Born to Run | Nightingale Café Library | TinyCat |

2024-05-17 9:38 pm

Born to Run

by Bruce Springsteen

Hardcover, 2016

Status

Available

Call number

MA2

Tags

non-fiction, biography, music, memoir, Bruce Springsteen

Genres

Biography & Memoir

General Nonfiction

Publication

Simon & Schuster (2016), Edition: 1st Edition, 528 pages

Description

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.… (more)

Media reviews

You could say of course, and again you’d be right, that this is nothing very remote from a lot of lives. Mine. Yours. Midcentury American Gothic. A “crap heap of a hometown that I loved.” But therein lies at least a hint to the magic in the Springsteen mystery: the muscular rise to the

small occasion, taking forceful dominion over your poky circumstance and championing your own responses to what would otherwise seem inevitable.

— 1 more

Library Journal

For over 40 years, Springsteen has chronicled the lives of myriad American characters as they face life, love, economic hardship, and the search for community and home, and now he limns his own life story to create an exuberant, sprawling, double album of a memoir. Springsteen writes eloquently

about his youth, family, and hometown while detailing his complicated relationship with his father and the singer's own quest to reconcile his past and explore the roots and meaning of what he does. Springsteen describes in abundant detail his musical coming of age with various bands, playing the clubs and bars of New Jersey as he finds his own voice, struggles with early success, and eventually records the 1975 masterpiece Born To Run with the E Street Band and reaches superstardom in the 1980s. Springsteen's prose ranges from honest and self-deprecating to poetic and deeply analytical as he writes about his life, his music, his place in the world, and his movingly deep ties to his family, his band, and his audience. Verdict Like a classic Springsteen and E Street Band show, the book takes readers on a rollicking ride from the glorious and the emotional to the fun and soaring; one of rock's finest and most memorable memoirs.-James Collins, Morristown-Morris Twp. P.L., NJ

User reviews

LibraryThing member greggchadwick

Bruce Springsteen's memoir is perhaps the literary equivalent of his four hour concerts. Springsteen's book ranges from his earliest memories to his current inspiration. I am humbled at the craft and honesty in this book. His life story is shaped and nuanced for sure, but it still is stunningly

compelling. Springsteen delves into his musical history in quite some depth. His early bands - the Castiles and Steel Mill helped the young Springsteen grow into the leader of the E Street Band. Stories from the road abound. Freehold, Asbury Park, New York City, San Francisco, London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Memphis, and even Big Sur's Esalen make an appearance. Springsteen also dives into the thoughts behind his most important albums. The tension between the spontaneous nature of his live shows and the crafting of his music into recordings is palpable in the pages of "Born to Run". Springsteen also opens old wounds to shine a light on his family's history of mental illness and his own struggles with depression. This is an important American story that is not to be missed.

Beg , borrow, or steal this book!

LibraryThing member TobinElliott

Let me throw out two things, right off the top. The first is, I am, at best, a very, very mild Springsteen fan, at best, and personally, I haven't had much interest in anything of his since Tunnel of Love. The second is, I goddamned loved this book.

There's a whole bunch of reasons for that.

The

first is—and let's be real, it's a well-known fact that most famous people's biographies are ghostwritten by someone with some talent, not the famous person—but this book was stunningly well-written. If it was a ghostwritten, then bravo to that nameless soul. But, this is one I could see Bruce taking on himself. Either way, the level of craftmanship with the actual writing is way, way up there.

Second is the actual subject matter. I tend to groan when I start a biography, simply because I know I'll have to suffer through the subject's childhood and awkward adolescence, blah blah blah. With this one, I was flat out riveted from the first page, and wanted to hear more and more about ten-year-old Bruce's life. Yeah, it's that good.

Now, that's not to say that it's perfect when it comes to covering everything in Bruce's life. He tends to stick directly to himself, where I would have loved to have heard his thoughts on things like Manfred Mann's two big covers from his first album. He covered Spirits in the Night and, even bigger, the phenomenal Blinded By The Light. Nothing. He also never mentions Patti Scialfa's album. His own wife? Come on!

There are also times where you can actually feel him tiptoeing around some dicey topics involving his E Street Band members, and some other personalities, but I get that he's also not out to burn anyone.

Third, while still somewhat on the topic of subject matter, I'm impressed that he's both honest and open about his and his family's mental illness issues, and that he didn't write a "I fucked this person, then I fucked that person, then I played this concert..." He's much more inward-looking, introspective. I love that.

