Book Review: Born to Run

The beauty of Born to Run isn’t that it’s a biography of Bruce Springsteen, the beauty is that it’s written by Bruce himself. His spirit, his style, his nuances and his voice: the same things that draw us so tightly to his music, that make us cling so strongly to his words and sing them so loudly when no one’s watching (or in my case, listening!) and that serve as the links that allow us to see ourselves in verse after verse of his songs, are what ultimately make this book so great.

A lot of us have read about Bruce endlessly since that historic week in October 1975 so reading about him now is nothing new, but in Born to Runwe’re not reading about him. Born to Run is much more personal than that. Through the words of these pages we’re listening to him talk to us. ReadingBorn to Run is like sitting at a restaurant across the table from Bruce while he talks to only us about everything in his life and his career and we sit there eating apple pie with a goofy schoolboy grin on our face because, hey, we’re sitting at a table across from Bruce Springsteen with no one else in the world around and tell me, what fan hasn’t had that fantasy. This book allowed me to feel close to Bruce in a way that nothing, short of being allowed to climb up onstage and shout out “1, 2, 3, 4” in the middle of Born to Run, ever will.

Love him or hate him, there’s no denying that Bruce Springsteen is a legend. If you don’t like his songs then you might not care to read about his life, but if you have even the slightest passing interest in the man, or wondered what all the fuss has been for the last 40+ years, then this is the autobiography you’ve been waiting for. I thought the beginning was a little slow but then I usually think that about the early life accounts in nearly every autobiography I read, but the last 2/3’s of the book are everything you could hope for. Reading Born to Run is every bit as joyous as seeing the man perform live or listening to him on record and it satisfies completely.