Approaching this album, I started thinking of Springsteen as being a bit like Van Morisson, if Van Morisson sang of the blue collar American in a New Jersey gruff. Both tend towards meandering songs sung with an aversion to consonants, but Springsteen is that bit rockier than Morisson.
The big tracks on here are Born To Run and Thunder Road, both songs about the sentiment of running to freedom from a humdrum existence, something continued throughout the album. This includes an autobiographical song about forming a band (Tenth Avenue Freeze Out), drag racing (Night) and the consequences of hardship such as failing relationships (Backstreets).
The songs are never less than epic, even the ones around the three-minute mark, carried along by Springsteen’s emphatic vocals, the piano of Roy Bittan (David Sancious on Born To Run) and the saxophone of Clarence Clemons, over the big sound of the E-Street Band.
One thing that I did find interesting was that the piano introduction to the 11-minute Jungleland (which manages to sustain interest for that length) is identical to the opening motif from Dire Straits’ Romeo And Juliet. This will be released in 1980, and thinking about how a lot of Dire Straits songs are long wandering epics about escape, I do wonder if Mark Knopfler took inspiration from Springsteen. The other similar tune, closer in time, is 1976’s Rat Trap from the Boomtown Rats – a piano and sax-driven tale of a young man stuck in a violent life on the streets. It feels like a little family of working-man rock-operettas.
I’ve never quite warmed to Springsteen’s music, but this was an enjoyable experience. I appreciate the man all the more for him riling up the orange buffoon.
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