Fourth, he gives you lots of insight into the writing of certain key songs and albums, which I'm always fascinated in. Though, surprisingly, he also completely skips over some albums, not even mentioning Lucky Town, Human Touch, or Devils & Dust.

In the end, I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed this long book from the very first, to the very last page. Very likely the best biography I've ever read.

LibraryThing member AnaraGuard

Fascinating account of his life, with great emphasis on his early life and career, and the psychological forces that shaped (sometimes scarred) him. He has clearly worked hard on writing skills and does a good job of conveying the fever and fervor of the rock-n-roll life. On the other hand, I may

like him a teeny bit less than I did before seeing him as such a flawed human being. My idol has feet of clay after all! As he wrote "I was all I had. I had only one talent. I was not a natural genius. I would have to use every ounce of what was in me--my cunning, my musical skills, my showmanship, my intellect, my heart, my willingness--night after night, to push myself harder, to work with more intensity than the next guy just to survive untended in the world I lived in."

LibraryThing member TooBusyReading

I've long enjoyed Bruce Springsteen's music without knowing much about the man. I knew he is a Jersey boy from a working class background, and that's about it. This autobiography gave me insight into both his life and his music.

No one sees their own life as outsiders do, but I think Mr. Springsteen

was as honest and forthright as he could be. He does come from a working class background, with family he loves, flawed and all. He writes about his father's deep depressions, and his own ongoing fight to live with it, to conquer it. There is a lot about his music, who he played with, disagreements and fights that led to spits, learning to be in the spotlight. Many of the names were not familiar to me, but I enjoyed reading about his relationships even if I wasn't familiar with some of them.

He says he has to compensate for his less-than-stellar voice. I disagree with him there. I love the gravelly quality he has. And this book, an audio book for me, was narrated by him and all the better for that. I find it interesting that my favorite memoirs/autobiographies are all about musicians: Bruce Springsteen, Willie Nelson, and Elton John. I thoroughly enjoyed this look at Mr. Springsteen's life.

LibraryThing member OscarWilde87

Bruce Springsteen's memoir Born to Run is one of the best non-fiction books I have read so far. Springsteen is very open in telling the readers not only about his successes but also about his (perceived?) failures. There is the complicated relationship to his father, there is his struggle with

depression and there is him leading the band and keeping them on a short leash. Although Bruce Springsteen is an international superstar, you can still feel in the writing how he had to work hard for his success and still does. As Jon Stewart said in his tribute to Springsteen at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2009, Springsteen empties the tank everytime, for his family, for his music, for his audience and for his country. The same goes for this book.

Just like the lyrics to his songs, Springsteen's writing is always on-point and manages to capture emotions and feelings. The American songbook is richer for the work of Bruce Springsteen. I feel I am richer for reading this book. To my mind, Born to Run is a must read for Springsteen fans and probably everyone else, too. 5 stars.

LibraryThing member rocketjk

I saw my first Bruce Springsteen concert in 1974 in the Student Union building of Seton Hall University in South Orange, NJ, while home on spring break from my freshman year of college. Over the intervening years, Springsteen has been one of the most potent artistic forces in my life, his lyrics,

music and performances, as well has his stances on public issues, hugely influential to me. So there was no doubt that I was going to read this autobiography sooner rather than later. Springsteen writes, here, quite candidly on many fronts. He does a terrific job describing his difficult childhood in working class New Jersey, his father's depression and alcoholism and his mother's optimism and determination to keep the family together in the face of these difficulties. Also, Springsteen's narrative of his early fascination with rock and roll and then his early music career and the bands in which he honed his playing, song writing and leadership abilities are handled quite well. Nor does he stint on describing his own lengthy bouts of debilitation depression and alienation, and his lifelong fear of emotional commitment.

Springsteen also takes us through his years of growing fame, and all the hard work, attention to (and obsession over) detail, worry and triumph they entailed. He provides good insight into the evolving thematic content of his songs/albums. But in these later years, it feels sometimes that things are missing, or at least it felt that way to me. For the most part, the members of the E Street Band are cyphers. There is some detail about Springsteen's relationships with Danny Federici and with Clarence Clemons, the two most problematic band members. But for the most part, we are left only to imagine about the band dynamics, personality-wise. Even Springsteen's famed friendship with Clarence, "the Big Man," gets fairly short shrift. This is understandable, to a certain extent, as Springsteen was clearly loath to air anybody's dirty laundry but his own. And who could blame him? Still, it's clear that Springsteen was focused on telling his own story, and everyone else enters into the narrative only as they relate to his own personal narrative.

