The Evolution of Born to Run: "Born to Run"

For the 50th anniversary of Born to Run, here's a track-by-track breakdown of the evolution of each of the songs on the record, going in order from start to finish. Side 2, track 1: “Born to Run.”

“I wanted to craft a record that sounded like the last record on Earth, like the last record you might hear…the last one you’d ever NEED to hear. One glorious noise, and then the apocalypse.”

The most important thing about “Born to Run” isn’t how long it took to write, how hard it was to create the sound Bruce Springsteen heard in his head, or how it was impossible to edit in the studio. The most important thing about “Born to Run” is that it became the fulcrum, the major turning point, in how Bruce Springsteen wrote songs. As Bruce himself points out in Songs, “It was the first piece of music I wrote and conceived as a studio production. It was connected to the long, live pieces I’d written previously by the twists and turns of the arrangement.” 

That’s important because he couldn’t keep relying on 20 minute epics with lengthy spoken-word stories introducing them as the central focus of the live show. It would have eventually been limiting creatively. And at least in hindsight, he knew that, even if it took him a while to figure out what he wanted to do with that information. In Songs, he notes, “But ‘Born to Run’ was more condensed; it maintained the excitement of ‘Rosalita’ while delivering its message in less time and with a shorter burst of energy. This was a turning point, and it allowed me to open up my music to a far larger audience.” 

“Born to Run” was about compression, about taking the power of all of those 50s and 60s songs he was listening to on the turntable next to his bed at 7 ½ West End Court in Long Branch and figuring out how to write songs that would have the same jaw-dropping impact as the epics did. That was a critical decision to make, and a brave one. It would have been way easier for Springsteen to keep writing the kind of songs he had been writing. He had a loyal fanbase and they could have been a great regional act that had pockets of support elsewhere. But somehow he knew it wouldn't be sustainable.