Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Bruce Springsteen's 'Born To Run' 50 Years Later: A Retrospective [Episode 322]

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Bruce Springsteen's 'Born To Run' 50 Years Later: A Retrospective [Episode 322] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The story behind the making of an album released fifty
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: years ago, arguably considered one of the greatest of all time.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen. It's coming up next
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: and Booked on Rock.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: We're totally bummed rock and Roll. I think I'll leave you.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: You're reading Little Hands since it's time to rock.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: And roll, roll out, I totally booked. Welcome back to
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Booked on Rock, the podcast for those about to read
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: and rock on Eric Sinitch, we have a returning guest,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Sean Egan. His latest book is titled Bruce Springsteen and
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Born to Run fifty years Sean, Welcome back to the podcast.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Hi, how are you.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: I'm good. Thanks. So before we get into the album,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: when did you first hear Born to Run and what
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: was your reaction? Well?
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: I came to Born to Run late, actually, because my
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: first Springsteen album was The River and absolutely love that
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: album still do in fact, so obviously once you will,
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: once you get into somebody, you start checking.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Out their back catalog.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: So I came to that album the wrong way round
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: because obviously The River was nineteen eighty Born to Run
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: seventy five, But once you start listening to somebody's back catalog,
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: you start getting everything in context, and Born to Run
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: that sort of paid the way for the river. But
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: the interesting thing is, and I didn't start thinking about
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: this until I was writing the book, I think Born
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: to Run created political rock, because if you think about it,
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: there wasn't really much in the way in rock history
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: that posited rock and roll as explicitly pronasarian. It was
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: certainly always anti authoritarian, but there weren't really that many
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: songs before that album that were a class based rock.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: So Bruce really invented the entire genre with that album.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: You're writing the book called. Although the album was a
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: massive best seller and is by common consensus a cast
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: iron classic, it easily could have never been made. Talk
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: about where Bruce was in terms of his standing with
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: his record label, Columbia and the odds he was facing
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: at the time he was planning this what would be
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: his third studio album.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: Well, it made two albums in nineteen seventy three, Greetings
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: from Hasbury Park and The Wild Innocent in the East
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: Street Shuffle, and they were both promising albums, but they
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: hadn't really sold many copies, and he was really hamstrung
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: by the terrible hype that surrounded his first album. He
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: was being held as the new Dylan, which a lot
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: of people were in those days, because Dylan was semi
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: retired and everybody wanted a new poet, laureate of rock
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: and roll. And he hates hype, always has done, and
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: of course the public hates it as well to some extent.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: So when they checked out his first album and found
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: that it was merely promising rather than rather than a classic,
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: as so many Bob Dylan albums already were, then there
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: was bound to be a little bit of a backlash.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: The wild, the Innocent of the East Street Shuffle. It
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: didn't really advance him much. I mean, you could feel
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: him experimenting a bit. It was a quite jazzy album,
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: so it's unique in his cannon in that respect. But
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: Columbia Records were now beginning to feel, well, maybe we
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: are wasting our time on this person and we should
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: just let him go. And they actually said to him,
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: we need you to record a single, which was a
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: nonsense idea because he was an album's artist. So it
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: was like he was being put through this humiliating process
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: of being forced to audition for his own record company
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: before they were deign to put out another album by him.
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: So yeah, that was a terrible position for him to
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: be at that point in time, and it could so
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: easily have been the last thing that he ever recorded.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: To understand the songs that make up Born to Run,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: it's important to understand Bruce's background, and you do cover
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: that in the opening chapter, and the chapter is titled
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: growing Up. The context. While the music is big, Bruce
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: came from small beginnings. Talk about that and how it
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: influenced the songs on this album.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: Well, one contemporary of his described him as dirt poor,
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: so he was always he came from a family that
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: was always scrimping and saving, and he had a loving
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: relationship with his mother, quite a difficult relationship with his father,
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: who he only later on in life realized was probably
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: mentally ill even at that point of his life.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: So he.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: Was from the wrong side of the tracks, as it were,
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: and that kind of stuff informs his songs, and not
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: merely been the wrong side of the tracks, it's also
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: being the wrong side of the river because he's from
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: New Jersey, and like a lot of people in New
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: Jersey feel or felt then that to him was Nowhereville
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: and whenever he traveled to New York on the other
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: side of the river. He just felt this is the
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: kind of hustle and bustle and glamour that he really
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: wanted to be part of his life, but it wasn't
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: when he was stuck in the boondocks of New Jersey.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: So yeah, you can. You can hear all of that
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: in his songs, not so much on his first two albums,
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: which they do show a lot of street life, but
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: in a very stylized way. But once he gets into
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: Born to Run, especially the title track's he's really exploring
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: the despair of people who feel that because they don't
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: have of great prospects, that they're may be not valid
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: as human beings, which is a terrible situation.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: To be in.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Let's get to the tracks now, you right, Quell. Born
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: to Run starts in a rather peculiar way. Expand on
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: that in terms of that opening track, thunder Road, and
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: what Bruce has said about why he chose that particular
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: song to open the album.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: Well, he felt that it just the tone of that
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: song had the hallmarks of a fresh day and new beginning,
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: and therefore it was appropriate that it would start the album.
