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Garage to Stadiums is one of the Top 5% of podcasts in the world. From the bars to the arenas, learn the fascinating stories of how our biggest rock music legends made the leap. Each episode reveals the stories, songs and little known facts of the journey from obscurity to fame of one of rock music’s biggest stars. Join us on Garage To Stadiums as host Dave Anthony teams up with an author of a rock biography or director of a rock documentary to explore that journey, their early years, the stories behind the scenes, their top songs, and their place in music history.
Learn about the passion, talent, luck and even scandal that often came together to propel these stars from obscurity to household names.
Garage to Stadiums Episode 35 The Story of Springsteen’s Born to Run
Host: Dave Anthony
Guest: Peter Ames Carlin, author of Tonight in Jungleland: The Making of Born to Run
Hi there. I'm Dave Anthony, and this is the garage to stadiums podcast rated as one of the top 5% of podcasts globally. On each episode, we tell you the story of how one of our music legends rose from obscurity to fame and play some of the songs that mark that journey. Welcome to garage to stadiums. Today we take a slight detour from our usual format, but for good reason. This year marks the 50th anniversary of one of the most iconic albums in rock history, Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run what you're about to hear isn't just the story of an album, it's the story of a young artist with his back against the wall, a man facing the end of a dream before it had truly begun. Here's the backstory. It's 1974 and after two critically acclaimed but commercially disappointing records, Bruce Springsteen was on the verge of being dropped by Columbia Records. The ultimatum was clear, deliver a hit single where the ride ends here, no album, no future, no second chances, and at just 24 years old, Springsteen found himself cornered, haunted by a turbulent childhood, battling doubt and pushing himself, his band, his producers and his vision further than ever before. And what you're about to hear is the extraordinary result of the album that emerged from this enormous pressure. But this isn't just the story of an incredible album. It's the story of one man's defiance destiny and rock and roll dreams written in sweat, steel and soul. Today we'll explore the making of the landmark album Born to Run with Peter Ames Carlin, author of the recently released tonight in jungle land, the making of Born to Run, which has already become a New York Times bestseller. You may remember Peter from our previous episodes on rem and Bruce Springsteen himself. He's also written definitive biographies on Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, welcome back to garage, to stadiums. Peter
Unknown Speaker 2:02
Bob, it's great to be back. Thanks for having me.
Dave Anthony 2:08
We are going to talk today about your book, tonight in jungle land, the making of Born to Run. And I guess I'd start by asking, you know, on the in the book, which is excellent book, by the way, how much time did you spend with Bruce?
Peter Ames Carlin 2:24
Um, let's see this time around, I think we I hung out with him at a party after the Asbury Park festival show, and then we had a fairly long sit down a few hours on his birthday last year, and I saw him when else, and then there was a certain amount of back and forth on the phone and texting, and we had done, obviously, quite a lot of interviews when I was working on his biography.
Dave Anthony 2:58
Give us a sense of, you know, Bruce's state of mind, as we talk about this jungle land book, you talk obviously about the making of Born to Run. But in our previous episode, you talked at length about Bruce's childhood, the fact that his he was the golden child, according to his grandparents, because they had lost a child previously. And then, in the words of Bruce in your this book, he says, you know, my father, because of his own issues mental health and otherwise, considered me less than and so that dichotomy of poor Bruce growing up with that sort of pulling at both ends, how does that sort of economy play into the happenings of his life at that particular time just prior to this album.
Peter Ames Carlin 3:46
Well, I think those you know, those those two sort of polls that you talked about, you know, in his awareness, I mean, on the one hand, you know, there was that very sort of primal conflict between the influence of his grandparents, who really did sort of adore him, beyond beyond measure, you know, arguably beyond logic. And his dad who who loved him very much, but had his own, you know, he was but, you know, bipolar and undiagnosed and untreated for the longest time. And so his days were such a struggle, and I think he felt, in order for to prepare his son for how hard life was going to be, he really needed him to sort of buckle down and focus and not spend all his time playing his goddamn guitar and, you know, and cut his hair and, you know, try to act Normal. You know, just because Doug Springsteen experienced the world as an extremely, you know, brutal and unforgiving place. But when he said those things to Bruce, Bruce experienced that as an, you know, an absolute rejection of himself and and and his life. And so he spent a lot of his you. A lot of his adult life, ultimately, and definitely in the early years, pre therapy, you know, hence, he was really sort of strung between those two different perceptions of himself, and he carried that into his career, which was both, you know, a great fuel for him, a huge motivator. It emphasized his, his, you know, need for control over himself and over, you know, over his band, over his community. And it, at times, I think, made him terrified that he was going to be revealed as the loser his dad, you know, he felt that his dad was telling him he was and so moving into the Born to Run era when his back was against the wall with the record company, and they essentially, you know, they brought him in, and he was highly celebrated on, you know, upon the release of his first album. And there were critics saying, Oh, this is the next Bob Dylan, you know, which was something they said about a lot of singer songwriters in those days. But Bruce, you know, really seemed to have the, you know, what it took to actually possibly live up to that villain, um, even though he was also trying to establish his own voice and step away from, from that very, you know, specific Dylan esque way of writing and performing and and so he went from there to there, you know, suddenly realizing that, well, that album didn't sell. The next album didn't sell. Clyde Davis, who had been his great advocate at the top of the record company, had been fired from the company, and so suddenly he didn't have his support anymore. He didn't have any of the you know, his star had fallen significantly, and the message that he got when he started working on Born to Run, or started wanting to work on that third album, was, we're not going to give you the money to make a full record. We're going to give you just enough to make a single. And if it sounds like that single is going to be could make it on the radio, then we're going to go ahead.
Dave Anthony 7:16
Peter. There's several incidents in the book where you discuss Bruce's almost self sabotage. He's given opportunities to impress record executives or other events that, have you know helped his exposure, or will help his exposure. What do you think's going on in his mind when he chooses these moments not to deliver in his usual exemplary fashion? You know, the showman, the drive, he just doesn't deliver in those moments. What's going on?
