Peter Ames Carlin

Music was the only thing that he had really projected himself into.

And it was everything to him.

And the prospect of losing his career was terrifying.

And so, you know, they couldn't leave any rock unturned.

You know, you listen to the string arrangement with that kind of disco sound, those little string shiracos that would come up off the dance floor in those songs.

You know, I mean, that was a real common trope in the mid 70s.

And, you know, so they gave it a spin.

Maybe it'll work here.

And then it didn't.

And you can hear Bruce's reaction.

Exactly.

I mean, all of those characters are avatars for Bruce and various facets of his identity and his experience growing up in Freehold, which was a sort of a working class suburb in central New Jersey, about 20 miles west of the shore.

And then, you know, as a young adult, he moved to Asbury Park where the local music scene was centered.

But even that town was falling apart.

So he, you know, he had a very vivid understanding of how the economic and social frontiers were collapsing or felt like they were collapsing in the mid-1970s.

Well, the night's busted open These two wings will take us anywhere We got one last chance to make it real To trade in these wings on some wheels Climbing back, everyone's waiting down on the tracks Oh, come take my hand Right now, tonight, to the case The promised land to all thunder

That's the opening track of Born to Run, Thunder Road.

There was an earlier iteration of the song that he called Wings for Wheels, which obviously is a phrase that pops up in the finished version of Thunder Road.

But it was along the lines of the songs that had been on his second album, which are very long and shaggy and kind of move from section to section and career around.

in an exciting way, but not a very tightly structured way.