That looseness, that light, whether in Badlands or in Presley’s first Sun sessions, was a thing you might get to only once in your career. It happens quickly in an artist’s trajectory that they begin to know too much to know so little again. For his own part, Springsteen had been there as a young record maker, and some part of him was determined to get back there again—no matter that he was five albums into a major career.
