'Born to Run' captured Springsteen's passion

The Boss said his obsessive-compulsive nature came in handy for that album.
NEW YORK (AP) -- In the summer of 1975, Bruce Springsteen was nobody's Boss.
His nascent career was crumbling, just another over-hyped "new Dylan" about to get dumped by his label. Two of his band members had recently quit. The bearded bard of the boardwalk was wrestling with his third (and last?) album, obsessively rewriting the lyrics and rearranging the music, spending an outrageous six months on a single song.
Yet Springsteen remained sustained by a lonely but ambitious vision, convinced he could re-create the little symphonies echoing through his head for an audience of millions around the world.
He was right.
"Born to Run" was released in August 1975, a rock 'n' roll masterpiece that assumed near-mythic proportion. Thirty years later, as a special anniversary edition of the album was readied for release come Tuesday, Springsteen recalled how making the record consumed his young life.
Slavish devotion
"Everything I knew and dreamed about was packed into those songs," Springsteen told The Associated Press. "I had the desire to be great, to do something passionate, to capture something about living that I was yearning for myself.
"I wanted the whole thing."
He got it, from the opening notes of "Thunder Road" to the album-closing epic "Jungleland." But little came easy as he chased an elusive sound that was part Roy Orbison, part Phil Spector, and all Bruce Springsteen.
For Clarence Clemons, sax player for Springsteen's E Street Band, that meant 16 straight hours creating the magnificent solo that anchors "Jungleland." For "Born To Run," the single that announced the album's arrival, sessions stretched out over half a year.
"I was 25 years old, with no place to go and nothing to do -- that helped," Springsteen said of his slavish musical devotion.
In a documentary DVD accompanying the remastered "Born to Run," band members offer their recollections of the often fruitless recording sessions.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.