At any rate, while I consider my reservations to be significant in my overall assessment of the book, overall I consider Born to Run to have been well worth the time to read, and that's putting it mildly. This is a fascinating man telling a fascinating, "by his bootstraps" story of talent, determination, soul and the creative process. I know a lot more about Springsteen, now, including more of the blemishes. My regard for Springsteen as an artistic force and, I'm gonna say it, one of my personal heroes, has not been altered.

LibraryThing member lamour

This is a long and detail autobiography of one of the great rock musicians. While some tighter editing would have taken out some of the repetition, it was still a very readable and interesting read,

Bruce grew up in a working class home in New Jersey with a father who suffered from mental health

issues that Bruce faced himself later in life, We follow in great detail the evolution of his musical career and that of the E Street Band. Includes may photos from his life.

LibraryThing member zimbawilson

Absolutely no doubt that this is written 100% by the man himself. If you know anything about Springsteen at all and have followed his career you can hear the lyricism in his writing that you would expect from the man who has written so many epic songs. There are plenty of other books on Springsteen

that will give more details on certain album recordings, interpersonal relationships, etc. but I believe this is the book his fans have been waiting for. The man in his own voice talking about his upbringing in detail and both his father and his own battles with mental illness was for me, like having a personal letter written to his fans. I can't imagine any true Springsteen fan not absolutely loving this autobiography.

LibraryThing member labdaddy4

I have never enjoyed autobiographies but this is something special. For me, the book left me with a feeling that I had been allowed a rather complete entrance into the world of a true "superstar". The authors willingness to be open and honest about his experiences with mental illness are amazing.

The sections when he talks about dealing with the loss of dear friends and fellow musicians were very moving. But, more than anything else, I completely enjoyed being invited into the world or an artist that was a part of my life and growth into adulthood and beyond. Thank you Bruce Sringsteen for the memories, the music, and the whole "ride".

LibraryThing member nmele

I came to Springsteen's music late--through the 1970s and into the mid 1980s I was working outside the U.S., in places his had not penetrated; when I heard him for the first time, my overriding impression was, like that of many of his fans, that his songs tell the story of my life. It turns out,

they do, and so does this book--except that I did not aspire to and did not achieve rock stardom and all that goes with it. But Springsteen writes about Catholic school--I went to a similar school where I had similar experiences. He writes about being classified 4F because of a concussion suffered in an accident; I broke a vertebra in an accident and that made me ineligible for the draft. I came from a blue collar background, as did Springsteen. But the differences are great as well: he is one of the most talented musical performers still with us; he never lost touch with his hometown (my wandering took me far from New York, where I grew up); he came late to fatherhood and the joy of family. This lovely memoir tells us quite a bit about Springsteen, an honest, admirable human being. Read it, even if you don't get the music he references.

LibraryThing member Romonko

This was an excellent autobiography written by The Boss himself. It apparently took him seven years to write this book, and it was entirely penned by hand. I have always loved Bruce Springsteen's music and reading this book made me appreciate it all the more. I found myself listening to some of his

lesser-known albums as I read. I hadn't taken the time to listen to We Shall Overcome (The Seeger Sessions) before, and I'm glad I heard them now. Bruce and his E Street band have alway been known for hard rocking and vibrant rock music like Born to Run, Born in the U.S.A. and I'm on Fire (along with many other great songs), but he has a very successful solo career where he wrote and sang albums like Nebraska Tunnel of Love. And he explored other genres like jazz, rockabilly, country and folk either solo or with his Sessions Band. He has always been known for absolutely nailing the current social ills and issues with his incredible writing skills. I did not know that he build his illustrious and stellar career while fighting his own demons. This book is a must read for any Bruce Springsteen fan, but also for anyone who is a fan of music. It covers music and Bruce's career over six decades. We also get to meet the wonderful muscicians from the E Street Band. This was an added bonus for me as I have always loved Steven van Zandt and Clarence Clemmons. This is a very surprisingly well-written memoir and I highly recommend it.

