I had the original version of this from somewhere. This is better quality with what has to be some overdubs.
Wrote and shared this on Instagram because I’m a cornball… 50 Years of Born to Run! Spinning it tonight, Bruce’s first true opus still sounds as vital and romantic and impassioned and audacious as the first time I heard it. (I can’t speak for those who first heard it in 1975 lol). It’s an absolute totem of rock and roll, a fully realized universe that exists by itself, full of proper nouns and written in backstreet poetry. This is the kind of music that sets my world on fire: a maximalist swirl of instruments; shout-along lyrics as dramatic as any movie; and above all, that openhearted swinging for the fences with the palpable sense that this might be it, this might be your only chance to show what you have inside you. It never fails to sweep me off my feet, even as its spirit of determined escapism feels more and more like the ethos of a version of myself that doesn’t really draw breath anymore. And yet despite that, the one essential truth of Bruce Springsteen’s music is that whenever you put it on, you can believe for however long it’s playing in the magic trick of rock and roll. Take it for a drive if it’s been a while.
This bit of what you wrote really resonated for me. I listened to Born to Run twice yesterday, once through my headphones during my workday, the second time on the turntable making dinner in the evening. Took me back to my senior year of high school and my freshman year of college, a two-year period where I would routinely listen to that album daily, if not multiple times a day. I recalled just how fiercely I felt the hope of that album back then -- the escapism, the unbridled hunger for life and for new experiences, the electric anticipation for what the future would hold. Listening to it from the vantage point of my mid-30s definitely feels different. I still love it so much, but I hear my own youthful naivete in the songs now, in a way that gives me a real pang of longing for a time when I was more bright-eyed/less worried about the state of the world around me.
Yeah this album (and wild and innocent) remind me of how Bruce has said in the past that all of your past versions of yourself are always there and sometimes different versions take the driver's seat (he said it more eloquently than this). And these two albums bring forth a particular version of myself from early college and I feel everything again, a certain exuberance and happiness, and....yeah, this album rules and Bruce is truly a magician. I honestly think I appreciate BTR more as a true idiosyncratic masterpiece as the years go by. Gonna listen to this all day today.
Sounds like Nebraska box set is being announced this week or very soon. ELECTRIC NEBRASKA what a time to be alive
Probably won’t spring for boxset as I already have two copies of Nebraska on vinyl haha But obviously incredibly good news
So many of these recent rereleases I wish I could buy one disc. Not going to own two copies of Nebraska.