Are You Loose?

The first time I heard "Born to Run," it was on the crappy radio in my 1994 Ford Tempo. It was probably on WCKG, Chicago’s big “classic rock” station at the time. It was not what I would characterize as a high fidelity system, but it was perhaps the perfect way to hear "Born to Run": Crappy car speakers, traffic whizzing by outside the windows, sound lathered in a fine layer of static.

“Born to Run” is a car song, and it’s an escape song. It’s desperate, but with a profound conviction. It’s maybe the most powerful story Bruce Springsteen has ever told. I heard it, and it was all over for me.

Springsteen’s music is not a touchstone for a time or a place in my life; somehow it’s all times and all places. It travels with me. I think about Bruce singing “Born to Run” for the ten thousandth time, in his -seventies, and I know it travels with him too. He finds something within it, every time he sings it; I find something within it, every time I hear it.

A song like “Born to Run” is both a universal and intensely personal thing. It belongs to all of us; it belongs to me. And what “Born to Run” is for me will always be different than what ''Born to Run' is for you. I'm not just talking about what the lyrics mean or what it reminds you of; I'm talking about the actual sounds and how our ears and brains perceive them. It's like the idea that my "green" may be totally different from your "green" because our eyeballs are not identical organs.

Roses in the Rain is a newsletter where I want to share as much as I can about what Springsteen’s music means to me. I hope it will capture some of what it means to you, too.