Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. Today we continue our end-of-the-year retrospective featuring some of our favorite interviews from 2025. The now-classic Bruce Springsteen album Born to Run had its 50th anniversary in August. The album was a turning point for rock and roll and for Springsteen in his life and his songwriting.
Before he recorded that album, his record label, Columbia, was on the verge of dropping him because his first two albums were critically acclaimed but had pretty feeble record sales. The making of Born to Run is the subject of the recent book Tonight in Jungleland, which is also the title of Born to Run's final track.
We're going to hear the interview I recorded with the book's author, Peter Ames Carlin.
Chapter 2: What was the initial struggle Bruce Springsteen faced before 'Born to Run'?
He's also the author of a biography of Springsteen called Bruce, as well as books about R.E.M., Brian Wilson, Paul McCartney, and Paul Simon. Our interview was recorded in August when the book was published, right around the time of the actual anniversary. Let's start things off with this.
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Peter Carlin, welcome to Fresh Air.
I really enjoyed the book. Looking back on Born to Run and looking ahead at what happened after it, what do you think is the significance of that album?
It's lovely to be here, Terry. Thank you. It's a hugely transformative album for Bruce in terms of his career, his record sales, but also, I think most importantly, his understanding of his own identity and the voice he would carry forward in his music.
It's such an important album, too, because his record company, Columbia, was about to drop him. They were considering dropping him. This is in your book.
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Chapter 3: How did the record label's pressure influence the creation of 'Born to Run'?
They told him he had to make a single, and if they liked it, they'd release it. Tell the Billy Joel story about the record reps.
Well, when Bruce came on to Columbia in 1972, the president of the label at the time was Clive Davis. And when he heard Bruce's demos and then had Bruce up to audition for him in person, he was won over immediately. gave the marching orders to the company essentially that this is our new guy. Like Bruce Springsteen is really going to make it and we're going to put everything we have behind him.
And what happened next was his first record, Greetings from Asbury Park, New Jersey, came out in January of 1973, was hugely promoted, didn't sell very well. A few months went by. Clive Davis got pushed out of the presidency at Columbia for – Somewhat murky corporate intrigue reasons.
And then a new administration came in and people came to power in the label who were not connected at all to Bruce Springsteen. The fellow who became the head of the artist and repertoire department was named Charlie Koppelman. And he had brought into the company at the same time Bruce was signed. Another sort of outer New York working class type of pop songwriter named Billy Joel.
And he heard a lot more potential in Billy Joel's music than he did in Bruce Springsteen. So after Bruce's second album, The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle came out in the fall of 1973 and failed commercially as well, despite having rave reviews. Koppelman essentially said, you know what? I think we're going to cut bait on this Bruce Springsteen guy. He's just not going anywhere.
But fortunately, there were enough advocates at the company to still the hand that was going to cut Bruce loose. And they gave him that opportunity to make one last song and to see if that could potentially be a hit single. So they sent him off to make one more song, which turned out to be Born to Run.
So initially, the song Born to Run was called Wild Angels. What were the early lyrics like?
It's interesting because you can see Bruce getting at the feelings that underlie the finished song. But at first, he was working on a kind of this sort of gothic, almost horror story written in this heavily symbolic language where the fast rebel driver gets run over by his own car. Roads are collapsing beneath their wheels and the beautiful surfer girl dies.
On the beach, who is the fast rebel's girlfriend, dies of a heroin overdose. And it's just like it's a very dark and traumatic place to be.
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Chapter 4: What early concepts did Springsteen explore in the lyrics of 'Born to Run'?
And that is an unusual ending for an album, the perfect ending for an album inspired by film noir, because those films very rarely have a happy ending.
Yes, right. And it's also in some ways a retelling. And this is something that John Landau told me explicitly. This is an album that begins with a woman named Mary. and ends in what is essentially a sonic envisioning of a crucifixion, which is that sound at the end of Jungleland where Bruce makes these howls that no one – the death of the magic rat.
And finally Bruce said, I think I got something. And he went into the studio and put on his headphones and they played those last bars and he began to make that wailing sound that he makes over those last few moments of that song.
So here's what I want to do. I want to play some of the narrative part of Jungle Land and then we'll come back and then we'll hear the howls.
The ranger's at a homecoming In Harlem late last night And a magic rat drove his sleek machine Over a Jersey state line Barefoot girl sitting on the hood of a Dodge Drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain The rat pulls and the town rolls up his pants Together they take a stab at romance And disappear down from England lane
Will a maximum law man run down from Engle chasing her head in a barefoot girl? Will the kids around here look just like shadows, always quiet, holding hands? From the churches to the jails, tonight all is silent in the world.
So that's an excerpt of Jungle Land. It's a long track from Born to Run. Now we're going to skip ahead to the very end, which ends in wails or howls. So let's hear that.
Jungle Land
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