Peter Ames Carlin 7:41
Well, I think in a sense, you're seeing a little bit of that same ambivalence about his own ambition. You know, I mean, on the one hand, the guy is all appetite, like he wants to be the biggest rock star that ever was. You know, when he set out to make Born to Run, it wasn't just to make a good album, not just to make a great album, but to make the greatest rock and roll album that had ever been made. And he wasn't shy about it, you know? I mean, he set the bar that high and but at the same time, I think he was also very leery of seeming of acknowledging his own appetite, because it, you know, especially in the 70s, you know, the early 70s, from like the late 60s through the mid 70s, it was exceptionally uncool to seem to be focused on album, you know, selling records, having hit singles, If you were the type of artist who, you know, who felt, who didn't want to be a pop star, but wanted to be thought of as a serious, serious musician and a serious artist in that line of Dylan and the Beatles and, you know, all the greats, you didn't want to get caught out looking Like someone who was just in it for a buck, or as someone who had been a creation of the industry somehow. And so all that publicity that he got on the first record, that the publicity that began to kind of grow around, you know, the Born to Run era, you know, when people called him the new Dylan, who couldn't tolerate that,
Dave Anthony 9:24
one man played a fateful role in the creation of Born to Run and ultimately in shaping the career of Bruce Springsteen. His name was John Landau, a former music producer who stepped away from the studio life for health reasons. Landau redirected his energy into writing and quickly rose to become one of the most influential rock critics of the early 1970s and then one night in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a friend recommended that Landau catch a live performance by a young performer named Bruce Springsteen. Moved by what he saw and heard, Landau penned a bold and prophetic Review. Declaring, I've seen Rock and roll's future, and its name is Bruce Springsteen. It was a courageous statement, given that at the time, Springsteen had released two albums with limited commercial success, but Landau saw something others hadn't yet, a spark, a vision and a sound that he felt could define a generation,
Peter Ames Carlin 10:21
even when John Landau wrote that column where he said, I've seen rock and roll future, and its name is Bruce Springsteen, on the one hand, Bruce was was thrilled because he desperately wanted to believe that about himself. But on the other hand, I think he was scared that people were going to see that and just figure that he's a creation of all these other people, and not his own artist, you know, and so his when he was presented with these opportunities, especially when it had to do with industry events, or like Columbia Records sales conventions, or when Columbia execs would come to see his shows, he would there was a kind of a child, childish to a degree, resentment for having to perform, for these people, for having to up his game to impress people, to sort of work within their structure. The idea was that's not what rock and roll is. Rock and roll is a rebellion. Rock and roll is, is an explosion against the institution. Yeah. So when when asked to perform for the pleasure of the Institutionalists, there was a big part of him that wanted nothing to do with it, right? You all can go to hell, right? And he would undermine himself. But the problem was, he also very much needed their support. And there were enough people in the company who were supporting him he knew, for all the right reasons that they just loved his work, yeah, that he would he was, you know, of two minds again, it's that famous Springsteen ambivalence.
Dave Anthony 12:04
It's very complex. And that theme runs through your book. It runs through his lyrics. It runs through that sort of dichotomy of that, that personality, the Landau. You mentioned him, John Landau, of course, as you mentioned in our last episode with the story of Springsteen, we talked about Lando calling Bruce the future of I've seen the future, and it's Bruce Springsteen the future of rock and roll. And I'm curious, because I know they became friends, and then he wanted him to help him and act on the on the album. And land out had some feedback about how the first two albums didn't sound that great, and so Bruce gets him involved, and I'm curious as to how that went over with Mike appel, who was still his manager, and still, you know, busting his stones on behalf of Bruce, pretty much. How did they get along in the booth and so forth and so on.
Peter Ames Carlin 12:58
Well, one of the things about Mike appel that was so interesting is that he was there despite the fact that he the contracts that he had Bruce sign were very, very old school and very usurious. To some degree, he ended up with so much ownership and control over Bruce's work, you know, as a songwriter and as a recording artist, it was, it was unseemly. And eventually the courts found that there were some, you know, that that it wasn't, you know, inappropriate relationship, or Bruce signed the record. Signed those contracts without the appropriate knowledge of what they what they really meant, because he signed them so quickly, you know, without really giving them a look when he was a kid. But on the other hand, Mike appel worked his tail off for Bruce and believed in him intensely and sacrificed over and over again, quit his job, drained his kids college accounts to keep Bruce and the band on the road went to the wall time and time again to make sure that Bruce was getting everything he wanted and needed for his work. And so when Bruce came and told him, Listen, I think we need to bring in John Landau, Mike was like, that's what you want. I'm in. You know, he wasn't as Bruce said. Mike wasn't all that territorial about that kind of stuff. So even though it you know, John was going to come in and be a co producer and sit in the control booth and have a Ford who shoulder to shoulder with Mike over what was going and Bruce with what was going on in the studio, Mike's position was, if this is, this is who Bruce wants. If this is what's going to take us over the top, you know, in Bruce's opinion, then I'm all for it his job, which he knew, was to help Bruce achieve whatever Bruce wanted to achieve.
Dave Anthony 14:53
And did he was that happy to do it? And did you think that Bruce was, Bruce still the alpha in that? Relationship. Does Lando make suggestions that Bruce takes, like, how did that sort of interchange work? Based on your research?
