Why Did I Wait So Long to Listen to Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born To Run’ Album?

Part 3 of My Year of Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run album was released on August 25, 1975. At that time, I was only nine years old. I was starting to become a fan of music, but I wasn’t quite mature enough to appreciate Bruce. In fact, I don’t even think I knew of his existence at that point. I was too busy listening to an 8-track tape of a Donny & Marie Osmond album called I’m Leaving It All Up To You. I played it regularly on my incredibly cool Dynamite 8 Tape Player that was endorsed by Jimmie Walker from the TV show Good Times.

It was a groovy album and an even groovier 8-track player, but let’s get back to Bruce.

I think I first became aware of the song “Born To Run” a year or so after it was released. I remember loving it as soon as I heard it. Whenever it came on the radio, I’d go nuts over it and turn up the volume. And that hasn’t changed in the decades since then.

I’d soon love other radio hits by Bruce Springsteen like “Hungry Heart,” but I didn’t end up buying one of his albums until Born In The U.S.A. came out in 1984. Later on, I bought copies of a few of his other albums, but I never owned a copy of Born To Run.

Worse yet, I’d never even heard the album in its entirety until February of 2022. When I did finally listen to it, I immediately thought, “Wow, this is nowhere near as good as that Donny and Marie 8-track tape that I used to have!”

Just kidding. While I’m Leaving It All Up To You was fine for what it was, it wasn’t quite up on the same level as Born To Run.

All joking aside (at least for the rest of this paragraph), I was blown away by how amazing the Born To Run album is. Without me knowing it before listening to it, I already knew six of the songs from the album from hearing them on the radio over the years. I just didn’t realize that all of those magnificent songs came from just one album.

Seriously, how did I not listen to Born To Run until now? What an amazing collection of music!

The only two songs that I didn’t already know on it were “Night” and “Meeting Across The River.” While researching the album, I read several customer reviews of it. In quite a few of them, I saw people say that “Night” and “Meeting Across The River” were their least favorite songs on Born To Run.

To each their own, of course, but I loved both of the songs as soon I heard them. “Night” totally rocks! And, oh man, the music in “Meeting Across The River” is amazing — especially the trumpet playing by Randy Brecker.

Of the songs I already knew from the album, it’s sort of hard to pick out favorites — because they’re all incredible pieces of music. However, I’m going to single out three of them:

Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out

I love the entire song, but my favorite part comes at 1:56 into it when Bruce sings about The Big Man joining the band — and then you immediately hear Clarence “The Big Man” Clemons playing his saxophone.

I’ve heard it hundreds of times over the years and that part of the song always gives me chills — the good kind.

Born To Run

I mean…come on…what can I say here that hasn’t already been said about this song? It’s one of the greatest, most exciting songs of all time. I’ll always love it.

She’s The One

Absolutely fantastic lyrics and music in this one. I never get tired of hearing it.

Really, folks, there’s not a bad song on the album. In fact, there’s not even a good song on it. They’re all far beyond “good.”

They’re fantastic

They’re legendary.

Out of 5 possible stars, I give the Born To Run album…drumroll, please…5 stars!

Here is the entire album on Spotify:

Whoops — wrong album! (Although I do recommend the song “A Day Late And A Dollar Short.” It’s pure bubblegum/pop magic that I used to “rock out” to regularly as a kid.)

Here’s Born To Run on Spotify:

If you enjoy Bruce Springsteen, here are some other articles about him by, respectively, Alex Markham, Paul Combs, and myself:

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