So we knew wherever we were, that’s where we were gonna be. Nobody had any day jobs, and they were ill-prepared for such a thing. We’re going to continue.” And the live shows were getting a great response from the audience and there was no going back to your day job. I said, “Don’t worry fellas - we have no place to go.

And I said I wouldn’t do it, and they basically said, “Well hey, look, it’s going to go in the trash can.” That’s the record business, you know. At the time, there was a great disagreement over The Wild and the Innocent, and I was asked to record the entire album over again with studio musicians. So the atmosphere was very, very combative. It was at My Father’s Place and Mike Appel was at the door taking down their names, writing down who left. I remember everybody coming down to watch some promising young band who was opening for us -and then leaving when we came on. I think when The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle came out it, wasn’t particularly promoted and I always remember going to radio stations where they didn’t know I had a second record out. Nobody had an investment in me, and we were just slipping through the cracks. I was signed with John Hammond and Clive Davis, and then after my first record, Clive Davis was gone and I fell into disfavor for the second record. I talked to Steve Van Zandt today, and he said that there was a real sense that Born to Run could have been it for you as a recording artist. Here’s the full transcript of that conversation. In November 2005, a couple of hours before going onstage for a show on his solo Devils and Dust tour, Springsteen called Rolling Stone to talk about making Born to Run, which was released August 25th, 1975. With 1975’s Born to Run, a 25-year-old Bruce Springsteen felt like his very life was on the line, which is probably why he drove himself - and the E Street Band - to the brink of breakdown over the tortured months of its creation.

Springsteen born to run