Peter Ames Carlin 15:09
Well, it worked. I mean, according to everybody, I mean, John came in, he was he'd had some experience as a record producer. He had produced records for Livingston Taylor as a singer songwriter and James's younger brother, and also for the MC five, you know, the proto punk band out of Detroit,
Peter Ames Carlin 15:36
and and then, you know, he was really interested in pursuing that, but then he developed Crohn's disease, which is this really uncomfortable intestinal problem, and it spent a few years fighting that, and he couldn't really live like a rock guy, you know. He couldn't stay up all night and do all the stuff that rock and roll people do. So he went back to his other pursuit, which was being a music writer and a rock and roll, you know, and a critic and an editor at Rolling Stone. And he was a very accomplished writer and and, you know, and critic, and he ended up, basically, when he met Bruce, he was coming not only with his expertise as a producer, but really what kind of opened the door for him was the fact that he had such a huge reputation as a writer and a critic, and so, you know, the idea was, and I think part of the appeal probably for, you know, for Bruce and for Mike, and then the people at Columbia Records was that if you brought John Landau onto the team, they were going to have a really highly placed in with Rolling Stone magazine, which at the time was the great Journal of youth culture. So the idea was, he's really smart. He knows music. Bruce is really comfortable with him, and feels like he's got good ideas, but he also comes with this X factor, which is that he's highly placed and influential, not just at Rolling Stone magazine, but among all the most elite critics and writers and publications that cover popular music in the United States. So that was something, you know, it was a motivating factor. But also John, you know, I mean, they got to know Bruce, they had a lot in common. They really enjoyed each other. And, of course, they just talked endlessly about music and records. And there was a real meeting of the minds between, you know, what Bruce was interested in doing and what John said, you know, that you know, and what John wanted to do, and John's sense of, you know, affirmed all of Bruce's highest aspirations, basically telling him, No, you are great, like you are one of the great singers, you know, songwriters and musicians out there, and I, you know, and I'm, like a leading critic, I know these things, and I can tell you what you're doing right, and I think I have a sense of what's going wrong.
Dave Anthony 18:11
You can imagine a 25 year old, 26 year old sitting there, you're the greatest. And mean, all his albums haven't sold. Recording Born to Run wasn't a straight shot of spending a few weeks in the studio. The band spent time in the studio off and on for a year and a half from January 1974 to July 1975 why? Well, they had no choice. They had to keep their meager incomes alive. Springsteen and the E Street Band were constantly on the move playing 137 shows in 74 and 96 more in 1975 So Bruce used the challenging situation to write new material and test it live, refining it as they toured. The title track, Born to Run became an obsession. That song alone took almost six months to complete, and its opening to this day is recognizable.
Dave Anthony 19:15
Bruce rewrote it, rearranged it and reimagined it over and over, layers of sound, shifting lyrics, new melodies, until it finally clicked. The final mix wrapped on August 6, 1974 the song tells the story of a young couple desperate to get out of their small town and discover anything but staying put in his one man Broadway show, Bruce summarized the theme as his own frustration of being a 24 year old who was restless for a change to his destiny. Quote, I was born to run, not to stay my home, New Jersey. It's a death trap. It's a suicide rap. Listen to the lyrics. I gotta get out. I gotta hit the highway. I'm going to bring my girl, and I've had enough of the shit that this place dishes out. I'm gonna run and I'm never coming back.
Dave Anthony 20:15
Give us a sense of the hours labored in the studio when I was reading your book, I was like, holy like they took months and months on one song, and then they took several months for the rest of the songs like this thing seemed like the endless journey from hell to work on.
Peter Ames Carlin 20:30
Well, that was part of Bruce's process back then, you know, especially in that period of of discovery and self invention. And this part of what makes the Born to Run era and that album so compelling is that it was the moment. It was the point at which Bruce figured out who Bruce Springsteen was as an artist and as as a as a performer, and how he was going to express, you know, this essential part of himself. And you can see his his image and his idea of himself evolving from album to album, just by looking at what he's wearing on the cover and what it looks like. You know, in those first couple years, he was kind of this, you know, boardwalk rat poet in a you know, torn hoodie and, you know, sleeveless t shirt. But by the time you get to the Born to Run album, he's got the black leather jacket, you know, and the tight jeans, and he's got that Elvis Presley button on his guitar straps, which is like, you can't, you know, you can't over, over interpret the importance of the Elvis button in 1975 I mean, Elvis was as UN hip, you know, in that post Woodstock era as any huge artist has ever been, yeah, but Bruce was very it was right there saying, like, I don't care, it's like, he's, he's fucking fantastic, or he was, I mean, this is where it all began. And paying homage to him on the cover of an album that you're hoping is going to be the next big thing was, like, a striking statement to make. So this sense of like, of discovery and of of figuring out how to sound, how to be, what to say, that all was something that he took so seriously it took them, you know, they were working on and off on the Born to Run single, which, again, was kind of the Do or die moment for them for six months, you Know, in and out of the studio, trying every variation of of guitars and keyboards and background singers and string arrangements and all these things, trying to figure out exactly what how to position themselves. You know, how do we how do we maintain the artistry while still making it more accessible to the people who are going to be programming, and then listening to the radio. How do we move some of the stuff, like, how do you talk to people and express these ideas in a way that people can understand? And Mike CAPELL was telling him, You got to simplify. Your songs are so complicated and huge, and that's amazing. They're great. But if you really want to hit in the mainstream, you gotta, you gotta leave more air, you know, certainly in the lyrics, you gotta allow the melody to come through. And you know, you gotta simplify your language or speak to people in a more direct type of way. And Bruce knew those things and was and Mike supported him as he evolved in that direction. But it just took them the longest time to figure out exactly how it should work. So once they got that single done, and they turned it into Columbia in the end of the summer in 1974 the guys in the, you know, in the A and R team who were then, you know, running the show, were like, you know, they didn't. Nobody said no. Nobody said, This doesn't work. But nobody wanted to really commit to it as saying, like, Yeah, that's exactly right. Go for it. So they really had to lean hard on the president of the company to get him to, like, unleash the money so that they could, you know, get work on the rest of the record. And not only that, Mike appel did one of his signature moves, which was when they weren't getting the feedback from the company. He bootlegged like 100 copies of song from the master tape and sent them to all the sympathetic DJs around the country, you know, and the ones who he knew he could count on to just immediately start airing the song. And when they began to put it on the air and and put it on their playlist, and then they began to get requests all the news of all these people around the country going like, oh my god, this has been. Podstarter got back to New York to Columbia Records, and of course, the executives weren't happy. But on the other hand, I think they also realized that Mike had successfully lit a fire around their feet, and now they had to respond,
Dave Anthony 25:14
yeah, that's an incredible gorilla story, isn't it? Of marketing-
MOVE THAT BLUE SECTION FROM 32:22 to HERE so that is sounds like this:
Can you give us some examples of how different some of the songs were that appeared on the album to their first conception? Was there sort of one that stood out, or a couple that you went, Yeah, this song started out this way and ended up that way.
