In my life there are a handful of moments in time where I really stopped down and said, “Whoa!” Where something – an event, a song, something I read – made such an instant impression on me that I knew it would stay with me forever. And no matter how much time passes, I can close my eyes and for an instant recapture that incredible feeling of awe and amazement.
One of those moments for me was the first time I heard Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” album (and it WAS an album I heard – this was 1975 after all!). From the opening strains of Thunder Road to the plaintive howl that ends Jungleland, Bruce Springsteen in under 40 minutes total (it’s not a long album) completely captured all my teenage angst, all my secret desires to escape, to get away, to live, to BE in eight awesome, rousing, classic tunes. I fell in love with him then, and never really fell out of it. I saw him live only once, nine years later on his “Born in the U.S.A.” tour and seeing him live at that point in his career in a huge stadium with God knows how many other fans was another one of those unforgettable experiences. He let the audience open Thunder Road, and tens of thousand of voices were raised – we all knew the lyrics by heart, having sung them who knows how many times in our cars, in our showers, in our bedrooms. Over the years his symbols for facebook” title=”music symbols for facebook”>musical journey has taken him down a lot of roads, and I’ve taken that journey with him. In a way we’ve grown up together.
So here it is, 30 years later, and he’s released an incredible 3-disc set of “Born to Run”. There’s a remastered CD of the original album, a DVD of a 1975 concert in London (and even on DVD, you can recapture the feel of the band live, and nobody does live like the E Street Band), and a making of DVD. What can I say? It’s worth every penny.
In the day we sweat it out in the streets of a runaway american dream
At night we ride through mansions of glory in suicide machines
Sprung from cages out on highway 9,
Chrome wheeled, fuel injected and steppin’ out over the line
Baby this town rips the bones from your back
It’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap
We gotta get out while we’re young
`cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run