OZCUBAN Posted August 25, 2015 Share Posted August 25, 2015 Time Capsule: August 25, 1975. Born to Run is released Born To Run the high-octane start of something big. WARWICK MCFADYEN Halfway through one of his 2014 Melbourne concerts Bruce Springsteen launched into Born to Run the album. On saxophone was Jake Clemons, nephew to Clarence, the "big man", who had recently died. It was a magical link to the past. Clarence and Springsteen had come together decades ago to create a sound and with it one of rock music's iconic album images. Forty years ago today it began, the rising of Bruce Springsteen from New Jersey boy to the Boss of the rock'n'roll kingdom. Born to Run was released on August 25, 1975. It was the roar of an engine, accelerator to the floor. It was not so much a wall of sound as a battering ram. It had a power that could not be corralled, and when it was unleashed on stage, such as when Springsteen played the Hammersmith Odeon that year, it swept all before it. If ever an example of a turning point in an artist's career were needed, this was it. Before Born To Run, Springsteen had released two mildly interesting albums, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. and The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle. Record company executives were getting restless. Did this guy from New Jersey have the goods or not? Turns out, he did. Turns out, he is one of the greatest writers and performers in rock history. But back in the early to mid-'70s, Springsteen was still wrestling with the musical form for his vision. The song Born to Run running time four and a half minutes took half a year to record. It began life, as Springsteen says in the documentary Wings for Wheels, The Making of Born To Run, with him sitting on the edge of his bed with his guitar. The phrase "born to run" emerged. It was "cinematic drama that I'd thought would work with the music I'd been hearing in my head". It became the record, he says, that changed his life. The panorama of the songs was imagined over a warm summer endless night, it was the surfacing of characters that would stay with him. The underpinning of the album was the tension of everyone "trying to get out", looking for the promised land, looking for the American dream. And for those Springsteen fans wondering what a 10th Avenue freezeout is, don't ask the author. "I have no idea to this day what that means, but it's important," he says in the documentary. And laughs. The '70s were heightened times: the Vietnam War would end in 1975, Saigon falling in April. That same month the Khmer Rouge would capture Phnom Penh and thus would begin genocide to cleanse Cambodia. In the US, Watergate would play out with some of Nixon's henchmen beng sentenced. And in New Jersey, a musician would find that the space between nowhere and stardom can be very short indeed. Two months after the release of Born To Run, Springsteen was on the cover of both Time and Newsweek magazines. His name would be mentioned in despatches with those of Bob Dylan, Marlon Brando, Mick Jagger and even Elvis. Music critic Robert Hilburn, of the Los Angeles Times, was quoted in the Newsweek profile, as describing Springsteen as "the purest glimpse of the passion and power of rock'n'roll in nearly a decade". In the October 9 issue of Rolling Stone Greil Marcus wrote that Born to Run was a "magnificent album that pays off on every bet ever placed on him ... it should crack his future wide open". Prescient words. Marcus went on: "The song titles by themselves Thunder Road, Night, Backstreets, Born to Run, Jungleland suggest the extraordinary dramatic authority that is at the heart of Springsteen's new music. It is the drama that counts. "He has touched his world with glory, without glorifying anything: not the romance of escape, not the unbearable pathos of the street fight in Jungleland, not the scared young lovers of Backstreets and not himself ... Springsteen's songs ... take place in the space between Born to Run and Born to Lose, as if to say the only run worth making is the one that forces you to risk losing everything you have. Only by taking that risk can you hold on to the faith that you have something left to lose." In an interview in 1984, Springsteen says of Born to Run that it was about "searching, and faith, and the idea of hope". He and the band went into the studio in 1974, (from where he emerged from a different studio a year and half later) two members keyboardist David Sancious and drummer Ernest Carter were not there, replaced by Max Weinberg on drums and Roy Bittan on piano. While they were there, and in the immediate months afterwards, these sounds were swirling around: Blood on the Tracks (Bob Dylan), Have You Never Been Mellow (Olivia Newton-John), High Voltage (AC/DC), Young Americans (David Bowie), Physical Graffiti (Led Zeppelin), Feel Like Making Love (Roberta Flack), Blow by Blow (Jeff Beck), Katy Lied (Steely Dan), ABBA (ABBA), The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (Rick Wakeman), Playing Possum (Carly Simon), Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (Elton John), Venus and Mars (Wings), Love Will Keep Us Together (Captain & Tennille), Tonight's the Night (Neil Young), Ego is not a Dirty Word (Skyhooks), Rhinestone Cowboy (Glen Campbell), Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd), The Who By Numbers (The Who), and A Night at the Opera (Queen) It was into this musical landscape that Springsteen took his vision. Born to Run wasn't revolutionary in terms of musicianship or recording techniques. Where it did tear down the barricades was in its putting of flesh and blood, heart and spirit, hopes and dreams, sorrows and tears onto every note played and sung. Springsteen is a short-story writer who sings his characters to life. This is not fantasy, this is the life he, and his fans know intimately. Fellow New Jersey native Jon Stewart tells the story of his young adult life, of having finished his shift a a local bar of driving home in the early hours, believing he was part of a Springsteen song. Springsteen struck a chord, still does. After the high-octane rush of Born to Run, came the inevitable downer, the Sunday morning after the Saturday night, the low-key masterpiece of Darkness on the Edge of Town. It is equally important in his career as Born to Run. Then in the mid-'80s came mega-stardom on the back of Born in the USA, and then back off the highway into the sideroads with albums such as Nebraska. He is his own man, and for the sake of the narrative, everyman. In that same 1984 interview Springsteen says: "I believe that the life of a rock'n'band will last as long as you look down into the audience and can see yourself, and your audience looks up at you and can see themselves." Courtesy of the age newspaper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnS Posted August 25, 2015 Share Posted August 25, 2015 Here's a link to a related article from Atlantic.com titled, 'Born to Run and the Decline of the American Dream'... http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/08/born-to-run-at-40/402137/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Munts Posted August 25, 2015 Share Posted August 25, 2015 Either my maths is bad or that is not 25 years ago.... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Presidente Posted August 26, 2015 Share Posted August 26, 2015 i thought when Ken left for his 3 week Odyssey yesterday it would be a Springsteen and RG3III free zone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JC67 Posted August 26, 2015 Share Posted August 26, 2015 In my inion The Rising is the best Boss album since Some great music released that year!! Good effort with that post Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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