I think it was 1994, maybe '93, and the Times (rock'n'roll!!) supplement was running a weekly countdown of the 100 Greatest Rock Songs of All Time. And I'm pretty sure this was the first such list I'd seen, and it was really nicely put together.
At that point, my knowledge was pretty basic, so there were a few I knew mixed in with a lot I didn't. Van Halen's 'Jump' was a surprising entry (damn, they were right about that, though!) and when it came to the top, 2 was 'Like a Rolling Stone' (which I'd never heard) and 1 was 'Born to Run', which I had.
I think I thought, until that point, it was OK, a bit like 'Runaway Train' by Soul Asylum or something but a bit all over the place. But, instantly, enlightened by context and its placing in posterity, I learned to see it as great, I swallowed whole the grand statements of rock criticism. I've found nothing truer that if someone who I think knows more than me tells me something's good, I'm likely to find the good in it. [Of course, it's equally true that I'm very determined that no one should know more than me].
So, that was 'Born to Run'. It's not my favourite song, it's not now even among my favourite songs, but it was the the start of this particular journey in a way.
There is a greater song on the album, of course. Oh, and, goddammit, another seminal moment in this blog. 'Thunder Road' is one of Nick Hornby's '31 Songs' [31 Songs being the trigger for the second major section of this monstrous splurge], and of all of those that he wrote about (and he writes beautifully about it), it's the one I'd most like to write about myself. But, I couldn't really. That would be cheating.
So, this post gives me the opportunity to write about 'Thunder Road' the Greatest Track 1, Side 1 of ... oh I bore myself.
But what a magical song it is. I had a Springsteen compilation tape made for me shortly after that Times list, and it was 'Thunder Road' more than 'Born to Run' that thrilled me.
It's a beautiful, romantic song, which kind of establishes the Springsteen milieu of escape on the open road, of a better life somewhere else, (with the other major milieu being, I suppose, the struggles of staying in the same small town). It's also maybe the most quotable song in the history of rock'n'roll. How many lines leap out from it?
"Roy Orbison's singing for the lonely, hey that's me and I want you only"
"So you're scared and you're thinking that maybe we ain't that young anymore"
"You ain't a beauty but hey you're alright, and that's alright with me"
"Waste your summers praying in vain for a saviour to rise from these streets"
"Well I got this guitar and I learned how to make it talk
And my cars out back if you're ready to take that long walk from your front porch to my front seat"
"They haunt this dusty beach road in the skeleton frames of burned out chevrolets"
and my favourite closing statement
"Its a town full of losers and I'm pulling out of here to win."
Pretty pointless really, picking out individual lines, the whole song seems to pass in one desperate breath. Wonderful.
I don't necessarily have that much else to say about the album 'Born to Run'. I wouldn't say it quite lives up to 'Thunder Road', but it's a grand, influential album, and it was the first major hit for the ageless wonder of rock'n'roll. Truly Springsteen is the hardest working man in showbusiness. Has he ever stopped?
I don't have much time for any sniffiness directed towards him. He's balanced so many different elements so well throughout his career, he can go big or small with equal skill, America is very lucky to have him.
This would be my Springsteen compilation
Thunder Road
Darkness on the Edge of Town
Highway Patrolman
Born to Run
Better Days
No Surrender
Candy's Room
Badlands
The Wrestler
Blinded by the Light
Waitin' On a Sunny Day
Hungry Heart
For You
Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
Nebraska
The Ghost of Tom Joad
Because the Night
Born in the USA
Pretty good.
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