LibraryThing member Smits

Really felt like I got to know Bruce Springsteen's music in his autobiography. It was mostly about the music but that is mostly what he is about. He is honest and straightforward and tells it like he sees it. He is hard on himself. Sometimes he gets a little long winded and preachy but that's okay,

he's allowed after a;;... he is the Boss.

LibraryThing member ElisabethZguta

This is not your ordinary biography. It's filled with heartfelt truthful insight, the story of a man we all call the "Boss" and shows us how he thinks, his tribulations and his road to success. Right from the start, with his childhood stories of growing up in the Catholic neighborhood we discover

the influence of family and church on his early development. His love for his grandparents and the confidence he received, his aspirations to be extra ordinary, and the early blows against him from church lessons. A vivid account of his struggles and his love of music and fame. Entertaining book.

LibraryThing member lanewillson

It’s rare for a poet to open what he’s scribbled over the years, to be shown the phrases he believed were the voice of his muse, the silence that made him doubt the siren call he began following as a boy, those he collected along the journey to help him share his soul’s song, those he

discarded and those who refused to leave the safety of the known, and the combination of all that made him realize he was an honest to god poet.

I love audiobooks read by their author, and Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography is the proof of that theorem. If it’s possible to be a humble narcissist, then the Boss has achieved that status. His poetry fueled by his music manages to remain connected to what is real all the while serving as a navigational star for millions. I don’t know that there is a single poetic term that could capture the art Bruce and the E Street Band have crafted over the years, to me it’s quite simple. The Boss is epic!

LibraryThing member deldevries

Interesting to hear the stories and background behind the career and songs.
I enjoyed the frank discussion of a really bad contract with the first manager where the manager gets all of the money and decides what to distribute. Coupled with never filing a tax return for those earliest years - it is

a nightmare! But overall, this is rather slow paced and some details appear over and over again.

LibraryThing member annbury

An amazing book. I had no idea that the Boss was dutch, italian and irish, I always thought that he was Jewish like that Long Island singer
Billy Joel. In fact, I have always wondered who is better, Joel or Springsteen. He knows how to describe a concert and it is too bad that schizophrenia runs in

the family, but he is lucky that he had good doctors and Patti. A great book!!!

LibraryThing member jphamilton

Not the best music biography I've ever read, but pretty close to the top of that tall pile. He's straightforward in the telling of his life, brutally at times, but it is still another very wealthy musician writing rock music ... that seems an odd viewpoint from which to be writing about teenage

love, sex, and rebellion. He can write, and it became easy to tell what parts were written early on, and what was written after several years of writing. His clarity on why he does what he does — the huge rush that he gets from his performances, something that makes other parts of his life pale in comparison — explains so much. The power, companionship, and pure joy of the music has carried him through a great deal ... though he has never worked any other job in his life. The love for his band mates, wife, and kids constantly takes him around the world, to country ranches, horse shows and so much more.
Depression suddenly springs up as its own chapter and it shows how it has had power over several parts of his life. In contrast to being a young man that for years avoided all drugs and alcohol, he now seems very comfortable using subscription drugs to keep his depression at bay. He writes about suddenly feeling off some days, and the solution is just a phone call to his pharmacist away.
The loss of some pretty major figures in his life (his most-of-his-life-estranged father, Clarence "The Big Man" Clemons, and other band mates and long-time friends and support people) makes for some pretty heavy emotional writing.
As a fan of many years, I knew that I wanted to find out what kind of a writer he could be, and it was a good time had by this reader.

LibraryThing member akblanchard

The experience of reading this autobiography fully immersed me in the world of Bruce Springsteen, which is not always a pleasant place to be. Springsteen tells readers all about his hardscrabble childhood in Freehold, NJ, the lean years he struggled to make a living in bar bands, and finally, his

worldwide success as the the artist behind hit albums such as Born to Run and Born in the USA. Springsteen also discusses his difficult relationship with his mentally ill father, and his own issues with anxiety, depression, and paranoia. All in all, this book is an eye opening look at the human side of a pop culture icon, even if it goes on rather long for the casual fan.

