Album : Born to Run – Bruce Springsteen

Cincinnati Babyhead was waiting for this album to be released.  He’d heard the two previous records and he was really looking forward to seeing what the third album would bring.

First thing was it had a  cool cover.

Piano and harmonica open up the album’s first cut ‘Thunder Road’.  A little different sound but it was the same guy.  A lot of the same elements on this song that were on the other albums.  CB wanted to like it.  It wasn’t hard to like.   Anticipation for what was coming next.  ’10th Avenue Freeze Out’ picked it up and carried CB deeper.  Man what a song!  Lyrics,story, images, horns, vibe.  Yeah great song.  CB was feeling good. This is what he was waiting for.  Celebration of music. Springsteen’s own and others.  He was expanding on his inspirations and musical ideas.  ‘Night’ keeps the ride going with the images and the music.  ‘Backstreets’  was building to something special.  Springsteen doing his romantic rock n roll thing.  What a great piece of music, sung with passion, sung from a real place.  This guy wasn’t faking it.  “Remember all the movies, Terry, we’d go see..”.  This guy was singing to me.  I really thought that.  Man this guy was feeling it and so was CB.   His wails and moans at the end of the song sum it up.  It was just coming out of his whole being.

The title track kicked off side two.  At the time it was the best thing CB had ever heard.  Could it get any better.  This song just blew his mind.  A perfect cut of rock n roll.  Man, chills.  “I wanna die with you out on the street tonight in an ever lasting kiss..” Man he was going for it.  CB was feeling this music big time.  ‘She’s The One’ is another song for the romantics with a great drum beat (Bo Diddley beat) and Clarence Clemons lets loose on the sax and Springsteen releases  guttural sounds instead of lyrics.  More great rock n roll.  ‘Meeting Across The River’ was like a movie.  Filmic.  Randy Brecker’s trumpet is perfect.  It was like listening to a movie.  The images it conjured up.  Still feel it and see it today.  This was a meeting of two worlds for CB, music and film.

‘Jungleland’ is another epic.  Riffing on ‘Indecent on 57th Street’ and ‘Lost in the Flood’ from his first two records.  Same feel just slicker and more polished musically.  Always dug Springsteen’s guitar and he does some good work here.  Clemons pulls off  one of Babyhead’s all time favorite sax solos.  When he first heard it he was overwhelmed.  Clarence just kept it coming.  Fantastic stuff!  It ends with the piano and Springsteen’s  wails.  End of album.  One of the best!

CB knew this guy was good but he was getting better and he absolutely hit it out of the park with this record.  He was more sure of himself, and of his music.  More confident and his band was on fire.  No doubt (never was) that this guy was special to CB.  What an experience this album was (is).

At the end of the day it’s all about the music.  A great rock n roll album!

“The screen door slams…”