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: Now that makes its own kind of sense. But sonically
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: it makes no sense at all because it's a sort
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: of meandering song. It doesn't really have a proper chorus,
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: and it's got an instrumental break, but it's in the
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: oddest place, is right at the end where Clarence plays
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: his sax soolo to bring things to a close. So
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: it is a hulia starts at the album. But then
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: again it works. And part of the reason that it works,
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: of course, is that having heard the album so many
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: times over the years, to us it would now sound
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: odd if it didn't start like that. It just becomes
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: a natural start to a sort of beloved sequence of songs.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: It's an odd instrumental break as well.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: You point that out, Yeah, I mean, Clarence, it was
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: a sort of throwback to the fifties. You know, by
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: the nineteen seventies, the saxophone was not a big part
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: of rock and roll, but Bruce brought that back. Partly
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: it was, I think because of his fondness for Clarence,
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: you know, fine instrumentalist though Clarence was. Bruce and Clarence
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: Clemons were for a long time close as brothers. The
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: fact their girlfriends when they first met the two men's
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: girlfriends used to laugh at them and them are being
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: gay because they spend so much time together.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Well, thunder Road is a title taken from a nineteen
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: fifty six Robert Mitcham thriller, which is a non to
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Bruce's love of film noir. And that's probably one of
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: the one of the reasons, among the reasons why I'm
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: a fan of Bruce, because I am a film noir fan.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: The next track, tenth Avenue Freeze Out, you say, in
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: many ways, it's the most likable cut on the album,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: and add that recording artists writing about themselves is often
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: a dubious proposition at best and unwise at worst. Talk
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: about why you feel this song manages to sidestep any
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: of the traps that can often come with this type
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: of song.
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: Well, self mythologizing is always a dubious proposition. I mean,
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: one of my favorite bands of all time is The Clash.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: The Clash.
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: We're always writing about themselves, you know, whether it Big
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: Garage Land or Last Gang in Town or Radio Clash.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: And because I love The Clash, you can sort of
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: forgive them for it. But it's sort of preposterous because
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: the class were unknown to the vast bulk of the public,
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: and yet here they were talking about themselves as though
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: were they were significant cultural forces. And you know, even
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: the Beatles, who genuinely were a significant cultural force. You've
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: got a song like The Ballad of John and Yoko,
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: which is a great song, no denying it, but you're
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: listening to that sometimes thinking, isn't this a bit a.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: Bit self absorbed?
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: Especially the sort of the quite offensive comparison John Lennon
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: makes between himself and a man who died in agony
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: on the Cross. That's a bit too far by anybody's,
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: by even the most hardcore Beatle fans standards. The thing
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: about Tenth Avenue Freeze Out is that it doesn't feel
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: bogged down by that kind of egotism. I mean, Bruce
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: feels like he's mocking himself at the same time as
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: he's celebrating himself, bigging up himself as we would say today.
