Born to Run - Springsteen, Bruce (CD 1987)

I've been writing about Bruce Springsteen for three reviews now - four if you count my review for Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell, which discussed Bruce's Born to Run almost as much as it did the album in question - and it's been brought to my attention (by nobody other than myself, of course) that I've been as verbose about the Boss as I've been silent about his E Street Band. There's a natural temptation, of course, with a frontman of such well-deep and sea-wide talent, to forsake all other parties and just concentrate on the-man-the-myth-the-lengend, but there's a reason the E Street Band is probably the best "and the" band of all time (meaning, of course bands like Prince AND THE Revolution, Buddy Holly AND THE Crickets, Morris Day AND THE Time).

In a word, that is because they are awesome. But for those of you seeking a description less vague and ill-defined, they're awesome in the sense that they perfectly compliment Bruce and his one part redemptive, one part communal live show. Third Springsteen album Born to Run saw the advent of a newly shuffled E Street Band: gone were the manic, powerhouse fills of Vini Lopez (the appropriately-nicknamed "Mad Dog"'s ecstatic percussive overkill pushed the Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle's "Rosalita" into rock'n'roll nirvana), replaced by tighter skinsman Max Weinberg. Pianist Roy Bittan was also drafted.

And while no Springsteen album would really ever come together quite as well as the Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle, the last Springsteen album released before the slight line-up change, every album that followed was still disarmingly brilliant rock and roll, often validating the old cliche that a great artist's mediocre albums are better than a mediocre artist's great ones. Born to Run is cited as Springsteen's masterpiece more often than any other album in his catalogue (true populists point to 1984's Born in the U.S.A., which has caused vehement anti-populists to shun it in favor of Born to Run - in truth, BitUSA is better than dissenters would have you think, nearly as good as BTR), and it's hard not to look back into history and see it as some sort of classic-rock monolith, an album as concise and landmark and hit-filled as Bat Out of Hell and Who's Next and Led Zep IV.

It would make sense, then, to take this opportunity to nicely roast a particularly sacred cow - i've got the BBQ sauce if you've got the rotating spit - but luckily the worst thing I can say about this album is that it's not Bruce Springsteen's greatest album, and there's like sixteen or seventeen other Bruce Springsteen albums that I can say the same about, so it's not like Born to Run is in bad company. In fact, it's considerably better than Bad Company.

**

Here's the thing: just as Bruce Springsteen is one of rock's most cinematic singer-songwriters (a cursory glance at the lyric sheets of his second and third albums alone will list a host of peculiar, nuanced, and very real characters, and the songs are all carefully plotted), his albums adhere to a certain plotline. Born to Run is Bruce's propellant break from adolescence into early manhood; first album Greetings From Asbury Park celebrated explosive, tumultuous adolescence, second album the Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle occupied the atmosphere of a graduation-night party, by equal turns wistful and celebratory, and Born to Run finds the same characters a couple years older and freewheeling towards some elusive goal; escape, perhaps, or the freedom that all naive adolescents believe adulthood will bring them. It's reflected in the music, too, marrying the sort of open-shirt anthems that make the title track so cool to bounce down the highway to with that weird lyrical mixture of hopefulness and pessimism that everyone's felt but only Bruce has accurately harnessed.

More importantly: Born to Run is where the new E Street Band develops its real identity. I'm not sure if you can chalk this up to the addition of Weinberg and Bittan (while they're both fantastic musicians, they're only a part of the whole), the sense of urgency produced by Columbia's threats to shiitcan Springsteen if he failed to produce hits a third time, or a simple growth in band confidence, but Born to Run is as musically airtight as it is lyrically. Bittan's influence is felt immediately, with that gorgeous piano melody that opens "Thunder Road." It floats in and around Springsteen's own harmonica line, and then Springsteen launches into a plaintive, haunting storyline, as compelling as the opening paragraph of a classic novel:

the screen door slams, Mary's dress waves
like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays
Roy Orbison singin' for the lonely
hey that's me and I want you only
don't turn me home again, I just can't face myself alone again...

And somehow he's done it again. Anyone who read my review of the Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle might remember my almost rabid obession with the third verse of that album's titanic centerpiece, "Incident on 57th Street," and the way the music connects with the words to form the sort of vivid cinematic imagery that you can actually picture. Other songs by other artists are vague and interpretive; songs like "Incident" and "Thunder Road" are like reels that you can play in your head. You can actually SEE what's going on, and while that might seem like the rather obvious point, it's impossible to get the picture unless you've experienced it for yourself. And then, there's the climax, which for my money is the moment where the new E Street Band shows its true stripes: "It's a town full of losers," Springsteen cries about four minutes in, "I'm pullin' out of here to WIN!" Cue drums: bum-bah-bah-bum-bah-bah-bum-bah-bah-BOOM! And then the whole band pitches in and pulls the song into the stratosphere, saxophone and piano and guitar all attacking the same wordless melody, and just DAMN. Any band that can create moments like this, well, I'm simply not worthy.

"Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" is a great band-creation narrative attacked with a groove-rock swagger complete with horn section (i particularly love when Bruce sings "when the change was made uptown and the big man joined the band" and the "big man" himself, saxophonist Clarence Clemons, takes a few beats to solo, kinda like his way of saying "damn right I did"); "Night" is propulsive and speaks of sticking out the working day till you can unwind when the sun goes down (the album that followed this one, Darkness on the Edge of Town, would have dwelled more on the work than the unwind); and Bruce allows his full-throated guffaw to strain out the chorus of "Backstreets," which is too long but worth it.

And then there's the title track, which is kind of perfect; as triumphant and yearning as anything ever put out by, well, anybody, it's by equal turns dissatisfied ("baby this town rips the bones from your back") and hopeful ("we'll run till we drop, and baby we'll never turn back"), and by the time it hits the saxophone solo and the bridge -

beyond the palace hemi-powered drones scream down the boulevard
the girls comb their hair in rearview mirrors and the boys try to look so hard
the amusement park rises bold and stark kids are huddled on the beach in a mist
i wanna die with you, wendy, on the streets tonight, in an everlasting kiss

- "Born to Run" has already proven itself. So when the band launches into the third verse - Bruce has a way with third verses, I've realized, injecting them with the level of power and triumph simply not found in the rest of the song - it's quite nearly orgasmic, a perfect example of the musical release Springsteen's fans have stuck around for so long to experience.

Between "Born to Run" and "Jungleland," Born to Run's long and impassioned closer, the album sags a bit, which is why it's not as good as the Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle: both "She's the One" and "Meeting Across the River" are gorgeous songs, but simply ill-suited to a suite of songs this sophisticated and energetic. I can easily endorse the "woah"s echoing over the sax break in "She's the One," and the trumpet fills floating around the haunting "Meeting Across the River," but simply not in this context. "Jungleland" is beautiful, though, an "Incident on 57th Street"-like gangland narrative, all gutter rats and piano and vivid imagery (the strings in the intro alone are fascinating), and the "ooooh"s that close it are pretty spine-tingling in their sheer grandeur and release.

In context, Born to Run might not be as awe-inspiring as some of Boss Springsteen's other albums; or, who knows, maybe it might be. I've been wrong before. What matters, though, is that it's peppered with enough of those "Springsteen moments" to make it totally worth the listen either way.

**

GROWIN' UP SPRINGSTEEN REVIEWS:
- Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ
- The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle
- Born to Run
- Darkness on the Edge of Town
- The River
- Nebraska
- Born in the U.S.A.
- Tunnel of Love
- Human Touch