Rewind: Born To Run - Bruce Springsteen (1975)

Well, I wasn't going to let the day pass without mentioning the release of this one 41 years ago! 

So here are a few things to indulge in relating to to the Born To Run Album.

1. The Album itself
2. The Album Played Live across 41 years beginning in 1975 with Thunder Road at Hammersmith Odeon in London and culminating in Jungleland at the Metlife in New Jersey just two nights ago!
3. An audio recording of the album from Start to Finish from the 2013 show in Coventry.

For some reading on the album etc you can check out my post from Last Year HERE.
 And for more music you can check out the Music is The Doctor that spotlighted 40 Years of Born To Run and included some Outtakes from the album and also Cover Versions of tracks from the album. You can get that HERE!

 Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen
Columbia
Produced By Bruce Springsteen, Jon Landau and Mike Appel
Released 25th August 195
US Chart #3 (#18 in 2005 for 30th Anniversary Edition)
UK Chart #36 (#17 on re-entry in 1985)

 

Born To Run Album Live Over 41 Years!

On The Playlist

Thunder Road - Hammersmith Odeon 1975

Tenth Avenue Freeze Out (Slow Version) - Tower Theater 1975

Night - Montreal, Canada 1981

Backstreets - Landover 1980

Born To Run - Stockholm 1993

She's The One - Sony Music Studios 1995

Meeting Across The River - Devils and Dust Tour 2005

Jungleland - Metlife Night 1 23rd August 2016

*********************

Born To Run Album Live

20th June 2013

Coventry

(Audio Only)

Born to Run
Total Number of times songs from the album have been played live 5346

Here's the breakdown:
    Born to Run (1467)
    Thunder Road (1159)
    Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out (810)
    Jungleland (628)
    Backstreets (486)
    She's the One (482)
    Night (243)
    Meeting Across the River (71)

Music is the Doctor #16: Forty Years of Born To Run

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the release of Born To Run by Bruce Springsteen this week's Music is the Doctor is spotlighting that album and the songs that never made it onto the album and we will see what else we can find that will aid in that celebration.

It's actually amazing to think that Born To Run might never have actually been released under the title we have have come to know and love. Back when Bruce was putting together the order for the project Born To Run at one point wasn't even being considered for the album. Read here a piece I did about it three years ago! Would he have had the same success he has today if he had actually taken that step, I guess we will never know.

A few years back I did a piece here on Soundtrack4Life about what Born To Run meant to me. I stick by the words I wrote then.

Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen

Columbia

Produced By Bruce Springsteen, Jon Landau and Mike Appel

Released 25th August 195

US Chart #3 (#18 in 2005 for 30th Anniversary Edition)

UK Chart #36 (#17 on re-entry in 1985,

Personnel
The E Street Band
    Bruce Springsteen – lead vocals, lead and rhythm guitars, harmonica, percussion
    Roy Bittan – piano, Fender Rhodes, organ, harpsichord, glockenspiel, background vocals on all tracks except "Born to Run"
    Clarence Clemons – saxophones, tambourine, background vocals
    Danny Federici – organ and glockenspiel on "Born to Run"
    Garry W. Tallent – bass guitar
    Max Weinberg – drums on all tracks except "Born to Run"
    Ernest "Boom" Carter – drums on "Born to Run"
    Suki Lahav - violin on "Jungleland"
    David Sancious – piano, organ on "Born to Run"
    Steven Van Zandt – background vocals on "Thunder Road", horn arrangements

Additional musicians
    Wayne Andre – trombone
    Mike Appel – background vocals
    Michael Brecker – tenor saxophone
    Randy Brecker – trumpet, flugelhorn
    Richard Davis – double bass on "Meeting Across The River"
    David Sanborn – baritone saxophone

On the Playlist

Born To Run Live

 01 Thunder Road (London Calling 2012)

02 Tenth Avenue Freeze Out (Capitol Theater Passaic NJ 1978)

03 Night (1981)

04 Backstreets (Hammersmith Odeon 1975)

05 Born To Run (Promo Video)

06 She's The One (Madison Square Gardens 2007)

07 Meeting Across The River (Melbourne 2014)

08 Jungleland (Hammersmith Odeon 1975)

Born To Run Outtakes

Linda Let Me Be The One.

So Young and In Love.

Walking In The Street.

Lonely Night In The Park.

A Love So Fine (Live Version 1975).

A Night Like This (aka Angel Baby - Live Unknown Source).

