Born to Run

by Bruce Springsteen

with a little help, timely mentoring and the right amount of work, you might be exceptional.

the beautiful obsession of sharing, with someone who was as single-minded and crazy as you were, a passion you simply could not get enough of—these were things you could not fully explain to outsiders . . .

I would spend my life on the road logging hundreds of thousands of miles and my story was always the same . . . man comes to town, detonates; man leaves town and drives off into the evening; fade to black. Just the way I like it.

Back east we usually experience the freedom that comes with a good snowstorm. No work, no school, the world shutting its big mouth for a while, the dirty streets covered over in virgin white, like all the missteps you’ve taken have been erased by nature. You can’t run; you can only sit. You open your door on a trackless world, your old path, your history, momentarily covered over by a landscape of forgiveness, a place where something new might happen. It’s an illusion but it can stimulate the regenerative parts of your spirit to make good on God and nature’s suggestion.

It was a little upstairs apartment, just two rooms. The bedroom held Danny’s king-size waterbed, which took up all available space. Then there was a small kitchenette and connected living room, where I took up residence on the floor in my sleeping bag. This is where I lived while I recorded Greetings from Asbury Park.

“Like a Rolling Stone” gave me the faith that a true, unaltered, uncompromised vision could be broadcast to millions, changing minds, enlivening spirits, bringing red blood to the anemic American pop landscape and delivering a warning, a challenge that could become an essential part of the American conversation.

Wherever it came from it held the essential ingredients of a hit record, familiarity and newness, inspiring in the listener surprise and recognition. A smash feels like it was always there and as if you’ve never heard anything like it before.

“Together, Wendy, we can live with the sadness, I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul . . . ,” because that’s what it’ll take.

Aging is scary but fascinating, and great talent morphs in strange and often enlightening ways.

We also had that instant chemical connection that says, “I know you.”