Peter Ames Carlin 32:38
Wow, sure. Well, you know, a lot of the songs did a lot of serious evolution during the process.
Peter Ames Carlin 25:18
Born to Run kind of had a very similar evolution lyrically, less so musically, but the early versions of the lyrics included all these strange like nightmarish, Gothic images and ideas. You know, they're people getting run over by their own cars and and, and there's this woman, the surfer, the beautiful surfer girl on the beach, who, who either ends up cradling the fast rebel as he dies, you know, after being run over by his own car, the road collapses under people later, the surfer girl dies of an overdose. You know, it's like holy shit out there and then, but then, you know, I think what he he fixed on as he continued working on the song, was that the song was really about as much as it was describing how, you know, the dead ends and and just, you know, and crumbling town that he's coming from. It's really about the hope of setting out for somewhere near somewhere, yeah. And so that song, you know, and then he reigned it in and took out sort of on the nightmarish Gothic, you know, I images and and stuff and and, and made it a more recognizable setting
Dave Anthony 26:42
for, yeah, so it sounds like he replaced the almost the horror movie American Pie the world is ending feel to more about escape, like escaping from these hopeless small towns and finding winning ways elsewhere.
Peter Ames Carlin 26:57
Yeah, that was the idea on Born to Run. But then, as as Steve Van Zan pointed out, by the time he got to darkness on the edge of town Three years later, that's an album about not leaving. That's an album about staying and and figuring out what your life is going to be, and how do you live and work and grow and become who you need to be without necessarily vanishing from your hometown.
Dave Anthony 27:26
That's interesting. It's almost like taking accountability. And it's not about where you are. It's how you're how you're conducting yourself. It's it's an interesting evolution with Born to Run complete the band set out to shape the rest of the album, starting with the opening track, and what they delivered was the epic song, Thunder Road. It begins like a scene from a movie. A screen door slams Mary stands on the porch. There's a hint of hope, but also hesitation.
Unknown Speaker 28:00
Mary's dress wings like a vision. She dances across the porch as the radio plays.
Dave Anthony 28:10
She's caught in a moment unsure of what comes next. So is the male character in the story. They're both stuck, restless, waiting for something to change. It's almost the emotional prequel to Born to Run, pondering, Wondering, imagining whether to leave together.
Dave Anthony 28:41
Then comes his proposition, not just a ride, but a way out, a chance to leave behind the dead ends and doubt. Quote, it's a town full of losers, and I'm pulling up here to win.
Dave Anthony 29:00
That line becomes a mission statement, not just for the characters, but for Bruce himself. Thunder Road wasn't just a song. It was the start of a journey for them, for listeners and for the album. How does a guy of 25 a young man of 25 able to write such powerful human drama and a song like Thunder Road is just a magical look at a, you know, a young couple or an average couple, and their fears, desires. Is he just extraordinarily gifted? Or is these the people he lived among? Or like, what? What makes this guy able to do this?
Peter Ames Carlin 29:38
Um, all of the above. I mean, he was remarkably gifted, I mean, and remarkably sensitive, and just had a very poetic soul, and for whatever reason, a real grasp of language and music and understanding how you know you can create a song. Or a piece of art that really that as much as it expresses what's happening inside you, is also as expressive of what's happening to other people, you know, what other people are experiencing in the world, and you know some people are are just immensely talented, and he was not just immensely talented, but also even, you know, just as or more disciplined and in his pursuit of his his art, and being able to, you know, spending those hours and hours and hours working on playing the guitar, working on listening to songs, and working on writing his own songs and figuring out how good songs work and what are your different options. And he was very touched by the world that he grew up in at freehold New Jersey, in this kind of blue collar town, suburban town, where you know, the industry, the major industry, the karagoujian rug mill, had closed down. There was a lot of unemployment. There was a real lack of opportunity or a sense of the future. And to an extent, in that, you know, Monmouth County and and their corner of of the nation, it just felt like things were crumbling around them. So, what do you do if you're a young person who with, you know, with dreams and with ambitions and you just want to find a way to be. How do you do that? How do you scrape out enough, you know, how do you how do you find the elbow room and you know the open the open turf, you know the open terrain to to invent yourself and become who you need to be. And those were, you know. And he saw people try, you know, his friends, these people that he grew up with, members of his family, struggle to make a living, struggle to support their families and try to balance and reconcile whatever their own dreams of life were versus what the reality is and what they were actually presented with, what and, you know, it was a struggle, and he knew that then, and that's a story that he has been writing about and updating and revising, you know, for 50 years.
Dave Anthony 32:22
Yeah, that's a good point. Can you give us some examples of how different some of the songs were that appeared on the album to their first conception? Was there sort of one that stood out, or a couple that you went, Yeah, this song started out this way and ended up that way.
Peter Ames Carlin 32:38
Wow, sure. Well, you know, a lot of the songs did a lot of serious evolution during the process.
Dave Anthony 32:44
Another incredible track is a song called Jungle land, which closes the album. The song opens with a short, melancholic violin line and piano that adds a touch of fragile beauty and pathos, almost like the prelude of a dramatic opera that will unfold.
Dave Anthony 33:15
The lyrics tell the story of a young couple navigating life on the street, struggling with love danger in the sense that the city around them is both thrilling and unforgiving. The rebel figure named the magic rat drives his sleek machine and his love interest, known as the Barefoot girl, drinks beer on the hood of a car while she waits for Jersey state line.