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: And it's actually quite a joyous track as well. I
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: mean that lovely brass section. It just rings so clean
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: and crisp, and you can you can get with the
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: idea that Bruce and the E Street Band are giants,
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: that the that the that the song sort of hints
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: at even though of course at the time they were
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: pretty much unknown, simply because it is such a likable soundscape.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Rack three Unsided One is Nate and there is a
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: sadness that lies behind the joy Bruce portrays here in
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: a song about a man working all day, the boss
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: man giving him hell. He can't wait to get home
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: and go for a ride. Springsteen admits to never having
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: a d job, but he can tap into the everyday
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: man so brilliantly. Some criticize him, but you say he
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: can certainly relate as a young musician barely getting by
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: in those early days, that's something that he certainly he
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: put a lot of work into, much like a day job.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: Well, Bruce had never known anything other than poverty at
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: that point in his life, whether it be as a
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: child or as a young man whose job, as it was,
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: was a very insecure one, being a want to be
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: a rock star. And of course he'd seen the effects
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: of having a job that you hate doing every time
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: he saw his father come home from work. His father
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: was a very, very unfulfilled man, and that sort of
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: misery seeped into the Springsteen household and Bruce's own own psyche,
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: so he was well qualified to write about the effects
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: of unskilled labor, even if he never knew that experience personally.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: And that last track on side one is Backstreets. The
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: shortest song on the album is Night at three minutes,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: and it's followed by the six and a half minute Backstreets.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: The narrator's ex girlfriend is named Terry, and Bruce seems
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: to have a liking for female characters with two syllable
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: first names ending and why you point this out Bobby, Candy, Cindy, Janey, Kitty, Rosy, Sandy, Sherry, Terry,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Wendy or most commonly Mary. I think I covered them all.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: You also point out that the song could have been
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: shortened up. Is this your least favorite track from the album?
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: I think it is.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: I mean when he goes into the refrain at the end,
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: hiding on the backstreets, you sort of think to yourself
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: after a few repeats of that, well, you made your point, Bruce.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: You don't need to go on and on about it.
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: And the girl's name thing. It must sound peculiar to Americans,
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: but it sounds very peculiar to British people because we
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: hear these names and they sound so cornerly all American.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: They sound like the kind of names that you'd only
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: hear in a movie rather than in real life. But again,
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: it's one of those things you come to love because
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: they're so familiar with Bruce. It's like his trademark, even
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: if it is a slightly comical one. But there are
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: good qualities to hiding on the backstreets. It's quite a
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: vulnerable song. He's talking about that feeling that you have
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: when you're just left school and you're thinking about your
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: future and you're not sure you're ever going to amount
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: to anything. So there's a sort of quivering vulnerability on
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: the cusp of your adult life.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Bun Rock Podcast will be back after this.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: It's intermission time.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Sean Egan is the author of Bruce Springsteen and Born
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: to Run. Fifty years we flipped the album over to
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: side too. It opens with Bruce's breakthrough song on the
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: title track, Born to Run, and you note that it
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: was inspired really by the animals cover of House of
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: the Rising Sun, along with We've got to get out
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: of this place and it's my life. You're right quote.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: We're back in the same psychological territory as night, but
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: it has greater impact.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the Animals were one of the few people who
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: made proletarian rock before Born to Run, even though they
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: didn't actually write the songs. But songs like it's my
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: life and We've got to get out of this place
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: they do sum up the sort of despair and the
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: misery and the lack of fulfilm and the yearning ambition
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: for something more in life of a lot of working
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: class people, especially younger people, and Bruce taps into that.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: I think the most interesting thing about the Born to
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: Run song is that that was the song which he
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: wrote for the single that Columbia insisted that he make,
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: and he absolutely overhauled everything about his style with that
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: song because he said to his manager, I want to
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: do a Phil Spector type record, and his manager said
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: to him, well, Bruce's there's like only twenty words in
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: a Phil Spector song, whereas there's dozens and hundreds in
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: your songs. Because if you listen to those first two albums,
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: his songs are very florrid that you know, the words
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: are bursting over the margins of the songs almost.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: So he took his manager's.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: Advice and he wrote this very stripped down lyric is
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: a great lyric and it says a lot, but it
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: was very spare by his standards, you know, because he
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: was known as a bit of a poet, and that's
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: where part of the new New Dylan tag came from.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: And when you think about it, that is credible achievements
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: and just change your style overnight like that, and he
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: never really went back to that florid style that you
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: hear on those first two albums. That was a new
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: beginning for him which he stuck to.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: And the next track, She's the One Boy. Didley was
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: a strong influence on this song. You say Bruce falls
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: short lyrically on this track, but you praise the musicianship
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: on this song, with Roy Bitten's piano work being the highlight.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean Boe Didly of course famous for the
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: shaven a haircut to bits rhythm sometimes known as hand bone,
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: which he didn't really invent, but it certainly became his trademark.
