(Credits: Wise Owl Films)
Sat 1 November 2025 19:00, UK
To me, the essence of Bruce Springsteen‘s songwriting brilliance is his familiarity.
Slightly different to the subjects of his rivalling musical greats, Springsteen’s appeal isn’t rooted in being a virtuoso musician. It’s rooted in his heartfelt songwriting that seems woven into the fabric of modern society. It’s what has made his story, which is hyper-specified to New Jersey in some of his music and most definitely in his upcoming biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere, feel inherently universal.
It’s showcased best on his 1975 record Born To Run, which boasts a title track that any budding songwriter would dream of owning. An epic yet tender melody plays host to a sentimental tale of the human condition and its desire for more, making it an anthem ready-made for mass sing-alongs. It is Bruce Springsteen’s style distilled into one succinct record, and so has become somewhat of a unanimous fan favourite.
So it’s fitting then that Springsteen, the perennial man of the people, shares that sentiment. Because when he was recently asked to label his favourite Springsteen song of all time, he simply answered, “I’ll have to go with the fans, I guess.”
‘Born To Run’, like many other great songs in history, was made with relative simplicity. It was a song that lived inside the walls of Springsteen’s guitar and just needed him to draw it out. Once again, it was that ever-present sense of familiarity that exists in Springsteen’s work, that in this case, came to him in a time of creative need.
“One day I was playing my guitar on the edge of the bed, working on some song ideas, and the words ‘born to run’ came to me,” he recalled. “At first, I thought it was the name of a movie or something I’d seen on a car spinning around the circuit. I liked the phrase because it suggested a cinematic drama that I thought would work with the music that I’d been hearing in my head.”
Perhaps another reason why Springsteen is compelled to go with those fans in this instance is because of how they have helped him change the narrative of the song. In their chorus of sing-alongs, its true meaning has unveiled itself to him, proving that behind the innocent desire for more was something purely goddamn existential.
Explaining, “When I think back, it surprises me how much I knew about what I wanted, because the questions I ask myself in this song, it seems I’ve been trying to find the answers to them ever since. When I wrote this song, I was writing about a guy and a girl that wanted to run and keep on running, never come back.”
He continued, “I realised in the end that individual freedom, when it’s not connected to some sort of community, can be pretty meaningless. So, I guess that guy and that girl out there were looking for connection, and I guess that’s what I’m doing here.”
In 2025, when those existential questions of belonging feel even more pertinent, the chorus of ‘Born To Run’ is sung perhaps louder than it ever has been. The song has gracefully aged with time because it was built around a relatively simple yet heartfelt metaphor, whose meaning changes with damn-near every new chapter of life. And therein lies the genius of Springsteen.
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