Janey Needs A Shooter.

 

Born To Run Covered

 01 Thunder Road - Frank Turner

02 Tenth Avenue Freeze Out - Joe Slomp

03 Night - Greg Mayo

04 Backstreets - Brian Fallon

05 Born To Run (Live) - Roger Daltrey

06 She's The One (Live) - U2

07 Meeting Across The River - Tom Wopat

08 Jungleland (Live) - GNGR

 

Born To Run Album

 01 Thunder Road

02 Tenth Avenue Freeze Out

03 Night

04 Backstreets

05 Born To Run

06 She's The One

07 Meeting Across The River

08 Jungleland

Acoustic

Thunder Road (Studio Outtake)

Born To Run (Live)

Rewind: 25th August 1975 - Born to Run Released

This is a reposting of a couple pieces I did a couple of years back (and stuck together for effect). I have edited it a bit and added some new links.

Between January 1974 and July 1975 Bruce Springsteen was in the studio with The E Street Band trying to create his third album. His first album ('Greetings From Asbury Park , N.J.') did not sell so well - only 25,000 copies in the first year alone! Neither for that matter did the follow up ('The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle'), which hit the streets 8 months later and was dogged by slow sales.

There are two things that stand out to me about Springsteen at this time. Firstly, his record company signed him with an awful lot of hype that he was the "New Dylan", but Bruce has never been the "New Anyone", he's always been himself no matter what the expectations of his label or the music press were. Secondly, the first two albums, whilst good, fail to actually capture the true nature of Springsteen's music, for that you would have to rely on his live shows to get a real feel for how these first 16 studio creations should sound. I've heard quite a number of bootlegs from these days and they are phenomenal (for 1973 shows click here. For 1974 shows click here. And for 1975 shows click here. Can't be totally sure that the links to the bootlegs are actually still working but it's worth having a shot at them).

The songs that made up the first two albums became another lifeforce when played live and maybe as he entered the studio in January 1974 to begin work on the new album that was in the back of his mind because he was about to create an album that was a sonic assault on the senses after the fashion of Phil Spector's Wall of Sound!

With a bigger budget to "play with" and the added pressure of his record company expecting to claw some money back after the first two failures (in their eyes, though both albums garnered critical praise) he began crafting the songs and finely tuning them to become the 8 songs that make up the release, surely one of the best 39 minutes and 26 seconds ever carved out on Vinyl! The process probably took a lot longer than he wanted (14 months) and it didn't help that he got stuck for six months working on the title track alone!

On it's release it finally broke the top ten in the USA peaking at #3 (it had entered the Billboard Charts at #84 on September 13th 1975 and the following week had a massive jump to #8) whilst in the UK it reached #17.

All of this success elevated Bruce Springsteen to such dizzy heights - appearing on the cover of both Time and Newsweek in the same week and his record company almost went into overdrive to see the album gain international success (most of this type of hype though was quite despised by Springsteen himself).

I was 10 years old when Springsteen's first two albums came out (ok, technically for the first one I was still 9 years old) and although I really didn't have much of a clue what he was singing about half the time, I mean did you know what a "month long vaction in the stratosphere" (from 'Growin' Up') was when you were 9? Neither did I but I remember hearing songs like 'Blinded by the Light' and being totally amazed at the amount of words he was using in a song and I was hooked. And when the second album came around I probably still hadn't matured enough to even begin to know what he was talking about in 'Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)' when he sang, "The only lover I'm ever gonna need's your soft sweet little girl's tongue Rosie you're the one," but it sounded a little exciting!
  On August 25th 1975 I was 12 years, 3 months and 19 days old (or young), I was heading for my teenage years fast and on that day Bruce released the album by which set the standard he would be judged by the rest of his career. Eight songs about going places, cars, and girls (I had pretty much discovered them at such a tender age and they weren't smelly like we thought and they were actually really nice to kiss without running away!). I think I even knew at that age that the place I lived would not confine me the rest of my days and so when the final line of 'Thunder Road' kicks in - "It's a town full of losers/And I'm pulling out of here to win," - I know exactly what Bruce is saying and he's telling me that there's a road to be travelled that you'll never discover it if you stay!

