Customer Reviews

Born To Run

5 star:		(252)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Bruce Springsteen has said that when he set out to record this album, he was going to make "the greatest rock and roll record ever." Well, maybe he came up short, but if so, only by a hair. "Born To Run" is nearly flawless from beginning to end; each song tells its own distinct story, yet all are wonderfully woven around the album's central theme, which is also the title of the record.

Over a quarter century after the release of "Born To Run," we may have come to take this album for granted, forgetting the incredible rush it gave us the first thousand times we heard it. Make no mistake - this is one of the best rock albums ever recorded. From the lyrics to the melodies to the production, The Boss held nothing back. This recording provides evidence that Springsteen works as hard in the studio as he does on stage.

Each track is now, after all these years, immediately recognizable - the opening harmonica strains of "Thunder Road," the symphonic piano introduction to "Jungleland," the organ that kicks off "Backstreets," and, of course, the explosion of sound that is the title track.

The production here is obviously influenced by Phil Spector, the legendary inventor of the Wall of Sound. Lyrically, Springsteen evokes memories of early Dylan. (Listen to the song "Backstreets." I've always felt this song was Springsteen's nod of acknowledgment to Bob, with the feel of the song closely resembling that of "Like A Rolling Stone.") The vocals are reminiscent of Roy Orbison, but with more of an edgy sound. The final product is a masterpiece, and should take its place alongside the best of Dylan, The Stones, The Beatles, and Hendrix when the history of Rock and Roll is written.

"Born To Run" immediately catapulted Springsteen into the mainstream of American Rock. Thankfully, he was never inclined to rest on his critical laurels. He has consistently created great music for over 25 years.

I can't imagine anyone not owning this recording.

"Born To Run" is one of the greatest albums of all time, and that fact is inarguable. The only question is how many albums you'll put on the list. Any list with more than ten, without this one, is clearly in error.
It is an album where a single listen will convince you.
The cinematic sweep, from "Thunder Road" to "Jungleland", makes you feel like you're watching a movie while listening. The epic nature and true storylines makes you feel like you're reading a classic novel.
I ask you, what album have you ever listened to, that elicits a sensation of music, film and literature simultaneously? It's breathtaking.
And ageless as well. You know how old black & white movies seem crisp and eternal, while, say, certain 70's movies have a dated feel...even though they may be GREAT 70's movies?
"Born To Run" hasn't aged one iota. It's as impressive now as it must have been in 1975.
It's an album that sounds just as good in your car as it does on your headphones.
From Roy Bittan's piano opening "Thunder Road" to Springsteen's anguished howl ending "Jungleland", you will have gone somewhere. Bruce and the band takes you on a journey...GOD I'm jealous that some of you haven't heard this yet! I'd like to watch someone listen to it for the first time...
I'm telling ya, this is simply one of the great musical experiences of all time.

I was born in the year when this album was first released, so perhaps understandably I had little awareness of it at the time. Growing up, Bruce Springsteen to me was always Born In The USA and Glory Days, and none of the copious airplay devoted to the "Live 1975-1985" box set in my parents' house could shake that initial impression.

But I always quite liked what bits of Springsteen's live performances I happened upon; whether or not you're a fan, you can't help but feel the energy that the E Street Band projects. That in itself is a rare enough commodity (especially in the current music scene) and one to be appreciated, so I eventually relented and bought Born To Run.

What can be said about this album that hasn't already been committed to the page over the past 30 years? Not much - and for good reason, I'd wager. This is one of those records that I've assiduously avoided trying to dissect and intellectualize. The songs here are too visceral and too affecting to be waved aside by some dismissive categorization.

You needn't be a staunch American patriot or blue collar worker to relate to these songs or to feel an endless affinity for the way that Springsteen evokes the plight of the characters that inhabit his stories. God, if you've ever felt the frighteningly boundless passion of youth you know exactly what it means when you hear "Together, Wendy, we can live with the sadness / I'll love you with all the madness in my soul". If you've ever felt the gnawing need for escape from a situation that peels your soul away, you feel "It's a town full of losers / And I'm pulling out of here to win" in the pit of your being. If you've fallen short of the ideal version of yourself you saw stretched out at the peak of your youth, you've never heard more bittersweet words, I would wager, than "Remember all the movies, Terry / We'd go to see / Trying to learn to walk like the heroes / We thought we had to be."

For me, these songs resonate with something very primal, and the fact that I've lived a comparatively comfortable middle class life in a perfect family detracts in absolutely no way from my appreciation of this album. Springsteen has captured the essence of the most human experiences on Born To Run, in a way that links the most disparate demographics together in the commonality of struggle through everyday life.

What more can be said ...? It's all said with infinitely more meaning in each note, in each word on every song on this record.