Unknown Speaker 33:38
Barefoot girl sitting time,
Dave Anthony 33:43
barefoot girl sitting on the hood of a Dodge. Spring scene, again, continues the theme of painting a vivid picture of escape longing and the tensions of youthful ambition against a gritty, urban backdrop, much like his own circumstances at the time. Ultimately, the song cascades from quiet, fragile sounds to up tempo rock and roll and back again to those fragile sounds ending with the magic rat's dramatic death in the go
Dave Anthony 34:26
down. No one watches, and the ambulance pulls away in the words of Bruce his own dreams, gunning him down, and the song emulates how Bruce's dream might soon be ended if this album doesn't do well. Jungle land contains powerful lyrics and imagery and its dramatic culmination of musical interludes and Bruce's guttural screams of pain stay with the listener. After listening to the song, it's almost the sound of a man who knows he's on the cutting edge of failure and success. It could go either way, and like an athlete who can give no more, he's left it all out there on the studio
Unknown Speaker 34:58
floor. John
Dave Anthony 35:14
Peter in your book, Bruce's manager John Landau says something interesting about the religious analogies on the album. I wanted to get your take on it, that theme of, you know, starting Thunder Road with a woman named Mary, and ultimately, you know, the mad rat, you know, gets, gets basically gunned down by his own dream at the end of the the album, in jungle land, which is kind of like a crucifixion, certainly seems to suggest that that journey that, you know, birth by Mary through to crucifixion is kind of the theme of the thing. And I always surprised that Bruce kind of said, yeah, that's kind
Peter Ames Carlin 35:56
of it. Well, Bruce was, well, you know, again, it's with the ambivalence and the sense of on the one hand, Bruce doesn't really want to admit at times, he doesn't like it to seem as if he is that self conscious about what he's doing, especially when it comes to something as enormous as comparing oneself to Jesus. But on the other hand, I think what he understands is that there are theme that you can evoke, the themes in the life of Jesus, which is, in so many ways, a kind of hero's journey, the moments of doubt, the moment of sacrifice, the you know, the trials and the transcendence and some heroes journeys and tragically, as Jesus's did, although, of course, ascend, you know, ascending into heaven to be with God is not that sad an ending, but it was A rough transition. Let's put it that way. And I think that, I think that Bruce understood that to a great extent, you know, there was something in, you know, there was, there were elements of religion and faith in the story he was telling. Wanted to tell and Born to Run. And it's interesting that in the various iterations of Thunder Road, as it evolved from wings for wings for wheels to the song that we know now is Thunder Road, the woman who comes out on the porch, who he's singing to is, sometimes it's it's Christina, sometimes it's Angelina, and then eventually it was married. So in all cases, she's an angel. She's a vision of Christ. She's the mother of Christ. And you start there at the very beginning, you know, the birth, the hope. And then through the adventures on the album, you get to the end in jungle land, where there's the story of the magic rats going to New York City to kind of take his stand being chased by these mysterious antagonists. The cops are on his tails for reasons that we don't understand, for reasons that aren't even really relevant. Exactly all we know is that he's kind of a wanted man, and he's doing his best. And by the end of the song, this idea that he gets gunned down by his own dreams and and and shocks the city into silence, and the poets have nothing to say anymore. The you know, everything is vanished. Yeah, that's a crucifixion of sorts. And so he it's, it was interesting when I saw him perform at the see here now Festival last September. He it was one of the only times on his tour where he actually performed jungle land, which he did, you know? And I think there had been two previous times, and it was a two year tour, he had played it. He's played it, I think, three times the entire way through. Two of them before that, I think were in 2023, once in, maybe both in New Jersey. And then when he came out, he played it at in Asbury Park at the festival. And when he got to those, the final part where the, you know, the last instrumental piece where he sings those great, what Landau describes as those howls, yeah, that illustrate the death of the magic rat. As he sang those, he held his arms out, you know, in that cruciform position, like Christ on the cross. And so I, when I was watching it on the beach there, I thought, oh, Melissa John, and he's like, it's the crucifixion, of course. And when I asked Bruce about it after the show, he was like, what? Like, I didn't even know I was doing that. And I was like, Really, okay. And then a week later, whatever it was. Week and a half later, when we were talking on his birthday, and I asked him about the theory, John's theory about, you know, Mary to crucifixion. And he shrugged, and he goes, Yeah, that's about, right. So, yeah, he you know, well, it depends on what day you catch him, whether he's like, wants to really focus and acknowledge that, versus wanting to claim that he has no idea what you're talking about.
Dave Anthony 40:26
So that's there. I mean, all this work goes into this album, back against the wall. You set it up well the beginning, back against the wall. And you said in our previous episode, Bruce is at his best when His back's against the wall. And so Born to Run is completed, and the reaction of Bruce after the acetate of the final album is delivered is a little bit shocking. He's almost well. He does throw the album, I believe, in a swimming pool, according to the book. And I mean, what is this obsession, anxiety? What the heck is he thinking here? As everyone else thinks this is a, an incredible effort. The musicians have left everything on the floor to deliver it all. They're, in fact, I think they're kind of pissed at his reaction. What, what? What is this again, the dichotomy of Bruce, or what? What's going on here?
Peter Ames Carlin 41:17
Yeah, no, exactly that. I mean, it's like, listen, he was given the opportunity to make exactly the record he wanted to make in exactly the way he wanted to make it with the exact positions he wanted to make it with in the studio. He wanted to make it in with the producers he wanted to work with every he got the opportunity to do everything his way, and he pushed everyone to the wall and beyond it to make it so. And having finished it, and then being presented with his work, suddenly he gets the terrors. What if I invested every scrap of myself into this and it's still not good enough? What if, you know, which was essentially, again, it's that existential moment of like, this is me. This is all I am. This is everything I have to offer. Take it or leave it. What if everybody left it, then he's back in New Jersey, working in the bars for, you know, for moist dollar bills. You know, that was not an, you know, an impossible outcome at that moment. So I think it was just the terror of self doubt and suddenly reacting against like I've been pushing and pushing and pushing to get this here at this very moment. I succeeded. Here it is, right here and now, but what if my success still isn't good enough? And I think it was terrifying. So he was like, Okay, forget it. Let's just start all over again, which is another way of saying, I am terrified of what's going to happen when I unleash this. And maybe part of him understood that when he unleashed it, what was, what did happen? Might happen, which is that it just exploded and, you know, went off like a bomb and and made him again, even more critically celebrated, only this time with actually selling more than a million albums and being proclaimed this is the next God, like, this is the guy the future of rock and roll has arrived and, you know, and lo and behold, it does turn out to be Bruce Springsteen. And then, like, that's a lot. That's a big burden to carry with you. And he wasn't comfortable with that either.