I wanted friends like Bruce had in 'Tenth Avenue Freeze-out' like "Scooter and the Big Man" and I had a feeling that I'd know by experience quite soon that "Somewhere tonight you run sad and free/Until all you can see is the night" (from 'Night'), and that desire in 'Born to Run' - "I want to know if love is wild/girl I want to know if love is real" - I didn't realise then that it would take many, many years to have that one answered! I was still on the journey of discovery and there was a word of hope that seemed to stick with me like a friend throughout all of those days, months and years:

"Someday girl I don't know when
we're gonna get to that place
Where we really want to go
and we'll walk in the sun
But till then tramps like us
baby we were born to run"

Listen to the full studio album here.

Hammersmith Odeon 18th November 1975.

Click Here For 'Born To Run' played in sequence in Blatimore on 20/11/09. 

 Born To Run Played In Sequence Coventry 20th June 2013.

 

Clinton Heylin's book 'E Street Shuffle: The Glory Days of Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band', speaks about the eventual release of 'Born to Run' and he reckons that originally "Springsteen was seriously planning to leave off 'Born to Run'. Thankfully, wiser counsel prevailed." (p111)
The track list that Springsteen wanted to go with was this:

Side One

1. Thunder Road

2. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out

3. Lonely Night in the Park

4. Jungleland

5. Night

Side Two

1. Linda Let Me Be The One

2. Meeting Across the River

3. She's The One

4. Backstreets

I don't know about you but it's hard to imagine if this album would have been as successful had 'Born to Run' not been included! Also, and Heylin doesn't mention this, I wonder what the album title would have been?

It also throws up the question whether Bruce would ever actually know the kind of success he enjoys today had he left the track off of the album.

Don't you just love 'What If's'?

Wings For Wheels: The Making of Born To Run.

Born To Run Covered

Thunder Road - Frank Turner.

Tenth Avenue Freeze Out - Bon Jovi.

Night - Greg Mayo.

Backstreets - Maria McKee.

Born To Run - Amy MacDonald.

She's the One - Elvis Costello.

Meeting Across The River - Tom Wopat.

Jungleland The Rocking Chairs. 

Rewind: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Kick Off The Born To Run Tour 1975

On this day in musical history Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band kicked off the 'Born To Run Tour'. Opening night (20th July 1975) was at The Palace Concert Theater in Rhode Island.

The Tour would be 116 Dates and would finish up on 28th May 1976 at The U.S. Navel Academy in Annapolis.

It is also the live debut of "Miami" Steve Van Zandt on guitar for the E Street Band.

Setlist

  INCIDENT ON 57TH STREET / SPIRIT IN THE NIGHT / TENTH AVENUE FREEZE-OUT / GROWIN' UP / IT'S HARD TO BE A SAINT IN THE CITY / THE E STREET SHUFFLE - HAVING A PARTY / BORN TO RUN / THUNDER ROAD / NEW YORK CITY SERENADE / KITTY'S BACK / ROSALITA (COME OUT TONIGHT) / 4TH OF JULY, ASBURY PARK (SANDY) / A LOVE SO FINE - SHOUT / SHA LA LA / QUARTER TO THREE

Into The River We Dive - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

Things have been a bit quiet for me the past few days as I've been away camping and have had the chance to catch up on some listening. Just picked up the above show from 2009 of Bruce and the E Street Band. This is a newer recording (I have a few others of the same show) and is way better quality than I could have imagined.

It's a shame that he hasn't repeated the playing of the album as he has done with 'Born to Run', 'Darkness at the Edge of Town' and 'Born in the U.S.A.' as it sounded quite amazing hearing all the songs placed in their proper context.

 'The River' Album Played in Sequence at MSG

 

Audio of the Full Show

'Greetings from Asbury Park NJ' Album in Sequence 22/11/2009 Buffalo.

'The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle' in Sequence 7th November MSG NY (Full Show).

What If Born to Run never existed?

So I'm sitting here reading Clinton Heylin's book 'E Street Shuffle: The Glory Days of Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band', and have reached the point about the recording and eventual release of 'Born to Run' only to discover that originally "Springsteen was seriously planning to leave off 'Born to Run'. Thankfully, wiser counsel prevailed." (p111)

The track list that Springsteen wanted to go with was this:

Side One

1. Thunder Road

2. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out

3. Lonely Night in the Park

4. Jungleland

5. Night

Side Two

1. Linda Let Me Be The One

2. Meeting Across the River

3. She's The One

4. Backstreets

I don't know about you but it's hard to imagine if this album would have been as successful had 'Born to Run' not been included! Also, and Heylin doesn't mention this, I wonder what the album title would have been?

