Born to Run (Springsteen)

Born to Run 
Bruce Springsteen, 2016
Simon & Schuster
528 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781501141515


Summary
Writing about yourself is a funny business…But in a project like this, the writer has made one promise, to show the reader his mind. In these pages, I’ve tried to do this.
—Bruce Springsteen

In 2009, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed at the Super Bowl’s halftime show. The experience was so exhilarating that Bruce decided to write about it. That’s how this extraordinary autobiography began.

Over the past seven years, Bruce Springsteen has privately devoted himself to writing the story of his life, bringing to these pages the same honesty, humor, and originality found in his songs.

He describes growing up Catholic in Freehold, New Jersey, amid the poetry, danger, and darkness that fueled his imagination, leading up to the moment he refers to as "The Big Bang": seeing Elvis Presley’s debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. He vividly recounts his relentless drive to become a musician, his early days as a bar band king in Asbury Park, and the rise of the E Street Band.

With disarming candor, he also tells for the first time the story of the personal struggles that inspired his best work, and shows us why the song "Born to Run" reveals more than we previously realized.

Born to Run will be revelatory for anyone who has ever enjoyed Bruce Springsteen, but this book is much more than a legendary rock star’s memoir. This is a book for workers and dreamers, parents and children, lovers and loners, artists, freaks, or anyone who has ever wanted to be baptized in the holy river of rock and roll.

Rarely has a performer told his own story with such force and sweep. Like many of his songs ("Thunder Road," "Badlands," "Darkness on the Edge of Town," "The River," "Born in the U.S.A.," "The Rising," and "The Ghost of Tom Joad," to name just a few), Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography is written with the lyricism of a singular songwriter and the wisdom of a man who has thought deeply about his experiences. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—September 23, 1949
• Where—Freehold, New Jersey, USA
• Education—Freehold High School
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Colts Neck, New Jersey


Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and humanitarian. His memoir, Born to Run, was releaed in 2016.

Springsteen is best known for his work with his E Street Band. Nicknamed "The Boss", Springsteen is widely known for his brand of poetic lyrics, Americana, working class and sometimes political sentiments centered on his native New Jersey, his distinctive voice and his lengthy and energetic stage performances, with concerts from the 1970s to the present decade running over four hours in length.

Springsteen's recordings have included both commercially accessible rock albums and more somber folk-oriented works. His most successful studio albums, Born to Run (1975) and Born in the U.S.A. (1984), showcase a talent for finding grandeur in the struggles of daily American life. He has sold more than 64 million albums in the United States and more than 120 million records worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling artists of all time.

Awards
He has earned numerous awards for his work, including 20 Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes and an Academy Award as well as being inducted into both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/28/2016.)

Book Reviews
[B]ig, loose, rangy and intensely satisfying…The book is like one of Mr. Springsteen's shows—long, ecstatic, exhausting, filled with peaks and valleys. It's part seance and part keg party…. His writing voice is much like his speaking voice; there's a big, raspy laugh on at least every other page…. Most important, Born to Run is, like [Springsteen's] finest songs, closely observed from end to end. His story is intimate and personal, but he has an interest in other people and a gift for sizing them up.
Dwight Garner - New York Times


Springsteen can write—not just life-imprinting song lyrics but good, solid prose that travels all the way to the right margin. I mean, you'd think a guy who wrote "Spanish Johnny drove in from the underworld last night / With bruised arms and broken rhythm and a beat-up old Buick…" could navigate his way around a complete and creditable American sentence. And you'd be right…. Nothing in Born to Run rings to me as unmeant or punch-pulling…. And like a fabled Springsteen concert—always notable for its deck-clearing thoroughness—Born to Run achieves the sensation that all the relevant questions have been answered by the time the lights are turned out. He delivers the story of Bruce…via an informally steadfast Jersey plainspeak that's worked and deftly detailed and intimate with its readers—cleareyed enough to say what it means when it has hard stories to tell, yet supple enough to rise to occasions requiring eloquence—sometimes rather pleasingly subsiding into the syntax and rhythms of a Bruce Springsteen song
Richard Ford - New York Times Book Review


Bruce Springsteen’s frank and gripping memoir, Born to Run, is an intimate portrait of one man’s lifelong attempt to follow that primary command. People who choose rock and roll as their vocation are usually trying to break free from constraints, to smash things, to stir up a little turmoil in their souls. Springsteen entered a world of chaos and turned to guitars and amplifiers and lyrics to create order.
David Brooks - Atlantic Monthly


A virtuoso performance, the 508-page equivalent to one of Springsteen and the E Street Band's famous four-hour concerts: Nothing is left onstage, and diehard fans and first-timers alike depart for home sated and yet somehow already aching for more.”
Barbara J. King - NPR


[I]t might be easy to think that his new memoir Born To Run couldn't be all that revelatory since we already know so much. But it turns out that the nine years he spent writing it were worthwhile ones. He reached deep into his memory banks and produced a stunning 510 page book that will thrill even the most hardcore Bruce fanatics.
Andy Greene - Rolling Stone


(Starred review.) [A]n entertaining, high-octane journey from the streets of New Jersey to all over the world. A natural storyteller, Springsteen commands our attention, regaling us with his tales of growing up poor with a misanthropic father.... [He] writes with the same powerful lyrical quality of his music.
Publishers Weekly


Starred review.) The Boss speaks—and he does so as both journeyman rocker and philosopher king.... Springsteen is gentle with those who treated him poorly...but generous with love for friends and listeners alike. A superb memoir by any standard, but one of the best to have been written by a rock star.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use these LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for Born to Run...then take off on your own:

1. What did you know about Bruce Springsteen, or what expectations did you have, before reading Born to Run. Were your expectations met? Has your understanding of Springsteen changed, or has it been confirmed by the book? How does his memoir-writing voice compare with his lyric-writing voice?

2. Talk about Springsteen's growing up years (three a.m. bedtimes, 3 p.m. risings) and his family. What does he mean when he writes...

It was a place where I felt an ultimate security, full license and a horrible unforgettable boundary-less love. It ruined me and it made me.

3. Follow-up to Question 2: Douglas Springsteen had a large impact on his son's music. Discuss their difficult father-son relationship, as well as Douglas's mental illness. Bruce writes of the time his father broke down in front of him:

It shocked me, made me feel uncomfortable and strangely wonderful. He showed himself to me, mess that he was. It was one of the greatest days of my teenage life.

—In what way was it both shocking and wonderful

4. In his songs, what message was Springsteen hoping to convey to his father? Or to himself?

5. Many teenagers dream of being a rock star and spend hours working at it. How was Bruce Springteen's commitment different? Could you say it was almost compulsive, perhaps manic?

6. What does the following passage reveal about Springsteen's struggle to find himself?

I wanted to kill what loved me because I couldn’t stand being loved. It infuriated and outraged me, someone having the temerity to love me—nobody does that … and I’ll show you why. It was ugly and a red flag for the poison I had running through my veins, my genes. Part of me was rebelliously proud of my emotionally violent behavior, always cowardly and aimed at the women in my life.

7. Talk about Patti Scialfa. In what way has she helped ground her husband? How would you describe Springsteen's feelings for her? How difficult would it be married to a superstar like Springsteen? What strains would it place on a relationship?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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