Dave Anthony 43:38
The evolution of Bruce's music and mission is best illustrated by the track 10th Avenue freeze out. Springsteen has said that he honestly had no idea what the title of 10th Avenue freeze out even means, but the verses are semi autobiographical. The song captures his frustration with struggling to find success in the early days, and how the arrival of saxophonist Clarence Clemens changed the momentum and gave them all a new sense of confidence.
Dave Anthony 44:13
Suddenly, the nicknames in the song Bad scooter for Bruce and the big man for Clarence could quote, bust the city in half, a playful way of celebrating the energy and chemistry they brought to the band, long before any of it translated into commercial success,
Dave Anthony 44:42
was listening to the stones albums of the early to mid 70s as part of our upcoming stones episode. And you know, the horns, the keyboards, the bigger sound, starting with XL on Main Street. Do you think they influenced Bruce by bringing that sound into the 70s? Or was that earlier stack sound the sort of. Uh, Otis Redding, and I guess Van Morrison took that sound like, what was Bruce always into that? Or was it sort of of the moment that he thought, Geez, this is, this is hot. We got to load up on the sound right
Peter Ames Carlin 45:11
now. Oh, I think that they all were following the same, you know, the same impulses and had the same inspirations. I mean, I don't think it took the stones and the exile or those records, you know, those kind of real hard R and B records that they were making in the early 70s for Bruce to understand that James Brown was fantastic. And, you know, I mean, he grew up they, you know, they're not much older than Bruce's. Yeah, they've got five or six years on him, I think. And, you know, obviously they were they, you know, they, they, they broke through a lot earlier in their career than he did in his to a degree, but, but that sound, you know, I mean, and he was also very influenced by Van Morrison and Van Morrison's band and and Joe Cocker and and and his the Mad Dogs and the Englishman band and, you know, that big R and B sound. But that was something that he had also really absorbed from James Brown and the great soul acts of the of the 60s. Yeah, one of his friends talks about him watching that movie, The Tammy show that has that incredible James Brown performance, and just studying it the spread of his actually, his family owned a movie theater in Red Bank in New Jersey, and Bruce would come over and help him clean up, and then they would spend, like, the wee hours after the theater closed, they would spend the wee hours watching these Rock and Roll movies. Oh, wow, order. And so he just, you know, and this guy described Bruce studying James Brown's moves and the way that he directed his band and, you know, and how all that worked. And when you see Bruce in the E Street Band now, and if he throws up this hand in this way, it means one thing, and he goes like this, it means a whole other thing. You know Matt's Weinberg, the drummer, told me when I was working on the biography, he goes, he goes. And everyone in the band says the same thing when they're on stage. Their job is to watch Bruce and follow him wherever he goes, because you don't always know where it's going to be. And Max told me that you know, when Bruce is about to count in a song, he knows exactly what song it's going to be. Just by the way, Bruce's trapezius muscle tenses, and what he's doing with his right what he's doing with his right arm. You know, he just looks at the top of his back and he knows if it's going to be she's the one, or it's going to be Thunder Road. I mean, he knows exactly where they're going.
Dave Anthony 47:43
That's hilarious. Before we get to the reaction of the album, from from from critics, etc. What do you think was behind the choice of Clarence Clemens and him being on the cover of the album?
Peter Ames Carlin 47:54
Well, it was, I think that was evoking two pretty powerful ideas for Bruce, first of all, most simply, it's just the power of the band. It's the power of friendship. It's it's community, it's this idea of, you know, the way that he's leaning on clarence's shoulder and and just beaming lovingly at him as he blares away on his saxophone. And Clarence was such a striping figure. He was six foot three, you know, big, broad guy, you know, who'd been a football player. Huge guy, super charismatic. But of course, the other striping thing is that he's African American, and Bruce was very, very interested in having a racially integrated band that was very important to him. Because, again, you know, this was at a time, you know, then as now, where we're still plagued with this institutional racism. And these, these, these sort of like ridiculous attitudes that never quite go away. And at the time, I mean, for the band that that Bruce brought into the start of Born to Run, was evenly divided. There were three white guys and three African American guys in the band, Clarence and Davey Sanchez, the the keyboard player. And Clarence, or excuse me, Ernest boom Carter, the drummer, yeah, he played in Lopez. He played on board. Didn't he? Right? Those guys all play on the single on Born to Run. They play on that but by mid 1974 Sanchez, who was a terrifically talented jazz player got a record deal to do a basically have his own jazz fusion band. And of course, Bruce said, you got to do that. There's no way you can't do that. So Davey left, and then took Boone Carter with him, so they very quickly had to replace those guys, but never. Nevertheless, I mean that idea of being able to come at the world as a rock band and say, we have white faces, we have black faces, we're joined together in this brotherhood, and this is how the world can and should work. Yeah, that was important to Bruce, and therefore, you know, it was super compelling to him. The idea of having Clarence on the cover with him, again, it's like, this is our community. This is the world we live in. We're black, we're white, it doesn't matter. We're here for each
Dave Anthony 50:33
other. Peter, you gave a sense for how this album was received. Even that was interesting, there was different reactions, obviously, from different geographies, different, you know, different critics. Can you kind of summarize what your view of that was like? What What kind of what did you think of those reviews and how it was received?
