He had been a Columbia Recording Artist for almost 14 months, a much-touted “New Dylan” who demonstrated an equivalent skill with wordplay in his debut album, 1973’s Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ. The version of Bruce Springsteen that so enamored Landau in 1974 was a 24-year-old cult favorite opening for Bonnie Raitt at the Harvard Square Theater in Cambridge. They were the past, present, and future all at once. In Springsteen’s world, “maximum lawmen” chase down the Rat through “Jungleland” Eddie contemplates a fatal trip through the tunnel in “Meeting Across the River” and Mary stands on the porch of her house in “Thunder Road”, pondering the boy with the guitar and the car out back who tells her “You ain’t a beauty / But hey you’re alright.” There’s also Wendy listening to the hero of “Born to Run” ask her to “wrap her legs ’round these velvet rims / Strap your hands ‘cross this engine.” Meanwhile, in “Backstreets”, Terry is a woman who will stand by her man, “Trying in vain to breathe / The fire we was born in.” They all live in the same steamy, eternal summer New Jersey/New York night. Its eight songs are packed dangerously with drama, anguish, and moody young people seeking a way out of their dead-end hometowns (all the while dealing with the drama of the rambling life).

A little over 15 months after music critic Jon Landau declared, “I have seen the future of rock and roll and his name is Bruce Springsteen“, the promise and burden contained in that declaration were manifested in the release of 1975’s Born to Run.

Springsteen born to run album