\n[Adapted in part from a review that originally appeared in<\/i>
\nOn The Town Magazine
\non 4\/29\/97]<\/i><\/p>\n
In the liner notes to his 1995
\nGreatest Hits<\/i> album, Bruce Springsteen describes the song
\n“Born To Run” as “my shot at the title. A 24-year-old kid aiming at
\n‘the greatest rock’n’roll record ever.'”<\/p>\n
The kid didn’t do too bad.<\/p>\n
\nBorn To Run<\/i> — the album and the song — is a rock and roll
\nfever dream, the most evangelical sermon ever preached in the Holy
\nChurch of Rock as Redemption. On this album, a brash young
\nsinger-songwriter fresh out of the New Jersey club scene set some
\nof the most evocative American street poetry of the 20th century to
\nan electrifying set of recklessly expansive rock and roll.<\/p>\n
The musical and thematic rhythms of the classic opener “Thunder
\nRoad” mirror the album’s as a whole: the young narrator wages a
\ndetermined battle against the despair around him until he-and the
\nmusic-finally erupt in life-affirming passion. The key instruments
\n— guitar, piano and sax — play off one another in a flurry of
\nmood-shifts that dazzle with both their audacity (after all, it’s
\nonly rock and roll) and their precise emulation of the lyrics’
\nemotional tenor. The reconstituted E Street Band — now featuring
\nRoy Bittan on piano and Max Weinberg behind the drum kit — tears
\ninto the song’s climax as if the players’ lives depend on it. The
\nlyric’s themes — the desperate fight to keep hope alive in a dark
\nand dangerous world, the redemptive powers of love and faith — are
\ntimeless and expressed in a one-of-a-kind, street-wise yet highly
\nliterate and sensitive voice.<\/p>\n
From that remarkable beginning, the momentum only builds.<\/p>\n
“Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” shows off Springsteen’s love of rhythm
\nand blues with a dynamite groove and swinging horn section. A
\nquarter-century later it had become a standard, one of the staples
\nof the 1999-2000 E Street Band reunion tour. Turning the energy up
\neven higher, “Night” and companion piece “She’s the One” play the
\nirrational cockiness of youth against the unquestionable certainty
\nof a driving rock beat.<\/p>\n
“Backstreets” and “Jungleland” are where I start to run out of
\nsuperlatives. They are impossibly grand, ambitious and intense
\ngoodbyes to the Jersey shore street life romanticized so
\neffectively by Springsteen on his first two albums, beautiful cries
\nof agony and frustration at the loss of his friends, his youth, his
\nworld. Together, this pair of extended suites constitutes one of
\nthe most musically and emotionally complex mini-rock operas on
\nrecord. Both feature remarkably patient, evocative arrangements
\nthat allow the songs to build and support the lyrics until they
\ntake on a mesmerizing, epic quality that has rarely, if ever, been
\nmatched.<\/p>\n
And the title track? A simply amazing lyric (this is great
\nAmerican poetry here, folks) set to a four-minute full-out
\nmultiple-crescendoing rock and roll symphony. For one person at
\nleast, the ambitious young kid hit his target. “Born To Run” is
\npure musical ecstasy and, for my money, the greatest rock’n’roll
\nrecord ever.<\/p>\n
The corner Bruce Springsteen turned artistically on
\nBorn To Run<\/i> would shape the rest of his career. His songs
\nwere expansive but no longer cluttered, and every note played by
\nthe E Street Band was fueled with an unstoppable energy and
\ndetermination. That in itself makes for great music. The capper was
\nthat Springsteen dared to make it all sound like it mattered, like
\nrock could and should aim higher than it ever had before. He dared
\nus all to believe in rock and roll as art, maybe even salvation.
\nSome of us still do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":27002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5832],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-38322","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-bruce-springsteen","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38322"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}