Peter Ames Carlin 50:56
Well, the first, I mean, it was one of these things where he had already been at critics, Garland and some of the, you know, a lot of those early reviews were written by, like the most those, those early raves were written by the likes of, you know, not just John Landau, but also grill, Marcus, Lester Bangs. I mean, you're serious, you know, Dave Marsh, like the kind of serious, like quasi literary rock critics were very quick to realize that Bruce Springsteen was the real thing. And from the first album on, yeah, I can't remember if it was grill Marcus, who said this pays off on every bet ever laid down on Bruce Springsteen, like, this is a perfect album. This is exactly the album that he's had, you know that he that, you know that he's been growing into making and it's brilliant. And so there's this huge wave of acclaim. But every wave has an undertow, right, has a riptile. And so when that wave hits the beach, then suddenly you have this whole other bunch of critics and people who are suspicious of the of the kind of, you know, the kind of of, what you know, when there's this huge chorus of acclaimed critics, there is this sort of group think that develops, and so then it's very easy to feel skeptical and go, Well, this is just a bunch of bullshit. This is just all the big shots deciding that this one guy is baby, you know, is, is the best thing since sliced bread. But maybe he isn't. Maybe this music doesn't speak to me. Maybe it shouldn't speak to people, you know. Maybe, maybe this is, you know, this is, it's also subjective, you know. And so when you take against something, you can find 100 reasons why, it doesn't you know why you don't like it. And so there was this, this backlash that began like on slightly more quietly, and you know, or within a month or so the release of the album. But then as the hype got more and more and more pronounced. And then there was this extraordinary moment where he was on the cover of both Time and Newsweek magazines. Then, you know, between them, the absolutely dominant major media, you know, news magazines in the country, the same week, you know, then it was like, Oh, the fix is in this is bullshit, you know. And so then there was even more of a backlash. But the Newsweek cover was kind of a backlashy thing to start out with, because, you know, their whole premise in that big piece was essentially that Bruce was being, you know, if not entirely manufactured, he was definitely being blown up and blown out of proportion by the industry and by Columbia and all the money they were putting into publicity and hype and what they were turning this poor, innocent, you know, deep, arguably, you know, naive kid from New Jersey into Yeah.
Dave Anthony 54:04
I mean, you and I lived in that period of time. We were younger than Bruce. But can you give younger members of our audience a sense of what it meant to be on the cover of two major magazines in the same week?
Peter Ames Carlin 54:16
It was in the days before the internet, in the days before, you know, a million different news outlets there were like, you could count them on one hand, and in terms of and news, weeklies were a hugely significant source of news and information and opinion. And so being in those magazines meant that you were on the big stage, and if you were on the cover of those magazines, chances are you were a world leader of some sort, or immensely, or had just killed a world leader. Or were you know, you were making the news, yeah, you had transcended from being a part of the news. To being at the absolute apex of it, and they put, there was not a lot of arts on the cover of those magazines, and there was even less popular music on there. Yeah. And so Bruce appearing, I mean, to appear on the cover of one magazine would be, was huge to appear on both magazines in the same year. Was incredible. Huge to appear on the covers of both magazines in the same week after your, you know, when you're 25 or just having turned 26 and Bruce was, it was like, what is happening, you know, it's, it's like, it was beyond huge. It was like other worldly. It was surreal. And it was, you know, and it freaked Bruce the hell out, you know, not just being elevated that high, beyond the point. It's like standing on the cover of Mount Everest. You know, there's very little oxygen up there. They call it the death zone. When you get above 8000 meters, you get you climb that high, you're as as long as you're up there, your body is dying because there's not enough oxygen to support it. And I think if you get that, I think there's a similar thing that happens when you it's, you know, reach an elevation in the cultural dialog. You know, in the media, you're, you know, you're suddenly the oxygen drains out from around you, and it's like, how am I going to survive up here? So I think that was terrifying to him, and the fact that the magazines, the covers of the magazines, and the attitudes and the stories illustrated both poles of his internal dichotomy. You know, on the one hand, Time Magazine's proclaiming him Rock's new sensation, like this, is it? It's the big deal. And Newsweek is saying the making of a rock star, emphasis on the making of which is to say that maybe it has nothing to do with this kid. Maybe he's just like the handsome dope that they plug in there and, you know, point him up on the stage and wind him up and let him go. So those that you know, it was like going from having these voices murmuring in the back of his head to having them being blasted on the major, you know, the most major media for everyone to see was excruciating for
Dave Anthony 57:31
him. How did the commercial, critical success of the album change him from a personality perspective, business
Peter Ames Carlin 57:39
perspective, how did it change him? In some ways, it changed everything, and in some ways it changed absolutely nothing. I mean, one thing that happened that sort of changed it for the worse was the fact that there was this sort of incipient conflict with Mike CAPELL over those contracts. And one of the things that John Landau did for him was to say, Listen, you need to have someone look at those contracts, because their deal, you know, the management and publishing, all the all the contracts that we signed were coming up for with Mike were coming up for renewal in 1976 and so he needed to take a hard look at those and figure out, like, do I want to continue in these, with these arrangements? And I think what eventually happened, or not, so eventually, fairly quickly, was they, you know, there was a huge conflict between Mike and Bruce, which was terribly heartbreaking and destabilizing for both of them, and definitely for Bruce, the moment he made a big suddenly he's having, you know, having, you know, involved in a lawsuit against the guy who was like a father figure and an older brother figure and his partner, and who he who had sacrificed for him, and you know, who he loved and who loved him. But they ended up having this, this struggle over the contracts and and Bruce, you know, got, you know, John helped him find attorneys, and it just got very, very ugly. And so what ended up happening, you know, they had this multiple year, two year long struggle that eventually was settled and resolved, but it was. It kept Bruce out of the studio. It kept the money locked up, so all the royalties that he should have received for Born to Run, he didn't see for several years, and so the band was even poorer than before, and all they could do was was go out and play. And sometimes Mike, Hell's lawyers would catch up and attach the income that he was making. They wouldn't allow him to record without Mike in the studio, which was part of the con, the original deal that they you know, it was really a mess. And so again, when he set out two years later. It actually got the chance to go back to the studio and make start working on the follow up to board, to run his back was against the wall again. And the struggle it was every you know, in some way it was harder for maybe different reasons. But it was again, this feeling of like, This is it? It's do or die. This could be the end of it. So and he lived with that, and he continued facing his, you know, the same kind of psychological turmoil that that both you know, that both you know, that created his, his his his muse and his drive, but also undermine them to some degree. So it was a very, you know, I mean, so he continued to be Bruce, and which is, in some, you know, under some circumstances, a very, very magical and joyous thing to be. And sometimes it's dark and scary and not fun at all. And, you know, but that persists to this day, you know? I mean, I think he's a little better. I think he's a little more comfortable in his own skin as an older person who's been very successful for a very long time and knows himself and has had therapy for 45 years, you know, bless him, so he's very well acquainted with his internal geography, but he also is well acquainted enough to know there are certain things that maybe never get resolved, and then the challenge is living with them.
