Born to Run

xii, 510, [20] pages. Illustrated endpapers. Illustrations (some in color). DJ has crease in rear flap. Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949) is an American rock singer, songwriter and guitarist. Nicknamed "The Boss", he has released 21 studio albums during a career spanning six decades, most of which feature his backing band, the E Street Band. Springsteen is an originator of heartland rock, a genre combining mainstream rock music with poetic and socially conscious lyrics that feature narratives primarily concerning working-class American life. He is known for his descriptive lyrics and energetic concerts, with performances that can last for more than four hours. He has earned numerous awards, including 20 Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes, an Academy Award, and a Special Tony Award. He was inducted into both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999, received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2009, named MusiCares person of the year in 2013, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2016, and awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Joe Biden in 2023. He ranked 23rd on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, which described him as being "the embodiment of rock & roll". Writing about yourself is a funny business.But in a project like this, the writer has made one promise, to show the reader his mind. In these pages, I've tried to do this. --Bruce Springsteen, from the pages of Born to Run. In 2009, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed at the Super Bowl's halftime show. The experience was so exhilarating that Bruce decided to write about it. That's how this extraordinary autobiography began. 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. Born to Run will be revelatory for anyone who has ever enjoyed Bruce Springsteen, but this book is much more than a legendary rock star's memoir. This is a book for workers and dreamers, parents and children, lovers and loners, artists, freaks, or anyone who has ever wanted to be baptized in the holy river of rock and roll. Rarely has a performer told his own story with such force and sweep. Like many of his songs ( Thunder Road, Badlands, Darkness on the Edge of Town, The River, Born in the U.S.A, The Rising, and The Ghost of Tom Joad, to name just a few), Bruce Springsteen's autobiography is written with the lyricism of a singular songwriter and the wisdom of a man who has thought deeply about his experiences. Derived from a Kirkus review: The Boss speaks—and he does so as both journeyman rocker and philosopher king. Wrapping up his long backward look at a storied life and the anthemic songs that punctuate it, Springsteen examines his motivations. "I wanted to understand," he writes of the past, "in order to free myself of its most damaging influences." Readers who stick with the story will be richly rewarded. Springsteen has lived well, even if he expresses a couple of regrets and, in a newsmaking episode, confesses to having suffered a long bout of depression at the age of 60. When Springsteen rebounds, he does so with a joyous vengeance. Ardent students of his music might wish for a touch more depth in his account of his processes as songwriter and perfo.…