Bruce Springsteen Doesnt deserve this. And this album in particular. There is no other album as epic as this one. Every song is a masterpiece. You should not go through life without hearing the title song and "Thunder Road". One thing that bugs the heck out of me is its down to 4.5 stars due to all the ignorant people who review Bruce's political views. You people forgot this is a free country? You people reviewing his political views are just as ignorant sounding as those people you claim are "Anti-American". How is Bruce anti-american exactly? Just because he disagrees with Goerge Bush's actions doesnt make him a criminal or anything. It's ok, it's free country. Say anything you want about the president and the war on Iraq. Unfortuantly you ignorant people dont realize this. That's why people out there in other countries look at america as evil.

As far as this album and the MUSIC. This album is just fantastic. I am dissapointed to see this album going from 5 stars - where it should be - to 4.5 stars. If you Bruce fans agree with me, show it by clicking on the Helpful button. So we finally can get the review back to 5 stars.

Having been an impressionable fifteen year old when BORN TO RUN first ran, it's hard, thirty two (!) years later to adequately measure the impact this album had. The changes it wrought in the young people who first heard it were very nearly on the cellular level (that's biology, not telephony, you 21st century yahoos!). The only reason that BORN TO RUN did not acquire near biblical status amongst my immediate peers was because Springsteen was a Jerseyite, not a Long Islander (that's "Lawn Guylander" to you, man), and while bopping back forties in the schoolyard at night and choking down red-pack Marlboros by the handful, we still managed to sneer a bit at "B.S.", that yokel from the swamplands that stretched "from the coastline to The City."

Of course, even the sneeringest, the most Billy Joelic, Good Ratsish, and Twisted Sisterite of us couldn't deny that Springsteen had created a work of aural cinematography with BORN TO RUN. Virtually every song is not only memorable but visceral in a way that rock albums have not been for so long since then. Sure, those New Jersey people obviously lived in hog pens and drank budget beer, but just like us, they dreamed of taking Dad's old Musclecar ("Hemipowered drones") on a 120 MPH rip down Route 80 toward the setting sun. Go West, young man. Go West.

And yet, there's more here than wish fulfillment. There's real depth. When Bruce sings of the "skeleton frames of burned-out Chevrolets," he unconsciously echoes Allen Ginsberg in 'Sunflower Sutra': "Jack Kerouac sat beside me on a busted rusty iron pipe. 'Look at the sunflower,' he said." Springsteen gave us our own flowering in the sun.

BORN TO RUN spoke so loudly and meaningfully because it spoke so universally. Trapped in seemingly dead-end suburban small towns (just within sight of the New York skyline, but oh, so far away) we wanted so desperately to run, we dreamed of hearing that long, mournful train whistle blow, we wanted Dylan's vision of the soul in BLOOD ON THE TRACKS, but we also wanted the brash unrestrained energy of Bruce S. on a hot, neon-encrusted night.

A Shaman with a guitar, he gave us visions: "...She dances across the porch as the radio plays." The blonde wore Wayfarers. Her name was Wendy. Or Mary. Or maybe it didn't matter as long as "her eyes shone like the Midnight Sun. She was the one."

Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run is what catapulted him into the mainstream. A triumph in itself, it also is responsible for his longevity. Each Song is a masterpiece. But if you know the Boss, you know "Thunder Road", you know "Born to Run" and you should know "Jungleland" and "Backstreets". "Jungleland" itself is the most epic rock song this side of the Atlantic, the strings the piano, the scratchy Springsteen voice mesh so perfectly and hurl you into the desperate world of rock, roll and ultimately chaos. But the important thing is, you feel it. And "Meeting Across the River" you don't know what he's doing, you don't know where you are, but you feel the gravity of the situation with only a few short lines, and man, is it heavy. You are eddie. You just know what needs to be done. This song could have a novel written around it, but it doesn't need it. "She's the One" like only a few Boss songs, i didn't like it at first, and it grew on me, and now i love it. Every song on this album is worth hearing, and the album itself is a self contained musical novel, the type you don't want to put down and, once you're done, you want to read again. And the E Street Band is there every step of the way. Roy Bittan is easily the most integral of the boys, but they all add a depth that is almost orchestral. This album belongs in any rock n roll lover's collection. This album belongs in any music lover's collection.

I give this classic 1975 set the slight nod over "Born In The USA," "The River," and "Nebraska" as The Boss' finest hour. The lush, vivid poetry of "Thunder Road" always gives me the shivers (but in a good way!), while the heroic, majestic chords of the title track are among rock music's most hair-raising, heart-stopping moments. Oh, and don't forget the epic "Jungleland," one of the best, yet more obscure, songs Springsteen wrote--it has a wonderful sax part, some of his most elaborate lyrics, and a swirling multi-part structure. As for Springsteen's politics, which seemed to have inspired some of the ludicrous one-star reviews below: whatever. Springsteen is an advocate of questioning and keeping a lacerated eye on one's government, not blindly obeying whatever its right-wing nutcases spew forth. He's much more "American," not to mention talented and articulate, than any of his opponents or detractors.

