TRAMPS & SCENES – Bruce Springsteen & ‘BORN TO RUN’ (1975)

[email protected] November 7, 2022

In the long history of popular music only a handful of albums can boast the epic majesty of ‘Born to Run‘ by Bruce Springsteen. Fewer still reach the same level of lyrical candour and musical grandeur. Two or three, for different reasons might be just as compelling – but in terms of scope and narrative intent there is not one superior.

When released in 1975, 25-year-old New Jersey-born Springsteen, was two records into a three-album deal with Columbia Records, which had so far produced 1973 releases ‘Greetings from Asbury Park N.J.’ and ‘The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle.’ Both albums were received favorably by the critics’ but made such modest commercial impact the label had doubts in regard to providing Springsteen, looked upon as a dynamic post-Dylan word wizard, with continued support.

Agreeing initially to only meet the costs of the artist recording a new single, Springsteen and his E Street Band cohorts – at this juncture comprising of Springsteen (guitar/vocals), Gary Tallent (bass), David Sancious (piano), Danny Federici (organ), Clarance Clemons (saxophone) and Ernest ‘Boom’ Carter’ drums – began work on a highly charged piece that was the most dramatic, yet compact urban drama Springsteen had so far written.

On hearing the final mix of this sonic and story-telling marvel, (the track produced by Springsteen and his then manager Mike Appel), Coulmbia Records were convinced they had a hit in the offing and gave the green light to this third album. But just as momentum began to build inertia struck – Sancious and Carter both leaving the E Street Band, while the songs refused to develop in the way the composer envisaged.

Yet this frustrating period was to have unexpectedly favourable consequences. The E Street Band were enhanced further (Springsteen and his troupe already gaining renown on the US east coast as a formidable live act), by recruitment of virtuoso players Roy Bittan (piano) and Max Weinberg (drums).

Enlisted to offer production assistance was Jon Landau, a noted Amercian rock critic whose recent appraisal of ‘I have seen the future of rock ‘n’ roll and it’s called Bruce Springsteen‘ would become the most quoted line of rock journalism in the 1970s.

Ultimately the completed album took over twelve months to record, sessions for the single commissioned by Columbia taking place in April 1974 with Springsteen finally satisfied with his eight-song collection in the summer of 1975. It was decided the first track committed to tape (and featuring Sancious and Carter) would give the LP its name – ‘BORN TO RUN‘ finally arriving in August 1975.

Appearing at a moment when popular music was largely defined by meticulously crafted soft rock, po-faced heavy bands and the often-ludicrous pomposity of prog, Springsteen eclipsed all of them (and everyone else for that matter) with a work that was passionate, enthralling and deeply affirming in the power of rock music to reflect the dreams and despair of those belonging to a cityscape where the world continues to turn, no matter the hopes and fears of its lowliest inhabitants.

If there was fault to be found in his first two albums it lay in songs that were self-consciously literate, Springsteen simply trying too hard to be the exceptional talent converts proclaimed him to be. Few doubted his extraordinary knack for depicting the romanticism to be found on inner-city streets, these imaginative pieces, deploying varied choruses and multiple bridges, on occasion bogged down by some overwrought lyrics.

But on ‘Born to Run‘ Springsteen creates the perfect, feature-length street life melodrama. In some respects a concept album, by virtue of telling one long story (populated by many characters in differing situations), continuity prevails not just through the vivid imagery, but from track to track in the lush production work – owing much to the ‘Wall of Sound‘ technique pioneered by Phil Spector.

Indeed, from opening cut ‘Thunder Road‘ with its declarations that better times can be found somewhere else, moving onward to the panache and defiance of the title-track to the epic, West Side Story connotations of ‘Jungleland‘, Springsteen conjures a record which affirms just how absorbing rock music can be and why it matters so damn much.

Opening with the sound of a wistful harmonica and some expressive, slowly building piano work from Bittan, the protagonist arrives at the home of girlfriend Mary to find in a rush of images the slamming of a screen door, ‘Roy Orbison singing for the lonely’ and she in a swaying dress looking like a vision in dancing across the porch. He is there to coax her into searching for a better life and join him in exploring the possibilities that exist beyond the confines of their local environment.