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: And Bruce decides to do his own bo Diddley beat
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: song with that. The lyric it doesn't fully work. It
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: is a little bit awkward, you know, that line about
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: she knows that it kills me kills being the rhyme
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: with the preceding line, but then he adds this feeble me,
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: and you know, it's all a bit awkward, and it's
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: a bit in congress in the context of this album,
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: which is all about perfectionism and doing things over and
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: over again. I think he could have put that lyric
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: through a few more drafts before it before it was
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: ready to be aired to the world.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it's the E.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: Street Band, which which really came together with this album
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: because he lost two members after the last album and
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: he needed to to add Roy Batan and.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: And Max Weinberg the drummer.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: So so with a great band like that, even a
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: mediocre thing like She's the One could be could be
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: turned into any enjoyable few minutes.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Interesting piece of trivia. Max is not on the title track.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the only song that Max doesn't drum on
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: the album, and he never really could replicate the drum
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: sounds of that title track. But I think history shows
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: that Max was a very valuable addition to the E
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: Street Band. We couldn't imagine the E Street Band without
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: seeing really.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm drawing a blank on who was the
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: original drummer. Boom Carter yeah, Ernest Boom.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: Carter Boom boom, because the police came round to his
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: place one day after reports of gunfire and it turned
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: out that it was just Carter banging on his drums.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: The next track, another film noir title, Meeting Across the River,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: talk about how this track is called more static geographically
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: than the other material on the album, yet it's more
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: layered in more of a true narrative than any other track.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: Well, it's basically a conversation between the narrator and is
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: his friend and they're talking. The narrator is basically talking
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: to his friend saying, I hear there's an easy heist
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: over the river. And it becomes it becomes apparent during
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: the course of this song that what a nasty piece
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: of work this narrata is. And this is the This
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: is the opposite of the narrator in Born to run
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: the song, who might also be a loser, but he
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: doesn't really have that nastiness to him. This is a
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: this is a low life who doesn't care who he hurts,
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: whether it be his girlfriend whose radio he's just HoTT
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: or whether it be the people who is going to
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: planning to terrorize when he when he does this stick
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: up that he's talking about, and very noir in the
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: sense that Bruce is only on it in the in
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: the sense of a vocal. Instead you've got you get
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: a very spare, jazzy soundscape, which sounds sort of like
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: the soundtracks wherevery noir movie that you've ever seen.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: And then you asked the question how to end an
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: album like Born to Run? We know he chooses the
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: epitrac jungle Land. So tell me how you feel about
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: that choice to end the album. I think it.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: I don't think it could have ended any other way, really,
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: in the sense that you couldn't put that track in
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: any other place. It's an absolute epic in the same
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: way that Highway sixty one by Bob Dylan has to
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: end with Desolation Row, so.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: This one has to end with jungle Land.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: And it's basically it's a street opera. It's a little
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: bit stylized in the in the way of West Side Story.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: You can imagine the protagonists of this of this vista
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: in pirouettes as they deliver their lines. But at the
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: same time it has got a certain grittiness to it,
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: and it's a beautiful piece Musically. It feels like an opera.
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: It's got several movements, it's got contrasting musical styles, and
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: it truly sounds epic.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: It has its critics, though you point that out on
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: the book. What are the criticisms and why do you
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: say they're missing the point?
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: Well? They Bob Geldoff famously said about Bob Dylan, he
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: writes fiction the Magic Rat did not cross over the
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: New Jersey River in his Sleek Machine. You know, he's
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: quoting lines from jungle Land in that, and you can
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: sort of see what he means, because it does feel
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: very stylized. Some people actually like that about the song.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: But the thing is, Bruce was inventing political rock as
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: he was going along. He had very few antecedents to
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: provide a template for him. And Bob, of course was
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: in the New Wave that came right after him, and
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: punk and new wave did create new rules for political
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: rock well, one of which, of course, was that everything
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: should be gritty and naturalistic, and that by definition militated
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: against the kind of bombasture here in jungle Land. But
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: you have to say, would punk rock have happened without
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: Born to Run? Because Born to Run to a very
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: great extent, made it possible.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: The gate fold sleeve one of the best. You say,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: it's emblematic of the album's vivid and widescreen nature. That
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: great shot of Bruce and saxophone as Clarence Clemmons. This,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: you say, appears to have occurred more through serendipity than calculation.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: What's the story behind that? Gatefold sleeves usually was done
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: for double albums, not single albums.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he had to get special dispensation to make this
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: one a gatefold sleeve because they were quite expensive to
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: do and he didn't really have much.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: In mind for the album.
