MEET THE BOSS

AS BORN TO RUN TURNS 50, MARION McMULLEN LOOKS AT THE ALBUM THAT MADE BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN A STAR

- MARION McMULLEN

BACK in 1975, Jaws was cleaning up at the box office, platform shoes and kipper ties were in... and Bruce Springsteen released his breakthrough record Born To Run.

It was his third studio album. Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. and The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle came out in 1973, but achieved modest commercial success. He was determined his next recording would take his career to new heights and spent six months perfecting the title track alone.

The eight songs on the album included Thunder Road, Tenth Avenue Freeze Out, She’s The One and, of course, Born To Run. Its famous refrain of “Tramps like us, Baby, we were born to run” perfectly capturing the romantic notion of breaking away from a small town past. A handwritten page of the early lyrics, torn from a spiral notebook and featuring the line, were sold for $197,000 by Sotheby's, New York at an auction in 2013.

Springsteen was 24 when he wrote the track in his bedroom in New Jersey. He would play it live on the road before going into the studio to put down his definitive version.