The Wall Street JournalNovember 10, 2005; Page D7
"You want the earth to shake and spit fire!" Bruce Springsteen exclaimed earlier this year. He was inducting U2 into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, preaching of the messianic results all great rockers must aspire to when they record. "You want the sky to split apart and for God to pour out!"
He offered a litany of examples -- recordings by Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, the Beatles. "'The Sun Sessions,' 'Highway 61,' 'Sgt. Pepper's'… 'Born to Run.' Whoops, I meant to leave that one out."
Clarence Clemons and Bruce Springsteen in a 'Born to Run' publicity photo from the session that produced the iconic, feel-good album cover.
It was a smile-inducing, double-take sort of moment. Mr. Springsteen -- known for being hyper-sensitive to rock-star hype -- comfortably mocked his own legend with brimstone and bombast. Yet the sly self-reference held truth as well. Thirty years ago, a generation witnessed in wonder as his breakthrough album, "Born to Run," did indeed split the sky.
Wired with poetic precision and operatic intensity, the album exploded onto American radios and turntables with its streetwise Sturm-und-Drang in late 1975, fueled by the carefully crafted drama on story-songs like "Jungleland," "Backstreets" and the ubiquitous title track. It saved Mr. Springsteen's then-floundering career and, in the same week, landed him on the covers of both Time and Newsweek. It focused his musical vision and honed the sweat and fury of his legendary stage performances.
Three decades on, the 55-year-old rocker still pulls out all the stops when backed by his band -- or downshifts a bit when alone and unplugged. But when he sings the classics from "Born to Run," with or without his group, a devotional intensity is palpable. "They're always going to have a particular place, no matter how I do them," Mr. Springsteen said recently from Richmond, Va., while on his current solo tour. "But with the band I basically play them just the way that I like to hear them, which is the way we recorded them."
One proof of the lasting appeal of "Born to Run" is in its constancy at the top of greatest-albums-of-all-time lists, as well as its consistent performance in Mr. Springsteen's extensive catalog on Columbia. "It's just been a very steady record over these years, but not as great as 'Born in the U.S.A.,' which is his biggest from that point of view," says Mr. Springsteen's manager, Jon Landau, the former music journalist who first joined the rocker as co-producer of "Born to Run."
Perhaps the best measure is that moment in concert when Mr. Springsteen sings "The screen door slams" and thousands recognize the opening lyric to "Thunder Road." Or when they lock onto the guitar riff to "Born to Run." "It's pretty electrifying," Mr. Landau notes. "There's no sense of a diminished interest on the part of the audience, which includes younger and younger people who obviously were not around in 1975."
Much can be said of the year that "Born to Run" was released, the midpoint of a decade scarred by divisive issues. Mr. Springsteen, himself, detects a lingering angst in the album's mix. "One of the telling lines on the record is 'you're scared and you're thinking maybe we're not that young anymore,'" he says. "I mean, I'm a 24-year-old kid writing that. Later on I realized this was how the country felt after Vietnam and Nixon. Nobody felt that young anymore.
"On 'Born to Run,' there's that sense of longing to break free -- but to what? Longing to move forward and ahead -- but to where? Through 'Devils and Dust' I've been trying to answer those questions. 'Born to Run' was very pivotal in that it expressed my most hopeful feelings and some of my desires." He pauses, and adds with a laugh: "All backed with an enormous dose of fear, of course."
That "Born to Run" was born out of fear -- the fear of being dropped by one's record company -- is one of the most familiar chapters of the Springsteen legend. His first two albums on Columbia Records had done well critically, but sold poorly. By 1974, the pressure to produce a hit for the label was paramount. A demo of a tune called "Born to Run" persuaded Columbia to give him one more chance. Late that year, Mr. Springsteen entered the studio with his group the E Street Band, a few half-written songs, and the conflicted emotions of youth.
"At that age, you're a combination of things. I had the big ego, the belief in my abilities, the intensity of desire. But the flip side of that is, 'Man, am I about to be collared and sent back on a bus to where I came from?'" And by the time Mr. Springsteen completed 'Born to Run,' he was ready to hop in any vehicle. "We had spent months of long hours and gone through an insane working process," he says. "On the last day we stumbled out after four days straight of recording, into the car to our first concert of the tour. It was like, 'Hallelujah! Thank God I'm any place but in that studio!'"
The tale of the band awash in the recording technology of the time is covered in a new DVD documentary executive produced by Mr. Springsteen himself. Titled "Wings for Wheels," it relates the making of "Born to Run" through footage of the sessions, playbacks of alternate takes, and interviews with Mr. Springsteen, Mr. Landau, and longtime band members like guitarist Steve Van Zandt and drummer Max Weinberg.
Anecdotes and revelations abound. Mr. Springsteen, the perfectionist, tossing a test-pressing of the album into a swimming pool. ("I could only hear the things that I felt were wrong with it at the time.") Mr. Springsteen, the referee, mediating the squabbles between his then-manager, Mike Appel, and Mr. Landau, who would take over Mr. Appel's job. Mr. Springsteen, the tireless craftsman, recording saxophonist Clarence Clemons's famed "Jungleland" solo again and again, meticulously splicing together the best parts into a seemingly natural whole. ("Music, film, all that -- it's the world of illusion. I'd rather sound spontaneous than be spontaneous.")
"Wings for Wheels" is part of the "Born to Run: 30th Anniversary" three-disc boxed set that arrives in stores on Tuesday. Packaged with the documentary is a remastered CD of the original album (no studio chatter, scratch takes or other recording detritus); a booklet with never-before-seen images by Eric Meola, the photographer who shot the album's iconic, feel-good cover; plus a DVD featuring a full, never-released London concert from 1975.
There's much to recommend in this refreshingly less-than-excessive collection, but it's that video of Mr. Springsteen's first appearance outside the U.S. that is the archival gem of the package -- catching the New Jersey rocker in his scruffy, unshaven glory, winning over the Brits with frenetic energy and tune after winning tune, mostly from "Born to Run."
"We came out at the Hammersmith Odeon with a set list I dare any young band to match," Mr. Springsteen says proudly. "We wanted to have great songs and a great, heart-stopping show. We wanted to rivet people and make them crazy, because that's how music had affected me."
Not visible in the performance video is another legendary moment from the Springsteen story.
Arriving for the soundcheck that afternoon, he freaked at the plethora of promotional materials covering the London venue. In a pique, he began tearing down the posters, bristling at the star status that the success of "Born to Run" had already assigned him.
"I got there and I said, 'Gee, this is a little more than I bargained for,'" says Mr. Springsteen today with a chuckle. "I was too young to realize that it was exactly what I had bargained for."
Mr. Kahn is a music journalist and author of the book "A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album."
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