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Si sa, nel vasto mondo della musica, ci sono gruppi o cantanti solisti che, cominciata la loro carriera, non ottengono immediatamente il successo planetario. Nonostante diversi artisti creino degli album d'esordio definibili capolavori, all'inizio non sono accolti con il dovuto calore. Questo è successo anche al giovane Bruce Springsteen, che nei '70 non ottenne molto successo con i primi due album. I suoi due lavori discografici erano stati accolti con freddezza e il Boss a quei tempi si limitava a suonare nei locali e nei bar, in giro per gli USA. A lui serviva un disco che lo consacrasse a livello continentale, un album con cui sfondare nel mondo del rock n'roll. "Volevo fare un disco che avesse le parole di Bob Dylan e la musica di Phil Spector. Quello che desideravo maggiormente, però, era cantare come Roy Orbison" dichiarerà Bruce Springsteen. Il disco in questione prende il nome di Born to run e viene pubblicato il 25 agosto del 1975, dopo mesi di duro lavoro in studio con la E street band nella quale figura il sassofonista Clarence Clemons. Quest'album è puro rock n'roll, genuino.
Esso si apre con Thunder road, un pezzo che ti cattura fin dalle prime note. Si può cogliere la sublimità del pianoforte accompagnato dall'armonica e il canto del Boss ti investe con il suo calore, ma anche con la sua malinconia. Come gli altri brani dell'album, Thunder road ha come tema principale il sogno Americano e nel testo viene raccontata una delle classiche storie in cui Bruce ci mostra un ragazzo che, in un'America piena di problemi, promette un mondo migliore, una vita migliore alla sua ragazza, nonostante sappia che molte promesse non saranno mantenute. Thunder road è un inno alla fuga, alla fuga intesa come modo per vincere, per raggiungere la felicità. La canzone che segue, Tenth avenue freeze out è un bel pezzo dalle sonorità jazz, con l'onnipresente pianoforte dalle note dolci che viene sovrastato dal sassofono di Clarence Clemons. Max Weimberg, membro della E street band, tiene il ritmo alla batteria. Night, terza in scaletta, è una canzone da tre minuti, molto orecchiabile, dalla bella andatura, sano e genuino rock n'roll, che da il posto a Backstreets, struggente lavoro di pianoforte e organo, suonati entrambi da Roy Bittan, in un introduzione struggente che prepara Bruce alla voce.
Il lato B dell'album inizia con un pezzo da novanta del Boss, il pezzo che meglio descrive l'artista, il pezzo forte dell'intero album, una meraviglia per antonomasia: la title track, Born to run, pezzo rock n'roll dall'introduzione memorabile e dal testo significativo, in cui si parla prevedibilmente del sogno americano. Siamo nati per correre, siamo solo dei vagabondi in attesa di un mondo migliore, di una terra promessa dove camminare al sole, la terra dove tutto è ok e in cui si sta bene. She's the one, secondo brano del lato B, è dominato dal clavicembalo che accompagna per tutta la canzone il canto di Bruce. Alla fine della canzone Clemons parte con uno dei suoi meravigliosi assoli al sassofono. She's the one cede il posto a Meeting across the river, meraviglioso pezzo struggente in cui la voce di Bruce non potrebbe essere migliore e il pianoforte commuove l'ascoltatore. A chiudere l'album c'è un brano di considerevole lunghezza: negli standard del rock n'roll una canzone non dovrebbe superare i 5-6 minuti, ma ci sono le eccezioni, come questo pezzo. Jungleland è molto evocativa come canzone: nel testo si parla di scontri tra bande, di una storia d'amore e di una notte vissuta intensamente. L'album si chiude con questo pezzo da novanta, in cui numerosi sono i cambi di tempo e i diversi assoli.
Un album meraviglioso, un album sublime, un album senza esclusione di colpi, puro rock n'roll pieno di carisma, da una parte, e dolcezza, dall'altra. Una delle perle dei '70, un album essenziale.
"Ho visto il futuro del rock n'roll, si chiama Bruce Springsteen" disse il giornalista Jon Landau, dopo aver assistito a un concerto del Boss ai tempi. E con questa frase chiudo questa recensione che spero vi piaccerà.
Elenco tracce testi samples e video
01 Thunder Road (04:50)
The screen door slams
Mary's dress waves
Like a vision she dances across the porch
As the radio plays
Roy Orbison singing for the lonely
Hey that's me and I want you only
Don't turn me home again
I just can't face myself alone again
Don't run back inside
Darling you know just what I'm here for
So you're scared and you're thinking
That maybe we ain't that young anymore
Show a little faith, there's magic in the night
You ain't a beauty but, hey, you're alright
Oh and that's alright with me
You can hide `neath your covers
And study your pain
Make crosses from your lovers
Throw roses in the rain
Waste your summer praying in vain
For a savior to rise from these streets
Well, now I'm no hero
That's understood
All the redemption I can offer, girl
Is beneath this dirty hood
With a chance to make it good somehow
Hey what else can we do now?
