Born To Run by Bruce Springsteen

"Born To Run" music video

In the past 29 posts, I've discussed the meaning in music and I believe that the songs I chose are meaningful because they hold personal meaning to me. We can never truly articulate why a song means what it does but by gaining a deeper understanding of the work like getting to know a great friend, that meaning becomes more powerful. Sometimes, with people in our lives that meaning runs so close to our hearts that it is something that can't be articulated, it is something that can be only felt and that's why those people are so special.

There is one artists, whose music I've not discussed which may come to a surprise to anyone who knows me. If you’re know me well, you know that my favorite rock group is the Beatles, I never get tired of listening to Motown music and the artist that means the most to me, the singer who has not only changed the way I listen to music but also the way I define an artist: Bruce Springsteen.

I’m not going to argue that Springsteen is the greatest artist in popular music or that “Born To Run” is the single most important song in the history of rock. First off, trying to decide the quality of song in comparison to each other may be a fun discussion but is at best only partially an objective discussion. Therefore, any discussion ranking artists and their art is inconclusive. Don’t get me wrong, I use the lists the Rolling Stone makes all the time as way to gauge the general feeling of critics and the trends in our culture but as a ranking it’s a flawed exercise at best.

Being told that a film is great or that a piece of art is historically important does not make a piece of art personally meaningful. Art is not important in our lives because we are told it’s great or because it’s on a list. We hold art close to us because it somehow speaks to us in a way that makes us feel connected to the human race. I would love for everyone to feel that every day and the best way that I can help make music more meaningful to you is to explain why it means so much to me.

The first time I Bruce Springsteen spoke to me was with the song he performed for the film Philadelphia, “Streets of Philadelphia.” I still remember watching this music video for the first time when I was 11 years old and simply being astounding at how sad and hopeless the song sounded. I bought the soundtrack album to Philadelphia and I thought it was a great song and I didn’t think that Springsteen had much more to him beyond the somber image of him walking through the streets in the music video.

A couple years later Springsteen did another song for a film, and this time it was “Secret Garden” for the Cameron Crowe’s Jerry Maguire. This song had some lighter colors to it and it was included in CD of Springsteen’s hits so I picked that up and skipped right to that song and that was about as deep as I delved into his catalogue until I got to college five years later.

Then there was the concert. Shaun, a friend of mine, invited me to go to a Springsteen concert with him, and I agreed to go. When the day came around I almost backed out because I wasn’t really excited about the idea of going to a baseball stadium to listen to a Rock concert. I had never been to a Rock concert. My whole my parents took my brother and I to classical music concerts all the time when I was growing up which I loved and somehow the idea of a Rock concert seemed below me.

I studied classical music all my life, violin from age 6, piano from age 8 and by 10 years old I was actively composing classical music. I enjoyed popular music but it didn’t seem to mean as much or be as deep as classical music. I had seen the greats artist like Yo-Yo Ma and Itzak Perlman and I felt seen the pinnacle of musicianship and experienced all that music had to offer. I could not have been more wrong.

There is no feeling like the ecstasy of being in a crowd with tens of thousands of people singing along with a band on stage. Feeling that many people with that much positive energy focused on a band singing together, and sharing a musical experience is something that changes you. When I saw Bruce that warm summer night, I saw a band on stage work harder for the crowd than any other musician I had seen or have seen sense. It was not the audience having the privilege to witness a great artist at work. It was a musician understanding that people paid their hard-earned cash to see them and the musicians working as hard as they could to give the people the experience of a lifetime. After Bruce Springsteen and the E Street played for three hours and forty minutes, it all started to mean something important and very personal.

We hear about artist selling a million copies of their album and it almost doesn’t seem like a big deal anymore, but when you’re in a stadium full of people who are all passionate about the same music, you realize how amazing that a small group of people have touched so many people’s lives. During the concert people sang along to songs and Rocked out throughout the concert but when the beginning to “Born To Run” started the crowd went crazy and you could a rush of energy flow through the crowd and I couldn’t help but be caught up in the enthusiasm.

What is it about “Born To Run?” This song speaks to the hope we all have as we work through the struggles in our lives. It elevates Rock music in the way it expresses emotions that we share in a raw and revealing way. “Born To Run” is symphonic and epic in it’s form but there is no sense of pretension. As much as this song was crafted in the studio, there is a sense of that raw energy that you can only get in a live performance. Each instruments has strength and a sense of convection expressing of what is real and right about our feelings and the way we love the people around us.

When I listen “Born To Run” it is almost too much to handle. I think of when I saw Springsteen live. I’m reminded of the comfort that I get when I’m with my friends knowing that I don’t have to hide anything. I experience the hope of knowing that as hard as life is that I can overcome anything. I see the love in my wife’s eyes, but most of all I feel alive.