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: He went to the photographic studio of Eric Meola, who
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: was a photographer that he vaguely knew, and he just
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: turned up in his street clothes. He was wearing a
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: leather jacket with an Elvis Presley fan club button on it,
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: and Clarence came with him. The only thing that Bruce
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: knew that he wanted to do was to have something
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: a picture with him and Clarence in it, not the
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: East Eat band and not Bruce on his own. So
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: he was clearly trying to communicate something with that, and
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: in fact a lot of people must have been puzzled
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: when they saw that album. Because he wasn't that well
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: known a person, A lot of people must have been
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: wondering which one is Bruce. Unthinkable is that seems today?
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: But Meola took plenty of pictures. There's some fascinating outtakes
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: from that session, but the one that we all became
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: familiar with was Bruce leaning against Clarence. Well, Clarence plays
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: the sacks, Bruce is actually standing on a box because
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: he's quite a bit shorter than Clarence was, and so
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: you only see Bruce on the front. But then you
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: open the sleeve out and there's saxophone that there's Clarence
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: with his saxophone on the back cover. It's a very
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: minimalist design. They're surrounded by white. Just there two figures
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: and then there's the then there's the track listing on
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: the back. But it works perfectly because you see that
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: that sleeve, you're intrigued by it, and of course you
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: never forget it, and it's past the test of so
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: many iconic sleeves. It's been much parodied. There's plenty of
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: people who have imitated that album sleeve, including Sesame Street.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: That's right. One thing I was surprised to read I
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: always assumed that the critics loved this album right out
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: of the gate, but that wasn't the case right away.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: What was the response by critics.
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: Well, it got a mixed reception because, first of all,
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: Born to Run is very much a self conscious epic
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: and a self conscious classic. In fact, when Bruce was
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: right recording the single, the title track single, he actually said,
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna if I'm going to be forced to record
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: a single, I'm going to make the greatest rock and
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: roll records you ever heard. So he was he was
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: aiming high with this album, and you can hear that
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: on the album that this man is clearly trying to
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: trying to create a classic.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: Very often he succeeds.
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: But some people don't like that, of course, They somehow
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: feel that there's that there's some kind of pure process
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: involved in making music and it's got nothing to do
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: with personal ambition or avarice or egotism. Of course, he's
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: got everything to do with those things as well as
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: as well as artistic inspiration. Yeah, and it's also absolutely
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: dripping with rock and roll self referentialism, whether it be
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: the Specterish production, whether it be the Bow Did track,
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: whether it be the.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: Nods to.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: Like in thunder Road where he quotes Roy Orbison. You know,
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: it's that kind of we would call that meta these days,
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: but that kind of meta approach or postmodernism, whatever you
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: want to call it, it wasn't that common in those days,
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: and to a lot of critics that just came across
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: as a bit cute.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: Much more than a deep dive into the tracks. In
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: this book, you get into the reception of the album,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: the tour, Bruce getting on the cover of Time and Newsweek,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: a chapter on Bruce meeting Bob Dylan, Phil Spector, almost Elvis,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: how Bruce boosted and altered the development of an entire
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: genre known as Hartley and rock. Beautiful color photos. So
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: there's so much more in this book for maybe the
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: new fan of Bruce, but also the longtime fans. This
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: is something to really add as part of your collection.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Bruce Brinsteen and Born to Run fifty years out. Now
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: find out Wheriver books are sold. Look for it nearest bookstore.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: You can also find your nearest independent bookstore at bookdown
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Rock dot com. Sewan Egan, thank you so much for
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: doing this. I know we're five hours apart, so you're
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: doing this interview very late, so I really appreciate you
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: stepping up and giving another fantastic interview. I had you
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: on last time for your Bob Dylan book, so thank
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: you for coming back on.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Good still to you. That's it. It's in the books.