Born to Run
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4.6 • 94 Ratings
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- £7.99
Publisher Description
THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER
'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, humour and originality found in his songs.
He describes growing up Catholic in Freehold, New Jersey, amid the poetry, danger and darkness that fuelled 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 candour, 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.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
You don’t have to be a true-blue Bruce fan to love this triumphant memoir. The rock icon’s colourful stories of his scrappy youth and freewheeling bar-band days stir up a beautiful nostalgia. But Born to Run is also full of unfiltered revelations about Springsteen’s shortcomings as a son, father, partner and friend, as well as hard-won insights about getting healthy mentally and emotionally. It’s the kind of real talk the world’s come to expect from the man, but that doesn’t make it any less moving or remarkable.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In his long-awaited memoir, Springsteen takes readers on an entertaining, high-octane journey from the streets of New Jersey to all over the world. A natural storyteller, Springsteen commands our attention, regaling us with his tales of growing up poor with a misanthropic father and a mother who had endless faith in people. The Boss delights us with humorous stories of his first guitar which he couldn't get his seven-year-old fingers around and his inspiration to become a musician after seeing Elvis on The Ed Sullivan Show: "I WANTED... I NEEDED... TO ROCK! NOW!" Once he's hooked, he can't give up this insatiable hunger to rock like Chuck Berry, or the Rolling Stones, or the Beatles; soon he's playing in his first band, the Castiles, and eventually with another band, Steel Mill, opening up for Grand Funk Railroad, Ike & Tina Turner, and Iron Butterfly. Springsteen weaves a captivating story, introducing us to the essential people in his life: Patti Scialfa, Clarence Clemons, Steven Van Zandt, and producer/managers Mike Appel and Jon Landau, among many others. He offers absorbing accounts of the making of each album, and he considers Born to Run as the dividing line between musical styles, as well as the mark of the beginning of his success; he also admits that his bands were never democracies and that he makes the decisions. Most insightful, he reveals his ongoing battles with depression "shortly after my sixtieth I slipped into a depression like I hadn't experienced" and his eventual ability to live with this condition. Springsteen writes with the same powerful lyrical quality of his music.
Customer Reviews
Bruce at his best
Riveting book. Loved it..
Loved this book
Bruce has been the soundtrack of my life since born to run, I read this book twice. I love to read his prose. It is beautifully written. I think even readers not totally into his music will enjoy this book. It describes his journey, musically but also psychologically describing his upbringing in NJ and his early musical experiences. All described with a great sense of humour and musical language, as you would expect from such a great songwriters. Bruce has already been great at stories. This one is his life.
The Boss
As lyrical as any song Bruce & The E Street ever wrote or performed. A wonderful memoir of a life well travelled. EPIC. Thanks Boss