While Mary is scared of taking the chance on leaving, thinking the moment has passed for such escapist youthful notions, he implores her with:

‘Show a little faith, there’s magic in the night/You ain’t a beauty but hey you’re alright/Oh and that’s alright with me.’

In his urge to leave behind where they exist, it is not difficult to draw a parallel in where the career of Bruce Springsteen currently stood – the writer, aware that another poor selling album could end his career, speaking for himself and those in the story on proclaiming, ‘We’ve got one last chance to make it real/To trade in these wings on some wheels.’

With each line of this poignant, deeply resonant piece, the desperation in his voice increases, (backing singer Steve Van Zandt would shortly join the E Street Band as second guitarist), keen as he is for them to seize the moment – leading to that split second where she has to answer on hearing his final plea of, ‘So Mary climb in/It’s a town full of losers/And I’m pulling out of here to win.’

The words have barely faded away before Clemons adds to the intensity with his wailing sax, the potency of the music during the closing segment befitting an outcome of him leaving unaccompanied – or with Mary taking the plunge with him.

It may be a tenuous claim but as ‘Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out‘ immediately follows, the presumption is Springsteen has left alone – as by now he is playing out dreams of becoming a rock star in this mythologised account of putting together the E Street Band.

Built upon a blaring brass section, strident piano and understated guitar, it has the feel of a Van Morrison track, the lyrics at times even having the elan of Van (‘From a tenement window a transistor blasts/Turn around the corner things got real quiet real fast’) – but the most unmissable reference to evolution of the E Street Band comes in the final verse.

Clemons – whose magnificent saxaphone playing on the track is augmented by a horn section comprising such notables as Randy Brecker, Michael Brecker and David Sanborn – is namechecked by his nickname as Springsteen also comments on their regional popularity:

‘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.’

‘Big Man’ Clemons (previously in the Famous Flames ensemble who had backed James Brown), is immediately to the fore on ‘Night‘ – the flair and vitality heard in a rousing opening maintained right through this blistering track.

Lamenting the grind of daily life (‘You get up in the morning at the sound of a bell/You get to work late and the boss man’s giving you hell’), thoughts are focused nowhere other than thrills to be found when the working day is over.

‘And the world is bursting at its seams/And you’re just a prisoner of your dreams/Holding on for your life/’Cause you work all day to blow ’em away in the night.’

The first of several tightly honed elegies to the blue-collar experience he would construct, it was territory Springsteen would return to with equal aplomb in ‘The Promised Land’ on his next album and a number of instances again on 1980 double set ‘The River.‘

Through the lengthy introduction to side one closer ‘Backstreets’ Springsteen and his stripped-down E Street crew of himself, Tallent, Weinberg and Bittan (who doubles up on piano and organ), come across as The Band at their most audacious. Springsteen narrates a monumental tale of a love affair that is desirous, desperate, but in the end dogged by deceit – played out against the backdrop of a rundown landscape where disillusion has become commonplace.

‘Some hurt bad some really dying/At night sometimes it seemed you could hear this whole damn city crying/Blame it on the lies that killed us/Blame it on the truth that ran us down.’

If the lovers in ‘Backstreets‘ are overcome by ‘a love so hard filled with defeat’ then with the title cut the desire to escape reappears, Springsteen urging a girl named Wendy to join him in this flee to freedom.

‘We gotta get out while we’re young/’Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run.’

From the frenetic opening drum roll of Carter this anthemic, gloriously uplifting piece never lets up, the mesh of keyboards, guitar and sax providing a battery of melodic magnificence, Springsteen the wordsmith conjuring pictures to match:

‘The amusement park rises bold and stark/Kids are huddled on the beach in a mist/I wanna die with you Wendy on the streets tonight in an everlasting kiss.’

Not since the early days of Dylan (his ruminations on love found and lost, like those of Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne, becoming more personal as the 70s unfolded), had a songwriter asked such searching questions of emotional attachment, the line in ‘Born to Run‘ of ‘I want to know if love is wild/Girl I want to know if love is real‘ a recurring theme of the entire record.

Generating the song noir ambience he would later revive on songs such as ‘Point Blank‘ and ‘I’m On Fire‘ Springsteen evokes a femme fatale on the brooding ‘She’s the One.’