Dave Anthony 1:01:33
We're near the end. Peter, I'm gonna ask you, do you have any favorite tracks on the WARN to run album? Is there anything that you still get up and put on and go, Man, that thing is killer.
Peter Ames Carlin 1:01:46
Every song on that record is pretty killer. I mean, on any given day, any of those songs will push me back against the wall. I love those songs. You know, there are certain songs that you hear all the time, and some that you hear slightly less often than others, and one of my favorite dark horses on that album is the song night, which is kind of a variation on the themes in in Born to Run in the title track, but has some really, I love the music is really compelling to me. It's, it's very, you know, it's, it's complex. It modulates from key to key. It makes a lot of unexpected changes, but it just goes, it's just like a, you know, vomit, vomit, you know, I mean, it just boom, boom, boom. And it's a really exciting song. The performances are fantastic and, and there's that no who describes this guy driving, you know, like on a, you know, in his speedster, you know, in his his car, just like going out at night and find, you know, finding excitement and adventure and looking for this beautiful girl that he knows is out there.
Peter Ames Carlin 1:03:00
And that's how he is, that's that's his expression of himself. And it talks about him peeling out from the stoplight.
Peter Ames Carlin 1:03:17
And there's a moment when the narrator steps back, and it becomes this kind of you see it from outside, and he sings, describes this guy, and he says, and you're in love With all the wonder it brings.
Peter Ames Carlin 1:03:42
And I love that line, and I love the way the narration becomes omniscient suddenly, in this way. So it's there's something very I just it's complicated and interesting and a killer track.
Dave Anthony 1:03:57
Today we've been talking to Peter Ames Carlin, the author of tonight in jungle land, the making of Born to Run. The book, is quite a picture of, as Peter has said, A man with his back against the wall, and it takes the different points and viewpoints of his manager, his producer, band members, and how the studio engineers and how they were feeling through this process of making this incredible album. And I would urge everyone who wants the inside track of how this thing was made and what the circumstances were that this would be an excellent read. Peter, thanks for joining us today. It's been a pleasure,
Unknown Speaker 1:04:37
my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Dave Anthony 1:04:42
You some closing notes on the Born to Run album. One of the young engineers on the album was someone who would go on to become a major producer with the likes of Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks, and that was Jimmy Iovine, who, as a 22 year old engineer, was just starting out, but played a key. Role in the making of Born to Run. Iovine has also worked with a diverse set of performers, including John Lennon, you two and Eminem. Iovine would also go on to create the company beats, the headphones company he started with Dr Dre they sold it to Apple for a whopping $3 billion on the final recording day, Springsteen had saxophonist Clarence Clemens do 16 hours of takes on the sax solo on the song jungle land, playing and replaying every note of the two and a half minute solo to satisfy Springsteen's exacting standards. This dedication resulted in one of the most memorable saxophone solos in rock history,
Dave Anthony 1:05:48
not only was Bruce's back against the wall, but just to add to the stress, there was numerous changes in personnel through the Born to Run recording process. A drummer named Ernest boom Carter played on the title track, Born to Run, but does not appear on the rest of the album. He and keyboard player David sanctions left the band to form a jazz fusion group, forcing Bruce to recruit replacements, drummer Max Weinberg and pianist Roy bitten, who would become longtime members of the E Street Band. We also discussed the ho hum reception of Columbia Records to the Born to Run single. However, Bruce's manager, Mike CAPELL had a hunch that this was a transformative song and sent it unauthorized to several friendly DJs at key radio stations. The song became an underground hit well before the album was released, and not surprisingly, Columbia Records, despite their lukewarm reception, quickly jumped on the bandwagon saying they too loved the song and would be willing to support the making of the rest of the album, the direction Bruce Springsteen's music would take on. Born run is clear from the opening notes of Thunder Road with the cinematic piano and harmonica that opens the song. I
Dave Anthony 1:07:06
The inspiration for the final title came from a 1958 Robert Mitchum film about Appalachian bootleggers called Thunder Road, as Bruce later admitted in 1978 though I never saw the movie, I only saw the poster in the lobby of the theater. The track 10th Avenue freeze out also highlights the influence of another key figure in Bruce's career. During the recording, Bruce's guitarist friend Steven Van Zandt dropped by the studio and noticed that the horn charts written for the song weren't quite cutting it. Van Zandt suggested a groove inspired by the stack soul records he loved, and it instantly transformed the song. His input was so significant that Bruce invited him to join the E Street Band, helping shape the sound that would define their live performances for years to come, despite everyone involved in the recording Born to Run telling him it was a hit, Bruce was so disappointed in the final version of Born to Run that he threw the acetate copy of the album into a hotel swimming pool. His saxophonist Clarence Clemens was so mad that Springsteen's reaction that he angrily left, would not speak to Bruce for days. Bruce, notoriously hard on himself, would be proven wrong, because the album went on to become a landmark album in the history of music. Thanks for making garage the stadiums one of the top 5% of podcasts in the world. We'd love for you to follow our shows on your favorite podcast platform so you can be alerted when our next episode drops. Follow us for some great music history content posted on our social channels, Instagram X Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. Our YouTube channel has additional bonus coverage from our interviews. Visit us at garage to stadiums for more bonus content on all the bands featured and links to great downloadable playlists on Apple and Spotify, thanks to our special returning guest, Peter Williams Carlin, author of The New York Times bestseller tonight in jungle land, the making of Born to Run thanks to our producers, Amina faubear and Connor Sampson, our program director Scott Campbell, Creative Director Chad Raymond and video director Nigel Campbell, you've been listening to garage to stadiums. I'm Dave Anthony. See you next time for another garage to stadium. Story,
Unknown Speaker 1:09:26
another blast furnace labs, production pods.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai