Runaway Dream: Born to Run and Bruce Springsteen's American Vision

by Louis P. Masur

Paperback, 2010

Library's rating

Library's review

Last year was the 40th anniversary of the release of Born to Run, the album many critics consider to be Bruce Springsteen's finest work (for me, the top spot circulates among a handful of albums depending on my mood and circumstances). This book is presented as an in-depth look at the making of
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that album, including a song-by-song analysis that was really interesting to someone like me who loves music but doesn't play or know much about the particulars.

Unfortunately, that's only one chapter of the book and the only chapter that was completely new to me. The rest of the book is fleshed out with an overview of Springsteen's life and career, both before and after Born to Run, that as a card-carrying crazyfan I was already very familiar with, even to the extent of being able to identify which interviews or articles various quotes were pulled from. And the tense drama surrounding the recording of the album, which took months and months, while reviewed adequately here is better covered in the documentary Wings for Wheels that accompanied the re-mastered version of the album back in 2005.

So superfans won't find a whole lot new in this book. But casual fans or readers interested in musical analysis or the music-making process should get much more value out of it. The writing is fine, and in my limited judgment the musical analysis seems original and accurate (there's lots of talk about how various songs on BTR modulate from major to minor chords and the effect that's meant to give, and even though I listened to each song several times as I read the segment about it in the book, I'm still not sure I could identify a minor chord if one walked up and spit on me).
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Description

To millions of listeners, Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run is much more than a rock-and-roll album - it's a poetic explosion of freedom and frustration. It confirmed Springsteen's status as a quintessential American performer- the rocker who, more than any other, gives voice to our hopes, fears, and aspirations. Runaway Dream chronicles the making of the album that launched Springsteen and his E Street Band into the firmament of American art, deftly sketching the ambition, history, and personalities that combined to create the enduring Born to Run. Springsteen wanted Born to Run to be the greatest rock record ever made. For a musician with just two modest-selling LPs to his credit, it was an extraordinary ambition, and session by session, track by track, Masur shows just how much grit, as well as genius, went into realizing it. Runaway Dream offers an expert tour of the trials and triumphs of Springsteen's work. In addition to the story of the album itself, Masur masterfully places Born to Run within American cultural history, showing why the girls, hot rods, and Jersey nights of the album still resonate, even for listeners born years after its release.… (more)

Media reviews

Masur draws heavily on previously published books about Springsteen and archival interviews with The Boss himself, but "Runaway Dream" would have benefited greatly from new interviews with Springsteen and others involved in the making of the album. Still, "Runaway Dream" does an effective job of
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evoking the album's power, and the role that the Jersey landscape (emotional and physical) and the aura of the times played in its creation and its staying power.
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Language

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