Except roll down the window
And let the wind blow
Back your hair
Well the night's busting open
These two lanes will take us anywhere
We got one last chance to make it real
To trade in these wings on some wheels
Climb in back
Heaven's waiting down on the tracks
Oh-oh come take my hand
Riding out tonight to case the promised land
Oh-oh-oh Thunder Road, oh Thunder Road, oh Thunder Road
Lying out there like a killer in the sun
Hey, I know it's late, we can make it if we run
Oh-oh-oh-oh Thunder Road, sit tight, take hold
Thunder Road
Well I got this guitar
And I've learned how to make it talk
And my car's out back
If you're ready to take that long walk
From your front porch to my front seat
The door's open but the ride it ain't free
And I know you're lonely
For words that I ain't spoken
But tonight we'll be free
All the promises'll be broken
There were ghosts in the eyes
Of all the boys you sent away
They haunt this dusty beach road
In the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets
They scream your name at night in the street
Your graduation gown lies in rags at their feet
And in the lonely cool before dawn
You hear their engines roaring on
But when you get to the porch they're gone
On the wind, so Mary climb in
It's a town full of losers
And I'm pulling out of here to win
02 Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out (03:12)
Tear drops on the city
Bad Scooter searching for his groove
Seem like the whole world walking pretty
And you can't find the room to move
Well, everybody better move over, that's all
'Cause I'm running on the bad side
And I got my back to the wall
Tenth Avenue freeze-out, Tenth Avenue freeze-out
Well, I was stranded in the jungle
Trying to take in all the heat they was giving
The night is dark but the sidewalk's bright
And lined with the light of the living
From a tenement window a transistor blasts
Turn around the corner things got real quiet real fast
I walked into a Tenth Avenue freeze-out
Tenth Avenue freeze-out
And I'm all alone, I'm all alone
And kid you better get the picture
And I'm on my own, I'm on my own
And I can't go home
When the change was made uptown
And the Big Man joined the band
From the coastline to the city
All the little pretties raise their hands
I'm gonna sit back right easy and laugh
When Scooter and the Big Man bust this city in half
With a Tenth Avenue freeze-out, Tenth Avenue freeze-out
Tenth Avenue freeze-out...
04 Backstreets (06:31)
One soft infested summer
Me and Terry became friends
Trying in vain to breathe
The fire we was born in
Catching rides to the outskirts
Tyin' faith between our teeth
Sleeping in that old abandoned beach house
Getting wasted in the heat
And hiding on the backstreets
Hiding on the backstreets
With a love so hard and filled with defeat
Running for our lives at night on them backstreets
Slow dancing in the dark
On the beach at Stockton's Wing
Where desperate lovers park
We sat with the last of the Duke Street Kings
Huddled in our cars
Waithing for the bells that ring
In the deep heart of the night
They set us loose of everything
To go running on the backstreets
Running on the backstreets
Terry you swore we'd live forever
Taking it on them backstreets together
Endless juke joints and Valentino drag
Where famous dancers scraped the the tears
Up off the streets dressed down in rags
Running into the darkness
Some hurt bad some really dying
At night sometimes it seemed
You could hear that whole damn city crying
Blame it on the lies that killed us
blame it on the truth that ran us down
You can blame it all on me Terry
It don't matter to me now
When the breakdown hit at midnight
There was nothing left to say
But I hated him
And I hated you when you went away
Laying here in the dark
You're like an angel on my chest
Just another tramp of hearts
Cring tears of faithlessness
Remember all the movies, Terry
We'd go see
Tring to learn to walk like the heroes
We thought we had to be
And after all this time
To find we're just like all the rest
Stranded in the park
And forced to confess
To hiding on the backstreets
Hiding on the backstreets
Where we swore forever friends
On the backstreets until the end
Hiding on the backstreets
Hiding on the backstreets...
