Record Rediscovery: 50 Years of Born to Run

Two things are true. First, Bruce Springsteen has released two albums with the word “Born” in the title. Second, Born to Run is the superior of the two works. This is not a Born in the USA slam piece. Not at all. We’re big fans of the record downstairs. However, this is a story about how three words managed to save a man’s career that arguably had one foot in the can.

By early 1974, Bruce Springsteen had released his first two records, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. and The Wild, the Innocent, & the E Street Shuffle. Although both releases received positive critical acclaim, Columbia Records simply couldn’t ignore the lackluster sales of both LPs. Bruce had been signed to a three-album deal with Columbia in 1972 off the back of his acoustic audition for John Hammond. Hammond was a well-known executive for Columbia with a reputation for finding musical diamonds, including names like Aretha Franklin, Billie Holiday, and most notably up that point, Bob Dylan. Bruce had been pinned as the second coming of Dylan based on his early singer-songwriter tunes, but with the unsuccessful releases of his first two records, his career was floundering before it ever really began.

So, there he was. A 24, soon to be 25, year old kid from the Jersey Shore with one release remaining on a three record deal. He had amassed a small but devoted fanbase thanks to his first two records and two-hour-plus live shows. But something had to give. And if it didn’t, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band would be just another act playing the seaside bar circuit up and down the east coast. Enter a song title that would go on to change his life and many other lives around the globe.

Bruce was living in a little house in Long Branch, NJ about a block from the beach when the words “Born to Run” popped into his head. The title painted visions of cars, women, crime, and escaping a mundane life for something larger in his head. Most importantly, it aligned with the imagery of the music he’d been trying to write. He spent the next six months writing, scrapping, recording, re-recording, and mixing the title track of the album, almost to the point of insanity. He shifted his recording studio from 914 Studios in Blauvelt, NY, where he’d recorded his first two albums, to the Record Plant on 44^th St. In New York City. No stone was left unturned in the search of creating the perfect song.

In November of 1974, Springsteen’s manager slipped an early copy of “Born to Run” to rock station WMMR in Philadelphia against Bruce’s wishes. It was apparent early on that the song was something special as a buzz started to generate and the tune received more and more radio play around the country. The good news was Bruce now had a lead single for the third record of his deal. A single that people finally liked. The bad news, he barely had an album. For the next eight months, Bruce and the E Street Band put the same attention to detail they laid into “Born to Run” into seven other tracks. Countless rewrites and overdubs ensued. What was left was the result of what Bruce Springsteen had set out to do when the words “Born to Run” popped into his head fourteen months earlier - create the greatest rock and roll record that's ever been written.

By no means did this come without any stress or doubt. One story goes that in the late summer of 1975, just before the album was set to be released, Bruce threw an early pressing into a nearby pool and threatened to scrap the whole project. He’d spent over a year obsessing over every single take of each song to the point where he felt as though he’d never be satisfied. Reluctantly, he conceded to the praise of his band and engineer and ultimately decided to put the record out fifty years ago today, August 25, 1975. Columbia Records was breathing down his neck, and fans were clamoring for more after the success of the single. Perhaps the most powerful reason he loosened his grip was that the man just wanted to get out of the studio and back on the road with his band.

What acclaim he’d gotten for his first two records, he received that and then some for Born to Run. If Greetings and E Street Shuffle were two woodie beach wagons with sand on the floorboards, Born to Run was a chromed-out Chevy convertible with a V8 and dice on the rearview mirror. Sonically, the record was massive, and it broke Springsteen free from his Jersey Shore barroom shell and into mainstream rock and roll where stadiums were calling his name. The album peaked at number three on the charts and sold roughly 700,000 copies by the end of 1975, and 9 million copies globally since. It was the record that propelled Bruce and his ragtag band of beach bums into super stardom. It sparked a world tour and landed Bruce on the cover of Newsweek and Time in the same week, the only person who can say they’ve achieved the feat. Most importantly, you bet your ass that Columbia renewed his contract.

How many times have we heard the story of an artist being down to their last strike and managing to create the piece that makes them a household name or revives their career? Quite often. It’s probably a bit cliché by this point, but it does seem to happen from time to time. There are a few lessons in this story about how sticking with something you want, and we mean really sticking with it, regardless of the circumstances, leads to success. But we’ll let you find these lessons yourself.

We could sit here and walk you through each of the songs on the album, but you’re better off just giving it a spin yourself. Many more stories could be told about each of the tracks and what it was like recording the album over 14 months. But we feel a record as great as Born to Run deserves to speak for itself. That said, with the biopic about Bruce’s career as he wrote Nebraska in the early 80’s looming on the horizon, we’re happy to recommend more media where you can scratch that Springsteen itch and learn more about the greatest Bruce record with the word “Born” in the title.

How Bruce Springsteen Perfected Rock n Roll - A sonic breakdown of Born to Run by the massively talented, knowledgeable, and entertaining Polyphonic.

An early unmixed alternate version of Born to Run that shows the musical evolution of the track throughout recording. Stripped back in some areas, bursting in others. Most notably, the addition of a backing choir during the song’s chorus stands out.

Thunder Road live at Hammersmith Odeon in London, England. The album opener and the first song played at Bruce’s inaugural abroad performance. November 18, 1975.

In celebration of the album’s 50th anniversary, Bruce released an outtake from the album titled Lonely Night in the Park and Peter Ames Carlin released Tonight in Jungleland, a book detailing the making of Born to Run.