You have read all about the songs, and the enthusiasm and energy this album generates is real. If you love rock 'n roll you need to own this album.

How can you believe in the power of music and NOT respond to lines like these from Thunder Road?

"Show a little faith, there's magic in the night; you ain't a beauty but hey, you're alright."

Sometimes an album really is THAT good. It could change you. So roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair.

Enjoy the record.

Look, the music industry cycles through fads and repetitions of fads and everything is always great, new, and revolutionary. They're always selling it to you and it's always bold, original, and meaningful. Or it's Brittany.

Despite this, every so often, some kid actually buys the B.S.; believes the lie; thinks that music is somehow powerful, true, and real. Some of those kids sit in their room and obsess about their feelings, too. And some of them even have talent and enough obsessive drive to want to practice and play an instrument.

If they have any real ability, they may aspire to actually have something to say. If they're lucky, they may get it said. Very rarely will they find other people to help them say it and other people to listen.

Springsteen is one of these people (we used to call them artists, but now we've confused THAT with people who can move rhythmically while mouthing banalities into a wireless mike) and the best recent example of this lucky coincidence of personal obsession, talent, and historical good-timing. And Born to Run is where it all came together first. I think it's an example of the highest kind of meeting point between individual artistic obsession and a cultural need.

The first time I heard it, in 1977, I was bewildered. It sounded like no other music at the time and I didn't really catch on until the fall of 1978 when I went to see Bruce and the Band at Boutwell auditorium in Birmingham, AL, pushing the Darkness on the Edge of Town record. I can only say that I don't think that ancient Greek tragedy could possibly have had a stronger effect on its audience than Springsteen and the guys did that night. Emotional and spiritual catharis and complete exhaustion.

Through the years Springsteen remained constant only in his variablility, but that's what artists do, I guess. The culture went somewhere else, but Springsteen explored more mature forms of emotion and life experience and I imagine he's worried, more or less, off and on, about whether anybody cares anymore.

I saw them for the second time on June 4, 2000 and I was completely amazed at the continued skill and energy they put into performance. Even more, the depth of expression in his songs has grown over the years. I would give a lot of money for a recording of the song Youngstown from that night. And, when the house lights came up and the band rolled into Born to Run, the place went mad, just like 22 years ago. You cannot pay someone enough to do what Springsteen does. He has to need to do it, and, thank God, Springsteen does.

For a long time I knew little or nothing of the power of Bruce Springsteen. He was one of those classic rock guys whose songs filled oldies radio stations hinting that his music was a staple of another generation.

With Springsteen's release of The Rising I immediately found myself wanting to look back over his career. I went out and listened to most of his older records just to see if they had the same spine-tingling affect on me that The Rising's haunting lyrics and precision played rock did.

Of those records Born To Run stood head-and-shoulders above other Springsteen records such as Darkness On The Edge Of Town, The River and Born In The USA, while those records all had their highlights, they didn't seem to be even trying for what Born To Run accomplishes. From the opening harmonica on Thunder Road, to the rock opera of Junglelands there is an epic quality that resonates throughout Born To Run as Springsteen adds an emotional flare to the day-to-day struggles of the lower middle class. His lyrics talk about wanting to build a new life and leaving your struggles behind, the type of subjects that few major label artists seem to be able to pull off from their multiple platinum view of the world. On Born To Run, Springsteen sounds like a guy from your neighbourhood just plugging away at his music that allows the listener to completely accept the lyrical content of the album.

From a musical perspective what really impresses on Born To Run is the use of the piano. The emotional piano introductions on Thunder Road and Jungleland are the albums most memorable parts, adding a down-to-earth quality to the music that other Springsteen records don't have. But despite the opportunity for the album to fall into a Counting Crows like abyss of sadness, one of the most surprising parts of Born To Run is how fun of an album it is. Tenth Avenue Freeze Out sounds like a James Brown song that Springsteen sings with such glee it's easy to enjoy the album's sudden RnB influence. Meanwhile Born To Run's title track is a full on rock anthem that despite its lyrical content is actually brimming with attitude and energy.

Born To Run has that rare ability to grab a new listener immediately regardless of their age or even when they first hear the record. Even though it was released more than 20 years ago, Born To Run doesn't seem dated. Springsteen's lyrics have a timeless quality to them that mixed with the down to earth rock style of the record makes it well worth a listen even in the year 2003. Maybe that's the reason why his music has remained a staple on classic rock radio for so long.