Born to Run (song)
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"Born to Run" is the signature song of the American singer songwriter Bruce Springsteen.
In 2004, it was ranked #6 in WXPN's list of The 885 All-Time Greatest Songs. Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time placed it at #21, while the song came in at #920 in Q's list of the "1001 Greatest Songs Ever" in 2003, in which they described the song as "best for working class heroes."
The song
Recorded in 1974 and released the following year on the album Born to Run, the song was Springsteen's last-ditch effort to make it big. By the time he wrote the song, he had released two albums to much critical acclaim but very little commercial success. His live concerts, however, were becoming legendary and "Born to Run" quickly joined his wide repertoire for the three-hour plus shows.The lyrics to the song are appropriately epic for his last-ditch, all-or-nothing shot at the stars, yet they remain rooted in the universal desperation of adolescence. We gotta get out while we're young, he writes, 'cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run.
Written in the first person, the song is a love letter to a girl named Wendy (Wendy let me in I wanna be your friend I wanna guard your dreams and visions...; I wanna die with you Wendy on the streets tonight/in an everlasting kiss!), whom the bike-riding protagonist certainly has the passion to love, but may not have the patience. However, Springsteen has noted that it has a much simpler core: getting out of "Asbury Park".
In his 1996 book Songs, Springsteen relates that while the beginning of the song was written on guitar around the opening riff, the song's writing was finished on piano, the instrument that most of the Born to Run album was composed on.
The recording
In recording the song, Springsteen first earned his noted reputation for perfectionism, laying down as many as eleven guitar tracks to get the sound just right. The recording process and alternate ideas for the song's arrangement are described in the Wings For Wheels documentary DVD included in the 2005 reissue Born to Run 30th Anniversary Edition package.The track was recorded well in advance of the rest of the album, and featured Ernest "Boom" Carter on the drums and David Sancious on keyboards; they would be replaced by Max Weinberg and Roy Bittan for the rest of the album and in the ongoing E Street Band (which was still uncredited on Springsteen's records at the time). The song was also recorded with only Springsteen and Mike Appel as producers; it would be later, when work on the album bogged down, that Jon Landau was brought in as an additional producer.
A pre-release version of the song, with a slightly different mix, was circulated to progressive rock radio outlets many months ahead of the album coming out. It immediately became popular on WNEW-FM and similar stations in the Northeast, and led to cuts from Springsteen's first two albums being played as well as building anticipation for the album release.
Once officially out, the song and the album were unqualified successes for Springsteen. Upon release in the summer of 1975, Springsteen became a celebrity, scoring simultaneous cover stories in Time and Newsweek magazines.
The single
"Born to Run" was Springsteen's first world-wide single release, although it achieved little initial success outside of the United States. Within the US it was only a minor hit, reaching #23 on the Billboard Hot 100.It was released with "Meeting Across the River" as its B-side.
- Born to Run - 4:31
- Meeting Across the River - 3:18
In concert
The song has been played at nearly every non-solo Springsteen concert since 1975 (although it was not included in the 2006 Seeger Sessions Band Tour), and fans consistently sing along with Springsteen's signature wordless vocalizations throughout the song's performance.The song has also been released in live versions on three albums:
- Live/1975-85, a three-disc sampling of Springsteen's epic live shows.
- Acoustically on Chimes of Freedom, a 1988 Tunnel of Love Express EP released to help promote the upcoming multi-artist Human Rights Now! Tour in benefit of Amnesty International.
- [[Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band: Live In New York City]], a two-disc record capturing the E-United Reunion Tour that lasted from 1999 to 2000 and ended in a record-setting ten-night stand at New York City's Madison Square Garden.
Music video
"Born to Run" predates the music video era and no film or video clip was made of it at the time.However, in 1987 a video was released to MTV and other channels, featuring a live performance of "Born to Run" from Springsteen and the E Street Band's 1984-1985 Born in the U.S.A. Tour, with the video interspersed with clips from other songs' performances from that tour as well. It closed with a "Thank you" graphic to Springsteen's fans.
Cultural references
In the Japanese novel Battle Royale, the main character Shuya Nanahara is a Bruce Springsteen fanatic, despite the fictional Republic of East Asia's ban on rock music. The lyrics to "Born to Run" are quoted a few times in the book, as Shuya applies them to his own need to get the hell out of Japan, down to singing them, replacing Wendy with his Noriko, in the very closing of the book. They also appear in the opening quotes of the book.In an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Joel Robinson chides Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot for teaching Gypsy some racy lyrics ("Just wrap your legs 'round these velvet rims / and strap your hands across my engines") from "Born to Run".
In an episode of The Sopranos, Tony Soprano and Silvio Dante are waiting for Christopher Moltisanti to arrive; when he shows up late he explains that "...the highway was jammed with broken heroes on a last-chance power drive", paraphrasing the lyrics to "Born to Run". Steven Van Zandt (Silvio Dante) is in Springsteen's E Street Band.
External links
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