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andyjansbrown

Born to Run Bruce Springsteen

"The screen door slams


Mary's dress sways


Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays


Roy Orbison singing for the lonely


Hey that's me and I want you only


Don't turn me home again I just can't stand to face myself alone again


Don't run back inside darling you know just what I'm here for


So you're scared and you're thinking that maybe we ain't that young anymore


Show a little faith there's magic in the night


You ain't a beauty but hey you're alright 


And that's alright with me


You can hide neath your covers and study your pain


Make crosses to your lovers


Throw roses in the rain


Waste your summer praying in vain for a saviour to rise from these streets


Well I ain't no hero that's understood


All the redemption I can offer girl is beneath this dirty hood


with a chance to make it good somehow


Baby what else can we do now except roll down the windows and let the wind blow back your hair


well this night's busting open and these two lanes can lead us anywhere


We got one last chance to make it real


and trade in these wings on some wheels


Climb in back Heaven is waiting down on the tracks


Oh come take my hand


We're riding out tonight to case the promised land


Oh Oh Oh Oh Thunder Road Oh Thunder Road Oh Thunder Road"


There are certain songs that are just so bloody good you know every word to them.


It's like those specific words and no others were meant for the melody. It's absolute magic when it happens. They're my favourite songs and obviously the favourites of many others too, that's why at concerts you can see and hear an entire audience singing along. It is amazing feeling. Few artists write such songs. Bruce Springsteen writes whole albums worth.


I have to thank my Mum for introducing to 'The Boss'. She was a single Mum raising two boys in suburban Melbourne with longings of her own. She was a good looking lady and many wolves came huffing and puffing at our front door. 


We laughed and cried so many times together. She was so full of life and all its colour. 


The first album Mum brought home in 1980 of Bruce's, was 'The River' - oh my god what an album. Mum loved the song 'Hungry Heart' - we'd sing along to that in the car, we knew all the words off by heart, and all the words to 'The River' too, that one always brought me to tears. "You're an old soul" Mum's friends would say to me as I sat there quietly listening in to their colourful stories of heartbreak and betrayal.


The very first concert I ever attended was 'Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band' - Paul Kisvarda and I stayed out at The Royal Melbourne Showgrounds overnight so as we could run through the gates as soon as they opened them and get a spot right up the front.


It was electric. The songs, the feeling, the camaraderie between the band members and Bruce, the audience, the magic in the air, the smiles, the tears rolling down everyone's faces as the songs spoke deeply to our hearts and to our longings. 


I knew that night that more than anything, I wanted to be a songwriter, I wanted words to flow through me and sing their songs of longing. I wanted to disappear into the quantum soup of the collective unconscious and harmonise with her secrets. 


Bruce spoke for my heart and I wanted to follow in those footsteps.


The E street band were tight and came across as a band of brothers. It was a communion of the truest kind. We all met inside those songs and shared the beauty, the sorrow, the heartbreak, the longing and all it's meaning together. We cried and we smiled together. We danced and sang together and it was beautiful and it was life profoundly expressed.


By the time I saw that 'Born in the USA' tour I knew all of Bruce's back catalogue, but to this day, the album that thrills me most is this one from 1975. 'Born to Run'.


It's a concept album looking at the hopes and disillusionments of 'The American Dream'. It open's with 'Thunder Road' - still my favourite track on the album. It sets the scene for the entire album. 


It's brought tears to my eyes on many occasions. I love the piano line, Bruce's voice. Clarence Clemons on Saxophone, the passion in the drum tracks....


I was very lucky a couple of years back to be taken along by Lisa Huntto see them all again sans CC, who sadly passed away a few years back. It was amazing. They played for over four hours, Bruce took requests from the audience. It was everything you could possibly want from a gig. 


His book too is awesome as to be expected, authentic to the core, poetic and thoughtful. 


Here they are : Bruce and the E Street band live with track one from the 'Born to Run' album- 'Thunder Road'.

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