05 Born to Run (04:30)
In the day we sweat it out on the streets of a runaway American dream
At night we ride through the mansions of glory in suicide machines
Sprung from cages out on highway nine,
Chrome wheeled, fuel injected, and steppin' out over the line
H-Oh, Baby this town rips the bones from your back
It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap
We gotta get out while we're young
`Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run
Yes, girl we were
Wendy let me in I wanna be your friend
I want to guard your dreams and visions
Just wrap your legs 'round these velvet rims
And strap your hands 'cross my engines
Together we could break this trap
We'll run till we drop, baby we'll never go back
H-Oh, Will you walk with me out on the wire
`Cause baby I'm just a scared and lonely rider
But I gotta know how it feels
I want to know if love is wild
Babe I want to know if love is real
Oh, can you show me
Beyond the Palace hemi-powered drones scream down the boulevard
Girls comb their hair in rearview mirrors
And the boys try to look so hard
The amusement park rises bold and stark
Kids are huddled on the beach in a mist
I wanna die with you Wendy on the street tonight
In an everlasting kiss
One, two, three, four
The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive
Everybody's out on the run tonight
But there's no place left to hide
Together Wendy we can live with the sadness
I'll love you with all the madness in my soul
H-Oh, Someday girl I don't know when
We're gonna get to that place
Where we really wanna go
And we'll walk in the sun
But till then tramps like us
Baby we were born to run
Oh honey, tramps like us
Baby we were born to run
Come on with me, tramps like us
Baby we were born to run
06 She's the One (04:31)
With her killer graces and her secret places
That no boy can fill with her hands on her hips
Oh and that smile on her lips
Because she knows that it kills me
With her soft french cream
Standing in that doorway like a dream
I wish she'd just leave me alone
Because french cream won't soften them boots
And french kisses will not break that heart of stone
With her long hair falling
And her eyes that shine like a midnight sun
Oh-o she's the one, she's the one
That Thunder in your heart
At night when you're kneeling in the dark
It says you're never gonna leave her
But there's this angel in her eyes
That tells such desperate lies
And all you want to do is believe her
And tonight you'll try just one more time
To leave it all behind and to break on through
Oh she can take you, but if she wants to break you
She's gonna find out that ain't so easy to do
And no matter where you sleep tonight or how far you run
Oh-o she's the one, she's the one
Oh-o and just one kiss
She'd fill them long summer nights
With her tenderness that secret pact you made
Back when her love could save you from the bitterness
Oh she's the one, oh she's the one
Oh she's the one, oh she's the one
08 Jungleland (09:34)
The Rangers had a homecoming
In Harlem late last night
And the Magic Rat drove his sleek machine
Over the Jersey State line
Barefoot girl sittin' on the hood of a Dodge
Drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain
The Rat pulls into town rolls up his pants
Together they take a stab at romance
And disappear down Flamingo Lane
Well the Maximum Lawmen run down Flamingo
Chasing the Rat and the Barefoot Girl
And the kids round here look just like shadows
Always quiet, holdin' hands
From the churches to the jails
Tonight all is silence in the world
As we take our stand
Down in Jungleland
The midnight gang's assembled
And picked a renedzvous for the night
They'll meet me 'neath that giant Exxon sign
That brings this fair city light
Man there's an opera out on the Turnpike
There's a ballet being fought out in the alley
Until the local cops
Cherry tops
Rips this holy night
The street's alive
As secret debts are paid
Contacts made, they vanish unseen
Kids flash guitars just like switch-blades
Hustlin' for the record machine
The hungry and the hunted
Explode into rock'n'roll bands
That face off against each other out in the street
Down in Jungleland
In the parking lot the visionaries
Dress in the latest rage
Inside the backstreet girls are dancin'
To the records that the DJ plays
Lonely-hearted lovers
Struggle in dark corners
Desperate as the night moves on
Just one look
And a whisper, and they're gone
Beneath the city two hearts beat
Soul engines runnin' through a night so tender
In a bedroom locked
In whispers of soft refusal
And then surrender
In the tunnels uptown
The Rat's own dream guns him down
As shots echo down them hallways in the night
No one watches as the ambulance pulls away
Or as the girl shuts out the bedroom light
Outside the street's on fire
In a real death waltz
Between what's flesh and what's fantasy
And the poets down here
Don't write nothin' at all
They just stand back and let it all be
And in the quick of a knife
They reach for their moment
And try to make an honest stand
But they wind up wounded
And not even dead
Tonight in Jungleland
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Altre recensioni
Di Massimof
La storia del rock è passata per "Born To Run". Ci è passata e si è arricchita.
Un ritornello che rimarrà dentro ogni fan della musica rock.
Di Rover
Canzoni di carne e sangue, poesia quotidiana.
Se una sera vi va di sparire anche voi giù per Flamingo Lane premere play.
Di Luck94
"La grandezza delle canzoni sta soprattutto nel pathos dell'interpretazione."
"Born To Run è una registrazione essenziale per ogni ascoltatore di musica che si rispetti."
