As Bruce Springsteen‘s breakthrough album Born to Run turns 50 in August, author and journalist Peter Ames Carlin takes a deep dive into the record in his new book, Tonight in Jungleland: The Making of Born to Run, out Tuesday.
While Born to Run was a critical and commercial success for Springsteen, prior to the record he was coming off two commercial failures — Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. and The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle — and was close to being dropped by his label.
“That was like an existential threat to him because he was so about his work and his career and he was still discovering his voice and his identity,” Carlin tells ABC Audio. He notes that Born to Run turned out to be the album where Springsteen “figured out who he was and what Bruce Springsteen, the performer, was supposed to be.”
Carlin, who also wrote the 2012 biography Bruce, says for Born to Run, Springsteen focused on “simplifying his songs” and “making the lyrics direct and conversational.”
Carlin notes that while making the record Springsteen also had to get to a place “where he could acknowledge and work with his own desire to be successful.”
“I think he was a little leery of that up to that point,” he says.
Carlin got a chance to talk to Springsteen for the book and says The Boss didn’t have a hard time looking back at that period in his career.
“He loves to look back into the past, especially when it’s something that was that transformative of an experience for him,” the author says. “And I think it was also really interesting for him to look back at 50 years later and to remember what it was like to be young and hungry and with so much to prove.”
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