LibraryThing member Michael_Godfrey

As an author Springsteen makes a great song-writer. He writes - or at least reads as if he writes - rapidly, displaying a fair degree of self-knowledge, political and sociological awareness. His is an unskilled pen, honed in a school of hard work and hard knocks, and for that reason, in

anti-institutional, anti-intellectual post-Obama,Trumpite world, his story is worth hearing. He makes it clear that he became the rock-musician that he is through sheer hard work and brutal sassy, a little touch of Mick Jagger business acumen developing over the years. He is not afraid to hide the aching, yearning self that has never quite filled the void left by a childhood that was pretty much as dysfunctional as any, but is not afraid to acknowledge that he contributed to much of the angst that he expressed in his songs (and thank God he did, or they would never have been written). There's a sub-text about finding his father, another about loving his mother, but on the whole his father, and the relationship he had with him, is little better or worse than that of most middle-American human males. There's hints of Kerouac about a few road-trips, but Springsteen is no Kerouac in his story-telling prowess, or is not once he reaches beyond thirty or forty lines.

Don't get me wrong. This is a good read, I am a Springsteen nut, I have no regrets for buying or reading it. Every now and again the depths of insight that is a part of the public face of Springsteen the rock-poet, rock-singer, liberal political quasi-prophet, the voice of '70s-and-since angst, breaks out. But only every now and again. The rest is, well, just a kind of nice read about a pretty focussed sort of guy who had a few shags along the way, had a marriage that didn't work, has a marriage that has, is devoted to wife and (seemingly quite remarkable) children, had a broad attitude to race relations that was embodied in his friendship with Clarence Clemons, knows a few Big Names (but we don't learn much about them, nor about anyone else in his musical circles), has discovered a lot about himself through therapy and ... yeah.

That's it: a more or less one dimensional glimpse of a life, an occasional insight into the world, and thanks for that, but, yeah.

I'll still buy every bloody song he sings, though, and I'll be in the sea of faces, rocking at his concert ...

LibraryThing member ecataldi

Not exactly a groundbreaking memoir, but still filled with heart and ambition. I've never been a die hard Springsteen fan but this memoir gave me a new appreciation for all the hard work and dedication it took him to become the superstar he is. In this autobiography Bruce goes into detail about his

childhood, rocky road to becoming a musician and then his eventual rise to fame. I did enjoy listening to his music while reading this and lots of his songs had new meanings when you learn about the back stories in them. A pretty decent biography, but it will be of most interest to the rabid Springsteen fans rather than the general public.

LibraryThing member rglossne

The audio is read by the Boss himself. Need I say more? The story of Springsteen’s modest beginnings in Freehold NJ, his dysfunctional family, and his struggle with depression is told frankly and with humor. Springsteen also writes about the hard work of becoming a successful musician, the mix of

talent, and work ethic and nerve that it takes to become a bandleader and a superstar.

LibraryThing member JBreedlove

.A great surprise. New and informative, deep and true, littered w sharp and colorful metaphor, descriptions and writing. Like the guy wrote songs his entire life keeping a rhyme book at hand. One of the last of American rockers and one who must have been the most driven. Gets a rare 5.

LibraryThing member brangwinn

Deep is an adjective for Springsteen. I still find it amazing that a guy who has reached such heights of fame could remain somebody I’d like to have living next to me. Although his memoir went into much more detail about his rise to fame, it’s clear that he worked hard to get recognition.

LibraryThing member adrianburke

Trust the songs not the singer

LibraryThing member norinrad10

I think it's safe to say that this book mirrors Bruce Springsteen's musical output, as it became less and less interesting as it went on. Problem is it went on and on and on. The first 200 pages were absolutely brilliant. Thoroughly capturing the culture of the late 60's and early 70's and dreams

of a young man. But how many times can I hear that Clarence Clemons is a black man and he is a white man but they are brothers? How many times can I hear how tight he is with Steven but how difficult Steven can be? These side ruminations tended to bog down an enjoyable read that made me want to pull out the old records and in the end isn't that what any good music biography should do?

Awards

Audie Award (Finalist — Autobiography/Memoir — 2018)

The British Book Industry Awards (Shortlist — 2017)

Booklist Editor's Choice: Adult Audio (2017)

Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year (Nonfiction — 2016)

NPR: Books We Love (2016)

The New York Times Notable Books of the Year (Nonfiction — 2016)

Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year (2016)

San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year (Nonfiction — 2016)

The A.V. Club best books (2016)

Globe and Mail Top 100 Book (Nonfiction — 2016)

Los Angeles Public Library Best of the Year (Non-Fiction — 2016)

Chicago Public Library Best of the Best: Adults (Selection — 2016)

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

2016

Physical description

9.25 inches

ISBN

1501141511 / 9781501141515

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