Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run At 40 (According To Those Who Made It)

One of the most obvious aspects of the songs of Born To Run is that they all have very definite introductions. “I was interested in setting the scene,” said Springsteen. [The introductions] were meant to make you feel like something auspicious was going to occur.”

For example, talking about album opener Thunder Road, Springsteen singled out the introduction’s early morning quality: “There is something about the melody of Thunder Road that just suggests ‘new day’, it suggests morning, it suggests something opening up. That's why that song ended up first on the record, instead of Born to Run.”

In fact, Thunder Road was one of the songs that Jon Landau remembers specifically helping with after he was drafted in as co-producer. “He had a version of Thunder Road and it was almost there,” Landau recalled. “It just needed some basic tightening up. I made some suggestions, to maybe help it build in a less sprawly way.”

After Springsteen had written the album using the piano, it was obvious that instrument was going to be very prominent. It is the first thing you hear after you press play, and throughout the rest of the album, it leads more than it supports. Springsteen is not shy about giving credit to Roy Bittan for this aspect of the record: “His piano really defined the sound of that record.” 

If the piano was a big influence on the sound of Born To Run, lyrically one its biggest themes is Springsteen’s home state of New Jersey, in particular the perception that it’s a poor relation to its neighbour New York. Springsteen, on Meeting Across The River: “I had that little piano riff, and I'm not exactly sure where the lyric came from. I don't know, there was something North Jersey in it; I can't quite explain... There was that New York–New Jersey, big-time/small-time thing, you know? It's funny, because back then, when you lived in New Jersey, you could've been a million miles from New York City.” 

Another huge influence on the lyrics is the Vietnam War. Born To Run was written in the aftermath of America’s withdrawal from that conflict, and though only in his mid-twenties, Springsteen used his lyrics to voice his fears for what the war had done to his country. “It didn't matter how old you were,” he said, “everybody experienced a radical change in the image they had of their country and of themselves [after Vietnam]. You were going to be a different type of American than the generation that immediately preceded you.” 

Springsteen had started by listing all the artists he wanted to sound like, but once he surveyed post-Vietnam America, he realised he had to be different: “A lot of my heroes influenced that album. But I realized that I was not them.”