Born to Run

The title came to him in bed at a rented cottage in West Long Branch, and he said it suggested a film. He worked on the song for six months, starting on guitar around the riff and finishing at the piano, and later wrote that it was the turning point for the whole record. It is a love letter to a girl named Wendy, with a car as the escape from a town that is a death trap. Springsteen has said its simple core is getting out of Freehold, and in 2005 he described the mood of the time as post-Watergate and post-Vietnam, when people no longer felt young.

It was recorded at 914 Sound in the spring and summer of 1974 with Ernest Carter on drums and David Sancious on keyboards, before either had left. There are as many as eleven guitar tracks, the lead inspired by Duane Eddy, and Clemons's solo was pieced together from about seven takes. Mike Appel slipped a mix to radio in November 1974, to Columbia's displeasure, and a later attempt to remix it was abandoned. Released in August 1975, it reached number 23, his first top-forty hit. Robert Christgau heard in it the fulfilment of everything Be My Baby was about.

Live

It is the song he has played most, almost 1,900 times by Brucebase's count, usually with the house lights up. Landau heard it at the Harvard Square Theatre in May 1974, more than a year before its release, and it has been at nearly every band show since 1975. Famous versions include Hammersmith Odeon in 1975, a solo acoustic reading in 1988, and the Super Bowl halftime show in 2009. Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Suzi Quatro, Melissa Etheridge, Brandi Carlile and black midi are among those who have covered it.

The upload in the hypersongs web is the 1987 official video directed by Arthur Rosato, a live performance from the 1984 to 1985 Born in the U.S.A. Tour cut with clips of other songs, not the 1975 studio recording.