A publishing acquaintance, Fran Toolan, tweeted this morning that today was the 35 anniversary of the single release for Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run (or as he put it the official state song of NJ.)
I don’t remember the first time I heard Born to Run but it’s probably a safe bet it was on the radio. It would have been a.m. radio, and the stations would have been operated by big long buttons that I recall having a satisfying click when you pushed them in to tune. And to give away more about my age it was also likely that I was in the front seat of that car and seat belt was defined by the driver’s right arm reaching over to hold you back as she stopped short.
I’ve been lucky seeing Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band quite a few times over the years and man that song still rocks the house. As the house lights are turned up for Born To Run, the crowd never fails to “strap their engines on” rocking “til they drop.” One of the amazing things about going to see Bruce is seeing three generations rock out. Last November at the Garden, the night he played The River, one of the things I remember very fondly is an older man, mid sixties – early seventies, jumping and dancing harder the rest of us “young folks” to Born to Run.
That gentleman, still rocking out in the crowd, that’s exactly what I want to be when I grow up.