts in the eyes of all the boys you sent away They haunt this dusty beach road in the skeleton frames of burned-out Chevrolets They scream your name at night in the street Your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet And in the lonely cool before dawn You hear their engines roaring on But when you get to the porch they’re gone on the wind, so Mary climb in It’s a town full of losers, I’m pulling out of here to win

As good as those lines are, they’re not even the most quoted. That honor would go to “roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair” and “show a little faith, there’s magic in the night.” It also builds to one of the great codas of all time.

“Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out.” Besides being just a really fun song, this one is special because it’s at least partly about the formation of (to quote Bruce) “the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, hard-rocking, booty-shaking, love-making, earth-quaking, Viagra-taking, justifying, death-defying, legendary E Street Band.” When asked a few years ago by Rolling Stone what exactly a “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” was, he said this:

“I still have no idea. But it’s important.”

It’s ironic that he chose the word important, because in concert Bruce has always called the following “the important part:”

When the change was made uptown And the Big Man joined the band From the coastline to the city All the little pretties raise their hands I’m gonna sit back right easy and laugh When Scooter and the Big Man bust this city in half With a Tenth Avenue freeze-out

Bruce and the Big Man. Important indeed.

“Night.” After four shows over a period of 32 years, this is the only song from the album I’ve not seen performed live, a gaping hole in my heart that will hopefully be healed with the next tour. It’s not as famous as most of the others here, but it provides a crucial transition between the exuberance of “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” and the melancholy of “Backstreets.” And make no mistake: it is a jam, with Max and Clarence in top form.

“Backstreets.” If you’ve only ever listened to the title track, you might think that Born to Run is a completely guitar-driven album; in reality it is not. Springsteen has said that while he did begin writing “Born to Run” on guitar, he completed the song on the piano. He then went on to write the majority of the rest of the album on piano as well. The best proof of this comes on “Backstreets,” another song with lyrics that are as vivid as you’ll find anywhere:

Remember all the movies, Terry, we’d go see Trying to learn how to walk like heroes we thought we had to be

And:

Blame it on the lies that killed us Blame it on the truth that ran us down You can blame it all on me Terry It don’t matter to me now When the breakdown hit at midnight there was nothing left to say But I hated him, and I hated you when you went away

Lyrics aside, it is Roy Bittan’s masterful piano that ultimately makes this song what it is. Just give it a listen and see how it makes you feel. In the end, that’s the ultimate test of a timeless song.

“Born to Run.” What can I say about this song that I haven’t said in countless articles, many of which had nothing to do with Springsteen? I can say plenty (and don’t care if I repeat myself). From drummer Ernest “Boom” Carter’s jazz fusion style to the Big Man’s driving sax to Bruce laying down eleven guitar tracks to get that “highway’s jammed with broken heroes” feel, it is everything, and I mean absolutely everything, a rock song is meant to be. It’s as fresh today as the day it was released in the summer of ’75 and will remain so until the earth stops spinning.

I’ve said before that I was 9 years old the first time I heard it, and life was never the same again. I thought then that it was the greatest song I’d ever heard; I still believe that today. Over four-plus decades it’s been my constant companion, from seeing Bruce and the E Street Band play it live four glorious times to using the acoustic version for the Father/Daughter dance at my daughter’s wedding (her choice) to picking it as the song they carry out my coffin to when the end comes, it truly has been the soundtrack of my life.

“She’s the One.” This is the one song on the album that many critics at the time didn’t much like, proving that Hemingway was right when he said: “Critics are men who watch a battle from a high place then come down and shoot the survivors.” It’s a hard-rockin’ lament over a cold-hearted lover, with Roy’s piano, Clarence's sax, Max’s drums, and Garry’s bass meshing perfectly with Bruce’s plaintive cry.

“Meeting Across the River.” Can a song on the greatest rock record ever feature only vocals, piano, the double bass, and a trumpet (with the trumpet being the dominant instrument) and still be considered rock? When it’s Bruce, it damn sure can. The lyrics stand alone as a perfect short story, and the theme flows seamlessly into “Jungleland.” I even wrote a short story based on it.

“Jungleland.” Without question, the final track on Born to Run is the most epic, most cinematic piece of songwriting of Bruce’s fifty-year career. It’s a sprawling nine-and-a-half-minute rock opera (where kids “flash guitars just like switchblades”) that contains not just some of Springsteen’s best lyrical storytelling, but also has violins and dueling guitars and a heart-rending wail at the end. You’re literally drained by the time it’s over.

It’s not just one masterpiece, though; it contains a masterpiece within the masterpiece. The true magic of “Jungleland” comes during a two-and-half-minute stretch in the middle of the song when Clarence Clemons lays down the finest saxophone solo ever recorded on a rock album, one that if pulled out of the song to stand on its own is worthy of John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman. Bruce once called it Clarence’s finest recorded moment, and he was right.

That’s my totally inadequate look at the greatest album of all time. Here’s the full album, which speaks for itself far better than I ever could. Whether you’ve never heard it before or heard it 100 times, give it a listen all the way through now. It’s right at 40 minutes in total, and time far better spent than watching whatever is hot on Netflix today.

And as always, tramps like us…

All lyrics cited here are by Bruce Springsteen and can be found at www.brucespringsteen.net.

If you enjoyed this story, you can support my writing directly by joining Medium here. You’ll get access to all of my articles (I do write about more than just Bruce) as well as those of all the other great writers here.