Fifty years later, Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born To Run’ still speaks to young people

Bruce Springsteen’s iconic 1975 album “Born to Run” turned 50 years old this week. But despite its age, its exploration of faith remains relatable to young adults like me. 

The album is appealing to young people for a good reason: Springsteen himself was only in his 20s when he wrote the title track to “Born to Run.” He was also at a major crossroads in his life. 

In a new book, Tonight in Jungleland: The Making of Born to Run, the biographer Peter Ames Carlin describes how the album served as a pivotal juncture for Springsteen. His first two albums were not considered commercially successful, and Columbia Records was threatening to cut him from their roster if he could not produce a new single with more widespread popularity. “Born to Run” was the result of this pressure. 

The album saved Springsteen’s music career and launched him into international stardom. But the album’s creation was characterized by Springsteen’s desperation and frustration as the future of his dream hung in the balance.

“Born to Run” captures the emotional and spiritual instability of young adulthood with ruthless accuracy. As a recent college graduate, I frequently find myself struggling to balance my hopes and my fears. I watch my peers struggle to find fulfillment in jobs and relationships, and I spiral into doubt about my own choices. Even in my most grounded moments, I am impatient for the arrival of less confusing times. 

In the opening track, “Thunder Road,” Springsteen’s protagonist urges a woman named “Mary” to join him as he attempts to escape their “town full of losers.” Like a great hero at the start of his quest, Springsteen begins with optimism and conviction. He implores his hesitant companion to do the same, telling her to “show a little faith, there’s magic in the night.”

Yet the narrator’s own faith gives way to fear as the album progresses. In “Backstreets,” Springsteen makes the collapse of the relationship between his narrator and “Terry” feel like the end of the world. The narrator laments how their efforts to overcome the harsh world by “taking it on them backstreets together” failed. By the end of the song, the narrator is “crying tears of faithlessness,” as he faces the truth—that he and Terry were “just like all the rest,” unable to evade the suffering around them. 

The tension between optimism and cynicism is not specific to young adulthood. But the restlessness of youth is well captured through a song like “Born to Run,” the eponymous first track on Side 2 of the album. The lyrics return to the motif of a “town full of losers” from “Thunder Road,” this time with heightened desperation. Escaping the “death trap” hometown is no longer just an aspirational possibility for the narrator but an existential necessity. 

But as the outside world grows bleaker, Springsteen’s narrator remains determined for him and “Wendy” to “make it good somehow.” He clings to belief in the possibilities of the future while acknowledging the lingering uncertainties, singing, “someday girl, I don’t know when, we’re gonna get to that place where we really want to go, and we’ll walk in the sun…”

The stories of “Born to Run” are meaningful on their surface, but Carlin suggests there is an even more profound symbolism to the album’s arc. He points to a theory first suggested by Jon Landau, a music critic who became close friends with Springsteen during the creation of “Born to Run” (and eventually became his manager). 

Landau interpreted the arc of “Born to Run” as analogous to the story of Jesus. He points to the fact that the album begins with a reference to an invitation for “Mary” to take a leap of faith and then ends with Springsteen’s “howls” in the last moments of “Jungleland.” Landau saw this transformation as representing the life of Jesus, with the emotional release of “Jungleland” serving as the great culmination of this story. “It ends with an allusion, in my opinion, to the crucifixion.” Landau told Carlin, “So birth, life, and death. That’s that album.”

When Springsteen was questioned about Landau’s interpretation, he told Carlin he thought it was “about right.”

Whether or not one accepts the interpretation of “Born to Run” as a retelling of the Gospels, there is no denying the spiritual questions prompted by the album, especially by “Jungleland.” The album’s last track ends with the song’s main character, the “Rat,” facing a tragic end. He is shot down almost immediately after finally winning over the “barefoot girl” he has been pursuing for over seven minutes of song. Hope’s battle against despair seems to have been lost. All that time the “Rat” spent running and where did it get him? What was it for? 

I appreciate that “Jungleland” poses these questions without offering a definitive answer. I like that the album gives voice to the uncertainty of youth without attempting to fully resolve it. If we can understand the album as representative of the Gospels, then we can be comforted in knowing that Springsteen’s “howls” in “Jungleland” are not a bleak end to the story but actually a promise of more to come. 

Much has changed since 1975. But I would guess that young adults half a century from now will continue to relate to this album and find comfort in its honesty and emotional complexity. Some things will always ring true. “Born to Run” is one of them. 

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