It also throws up the question whether Bruce would ever actually know the kind of success he enjoys today had he left the track off of the album.

Don't you just love 'What If's'?

Born To Run - What You Mean to Me

Between January 1974 and July 1975 Bruce Springsteen was in the studio with The E Street Band trying to create his third album. His first album ('Greetings From Asbury Park , N.J.') did not sell so well - only 25,000 copies in the first year alone! Neither for that matter did the follow up ('The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle'), which hit the streets 8 months later and was dogged by slow sales. 

There are two things that stand out to me about Springsteen at this time. Firstly, his record company signed him with an awful lot of hype that he was the "New Dylan", but Bruce has never been the "New Anyone", he's always been himself no matter what the expectations of his label or the music press were. Secondly, the first two albums, whilst good, fail to actually capture the true nature of Springsteen's music, for that you would have to rely on his live shows to get a real feel for how these first 16 studio creations should sound. I've heard quite a number of bootlegs from these days and they are phenomenal (for 1973 shows click here. For 1974 shows click here. And for 1975 shows click here.). 

The songs that made up the first two albums became another lifeforce when played live and maybe as he entered the studio in January 1974 to begin work on the new album that was in the back of his mind because he was about to create an album that was a sonic assault on the senses after the fashion of Phil Spector's Wall of Sound!

With a bigger budget to "play with" and the added pressure of his record company expecting to claw some money back after the first two failures (in their eyes, though both albums garnered critical praise) he began crafting the songs and finely tuning them to become the 8 songs that make up the release, surely one of the best 39 minutes and 26 seconds ever carved out on Vinyl! The process probably took a lot longer than he wanted (14 months) and it didn't help that he got stuck for six months working on the title track alone! 

On it's release it finally broke the top ten in the USA peaking at #3 (it had entered the Billboard Charts at #84 on September 13th 1975 and the following week had a massive jump to #8) whilst in the UK it reached #17. All of this success elevated Bruce Springsteen to such dizzy heights - appearing on the cover of both Time and Newsweek in the same week and his record company almost went into overdrive to see the album gain international success (most of this type of hype though was quite despised by Springsteen himself).

I was 10 years old when Springsteen's first two albums came out (ok, technically for the first one I was still 9 years old) and although I really didn't have much of a clue what he was singing about half the time, I mean did you know what a "month long vaction in the stratosphere" (from 'Growin' Up') was when you were 9? Neither did I but I remember hearing songs like 'Blinded by the Light' and being totally amazed at the amount of words he was using in a song and I was hooked. And when the second album came around I probably still hadn't matured enough to even begin to know what he was talking about in 'Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)' when he sang, "The only lover I'm ever gonna need's your soft sweet little girl's tongue Rosie you're the one," but it sounded a little exciting! I remember seeing the video for Rosie on the Old Grey Whistle Test filmed in Arizona in 1978 and I think I knew then that music would always have a place in my life in one way or another.

On August 25th 1975 I was 12 years, 3 months and 19 days old (or young), I was heading for my teenage years fast and on that day Bruce released the album by which set the standard he would be judged by the rest of his career. Eight songs about going places, cars, and girls (I had pretty much discovered them at such a tender age and they weren't smelly like we thought and they were actually really nice to kiss without running away!). I think I even knew at that age that the place I lived would not confine me the rest of my days and so when the final line of 'Thunder Road' kicks in - "It's a town full of losers/And I'm pulling out of here to win," - I know exactly what Bruce is saying and he's telling me that there's a road to be travelled that you'll never discover it if you stay! 

I wanted friends like Bruce had in 'Tenth Avenue Freeze-out' like "Scooter and the Big Man" and I had a feeling that I'd know by experience quite soon that "Somewhere tonight you run sad and free/Until all you can see is the night" (from 'Night'), and that desire in 'Born to Run' - "I want to know if love is wild/girl I want to know if love is real" - I didn't realise then that it would take many, many years to have that one answered! I was still on the journey of discovery and there was a word of hope that seemed to stick with me like a friend throughout all of those days, months and years:

"Someday girl I don't know when
we're gonna get to that place
Where we really want to go
and we'll walk in the sun
But till then tramps like us
baby we were born to run"

Listen to the full studio album here.

Click Here For 'Born To Run' played in sequence in Blatimore on 20/11/09. 

Rewind: Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band Play Born to Run

Date: 20th November 2009

Place: 1st Mariner Arena, Baltimore

Tour: Working On A Dream