While the E Street Band rumble along behind him to suitably engaging effect, out front he delivers a vocal full of Roy Orbison inflections, the singer enticed despite the danger signs:

‘That thunder in your heart at night when you’re kneeling in the dark it says you’re never gonna leave her/But there’s this angel in her eyes that tells such desperate lies/And all you want to do is believe her.’

As the song reaches a conclusion the E Street Band ramp up the fire in their playing, but on the next and penultimate track, with the exception of Bittan, they disappear altogether – Springsteen singing over a trio completed by Randy Brecker (trumpet) and Richard Davis (bass). Appearing on a Springsteen record for the second time following a cameo on his debut set, Davis had also featured as bassist and band leader of those accompanying Van Morrison on the seminal ‘Astral Weeks‘ (1968) – ‘Born to Run‘ the most lyrically imaginative album to appear since.

For the song in question, ‘Meeting Across the River‘ Springsteen casts himself in the role of smalltime hood who, along with partner in crime Eddie, has a rendezvous on the other side of the city where they have a crime to commit – any mistakes coming at a high price:

‘We gotta stay cool tonight Eddie/’Cause man we got ourselves out on that line/And if we blow this one/They ain’t gonna be looking for just me this time.‘

Yet rather than set the story to a tough rocking melody, Springsteen goes for a sparse instrumental arrangement, but one that is no less effective and gripping – the distant trumpet sound of Brecker as evocative as a Gershwin refrain in summoning a New York scene of yellow taxis and red-bricked tenement blocks.

The cast list is extended for the panoramic sweep of ‘Jungleland‘ – an enthralling near ten-minute screenplay decorated by cultured piano chords, wonderous sax lines, subtle string arrangement and moments where Springsteen asserts himself as a guitarist.

The situations enveloping those involved as they move from act to act are drawn in lucid fashion, be they the ‘Magic Rat‘ who comes and goes throughout the narration, maximum lawmen, kids who look like shadows, the assembling of midnight gangs – the action taking place ‘Neath that giant Exxon sign that brings this fair city light’ or away from the glare in dark corners:

‘From the churches to the jails/Tonight all is silence in the world/As we take our stand down in Jungleland.‘

Things come finally to a violent climax with the Rat gunned down in a shootout uptown, Springsteen describing the aftermath with a painstakingly sombre vocal:

‘No one watches as an ambulance pulls away/Or as the girl shuts out the bedroom light/Outside the street’s on fire/In a real death waltz.’

Another night, much like the one before and one to come, is nearly done, the unrelenting rhythm of the city about to be imposed on a new day when the ebb and flow of human circumstance will roll once more – but not before the curtain also comes down on an album of skyscraper proportion.

Most reviewers picked up on the fact it was a defining record of the era and where great work by those such as The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell or The Who needed years of critical gestation to be hailed as the finest in creation, within eighteen months of release ‘Born to Run‘ was being hailed by Rolling Stone magazine as ‘the greatest rock record ever made.’

Less than six weeks after being released it had climbed into the US Top Ten to earn Springsteen his first gold disc, interest in the album rising to such an extent that as October 1975 came to a close, he appeared simultaneously on the cover of weighty American cultural tomes Time and Newsweek.

But more importantly Springsteen had made good in spades the promise hinted at on his first two albums and delivered a record of complete and resounding resonance – or as noted New York critic Dave Marsh opined, ”Born to Run’ was Springsteen’s assertion he could do it all, that he was not just another rocker, but a truly great one.’

The promotion campaign for the album and subsequent concert tour was built upon a rewording of the Landau line in calling him ‘the future of rock ‘n’ roll‘ and although the artist was somewhat embarrassed by the tag, time since has shown it was not so far wide of the mark.

So, if the Columbia marketing department can play on Landau’s words it entitles this listener to do the same, as when ‘Born to Run‘ comes into earshot I hear my past connection to rock and roll.

And it’s called Bruce Springsteen.

BORN TO RUN – BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN (Released August 25 1975):

Thunder Road/Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out/Night/Backstreets/Born to Run/She’s the One/Meeting Across the River/Jungleland;

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NEIL SAMBROOK is the author of ‘MONTY’S DOUBLE’ – an acclaimed thriller now available in paperback as an Amazon Kindle book.