40 Year Itch : Five Facts about Born To Run

My early albums were about being someplace and what it was like there, Born to Run is about being nowhere at all.

-Bruce Springsteen

   Released on August 25, 1975, Bruce Springsteen's Born To Run remains his most epic statement, a make it or break it album for an artist on the verge of losing his major label record deal. He made it, selling more than six million copies, and the rest is history. Springsteen, 25, would say he was born, grew old and died in the fourteen months it took to make his third album. You can hear the anxiety in every groove, the last chance power try.

Here are five fun facts about Born To Run.

   1. It might have been called The Legend of Zero and Blind Terry. Springsteen was always interested in making a concept album and already had an epic eight minute song in his back pocket called "Zero and Blind Terry" about two runaway lovers hiding from the police. He dropped the song but came up with one that shares similar themes : the album closer "Jungleland". Born To Run is a concept album. Springsteen has said he imagined everything that happens in the album occurs on an endless Summer night.

  2. The single "Born To Run", was first recorded by Allan Clarke of The Hollies. But Springsteen's version was the first to be released, and is the only song on the album produced with his manager Mike Appel and featuring departing members Ernest "Boom" Carter on drums and David Sancious on keyboards. Springsteen spent six months in the studio recording "Born To Run", building a Phil Spector like "Wall of Sound" by laying down as many as 11 tracks of guitar alone. He knew the driving tune would be a hit. 

After playing a tape of the song for Crawdaddy he reportedly punched the air, yelling "WABC!", the top 40 station in New York City. The song did hit the Top 40, peaking at #23 on November 1, 1975.

3.  The album begins with a whiff of Dylan. There's a very Dylanesque harmonica at the very top of the first song, "Thunder Road", which might have given fans and critics pause. Springsteen had survived the "new Dylan" hype. He'd even recovered from the "new Van Morrison" hype, and soon he would face his own hurricane of hype ( Creem Magazine readers voted 1975's biggest fads as 1) Disco, 2) Springsteen and 3) Trying to Kill the President). So he needed to come up with his own sound, one that would go over with the rock n roll kids coming to his concert. 

   That's where rock critic Jon "I Saw Rock and Roll's Future and its name is Bruce Springsteen" Landau came in, first as a friend, then advisor and finally as co-producer. Landau had once produced the MC5 so he had bona fides. He prodded Springsteen through sessions at the Record Plant that often began at 6 PM and went to 3 AM but states everything on the record is Springsteen's vision.

4. Steve Van Zandt saved the day on 'Tenth Avenue Freeze Out'. Bruce wanted some horns to accompany Clarence Clemmons. With the Brecker Brothers in the studio, Roy Bittan tried to help Bruce write horn charts but they didn't sound like anything Bruce had in mind. A visiting Miami Steve was asked to help. His band's often covered Memphis soul tunes. Van Zandt told the musicians to put away their horn charts and sang the parts he wanted them to play. It worked. 

   Springsteen turned to manager Appel and reportedly said "It's time to put the boy on the payroll. I've been meaning to tell you --he's the new guitar player". Miami Steve would be a permanent member of the band for more than ten years.

5. Springsteen hated all ten Jimmy Iovine masters of Born To Run. He even threatened to toss out half of the album and record the rest live at an upcoming gig. But Landau talked him out of it, saying "You're not supposed to like it. You think Chuck Berry sits around listening to 'Maybelline'?...C'mon it's time to put the record out". 

Two weeks later, Born To Run came out.

Your reward for reading today's post: The Born to Run documentary, Wings for Wheels.

40 Year Itch : The Boss Plays The Bottom Line

    The ten-show stand at the Bottom Line early in the (Born to Run) tour remains a rock date to rival James Brown at the Apollo or Dylan at Newport. At the Bottom Line, Springsteen became himself. By adding Van Zandt as a second guitar player, he was liberated from some of his musical duties, and he became a full-throttle front man, leaping off amps and pianos, frog-hopping from one tabletop to the next. ~ David Remnick, The New Yorker

   On August 13, 1975, twelve days before the release of Born To Run, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band began a five night, ten show stand at The Bottom Line. This was a new E Street Band, with keyboardist Roy Bittan and drummer Max Weinberg replacing David Sancious and Ernest "Boom" Carter, respectively. Steven Van Zandt, who'd played in an earlier band with Springsteen, joined as second guitarist.

    Columbia Records executives were frustrated by Springsteen's lack of success. They purchased a quarter of the tickets at the 500 seat venue and distributed them to music industry types to get the word out.  Even so, not all of the shows were sold out until after WNEW-FM broadcast the fifth show. After that, people were lined up around the block to get in.

    There are bootlegs of these shows all over the internet. Listening, you have to remind yourself how little known some of these legendary songs were at the time . In "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out", during the second show, when Springsteen sings "And the Big Man joined the band", there is absolutely no reaction from the crowd. A week later and from then on, it would become one of the great applause lines of every show.

   Robert De Niro, in New York shooting Taxi Driver, caught one of the Bottom Line shows. He watched as the crowd yelled "Brruuuuuuce!" and Springsteen responded with "You talkin' to me?".
De Niro would make that line his own in an improvised scene shot within the next couple of days.



   The shows had their desired effect. Ken Tucker wrote in the Soho Weekly News "I have just come from the best rock and roll performance I've ever seen in my long, decadent life". The Village Voice's Paul Nelson responded in the affirmative to his cover story " Is Springsteen Worth The Hype?": "On my feet, clapping, never wanting it to end, I ask myself when I've ever been so moved by a concert."
   "It was our coming-out party," Springsteen says. "And some sort of transformation occurred over those five nights. We walked out of that place in a different place."