Runaway American Dream

Over the course of a career now in its fourth decade, Bruce Springsteen has earned one of the most passionate, devoted followings in all rock 'n' roll. He's selling more records and concert tickets in his fifties than he sold in his twenties. Yet to many fans he remains an enigma. How has Springsteen produced such a consistent body of work and retained his currency while other top rock 'n' rollers have gone by the wayside? Jimmy Guterman, an accessible and entertaining music writer, has been writing about Springsteen since the late 1970s. In Runaway American Dream, he delves deep into dramatic and crucial moments from every phase of Springsteen's career, interpreting the songs and incisively commenting on the man and the culture at large to deliver a nuanced portrait of The Boss from the earliest days right up to Springsteen's 2005 album, Devils & Dust.

To millions of listeners, Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run is much more than a rock-and-roll album-it's a poetic explosion of freedom and frustration. It confirmed Springsteen's status as a quintessential American performer: the rocker who, more than any other, gives voice to our hopes, fears, and aspirations. Runaway Dream chronicles the making of the album that launched Springsteen and his E Street Band into the firmament of American art, deftly sketching the ambition, history, and personalities that combined to create the enduring Born to Run. Springsteen wanted Born to Run to be the greatest rock record ever made. For a musician with just two modest-selling LPs to his credit, it was an extraordinary ambition, and session by session, track by track, Masur shows just how much grit, as well as genius, went into realizing it. Runaway Dream offers an expert tour of the trials and triumphs of Springsteen's work. In addition to the story of the album itself, Masur masterfully places Born to Run within American cultural history, showing why the girls, hot rods, and Jersey nights of the album still resonate, even for listeners born years after its release.

There is little question about the incredible power of Bruce Springsteen's work as a particularly transformative art, as a lyrical and musical fusion that never shies away from sifting through the rubble of human conflict. As Rolling Stone magazine's Parke Puterbaugh observes, Springsteen 'is a peerless songwriter and consummate artist whose every painstakingly crafted album serves as an impassioned and literate pulse taking of a generation's fortunes. He is the foremost live performer in the history of rock and roll, a self-described prisoner of the music he loves, for whom every show is played as if it might be his last.' In recent decades, Puterbaugh adds, 'Springsteen's music developed a conscience that didn't ignore the darkening of the runaway American Dream as the country greedily blundered its way through the 1980s' and into the sociocultural detritus of a new century paralysed by isolation and uncertainty. Bruce Springsteen, Cultural Studies, and the Runaway American Dream reflects the significant critical interest in understanding Springsteen's resounding impact upon the ways in which we think and feel about politics, religion, gender, and the pursuit of the American Dream. By assembling a host of essays that engage in interdisciplinary commentary regarding one of Western culture's most enduring artistic and socially radicalizing phenomena, this book offers a cohesive, intellectual, and often entertaining introduction to the many ways in which Springsteen continues to impact our lives by challenging our minds through his lyrics and music.

There is little question about the incredible power of Bruce Springsteen's work as a particularly transformative art, as a lyrical and musical fusion that never shies away from sifting through the rubble of human conflict. As Rolling Stone magazine's Parke Puterbaugh observes, Springsteen 'is a peerless songwriter and consummate artist whose every painstakingly crafted album serves as an impassioned and literate pulse taking of a generation's fortunes. He is the foremost live performer in the history of rock and roll, a self-described prisoner of the music he loves, for whom every show is played as if it might be his last.' In recent decades, Puterbaugh adds, 'Springsteen's music developed a conscience that didn't ignore the darkening of the runaway American Dream as the country greedily blundered its way through the 1980s' and into the sociocultural detritus of a new century paralysed by isolation and uncertainty. Bruce Springsteen, Cultural Studies, and the Runaway American Dream reflects the significant critical interest in understanding Springsteen's resounding impact upon the ways in which we think and feel about politics, religion, gender, and the pursuit of the American Dream. By assembling a host of essays that engage in interdisciplinary commentary regarding one of Western culture's most enduring artistic and socially radicalizing phenomena, this book offers a cohesive, intellectual, and often entertaining introduction to the many ways in which Springsteen continues to impact our lives by challenging our minds through his lyrics and music.

Over the course of a career now in its fourth decade, Bruce Springsteen has earned one of the most passionate, devoted followings in all rock &'n' roll. He's selling more records and concert tickets in his fifties than he sold in his twenties. Yet to many fans he remains an enigma. How has Springsteen produced such a consistent body of work and retained his currency while other top rock 'n' rollers have gone by the wayside? Jimmy Guterman, an accessible and entertaining music writer, has been writing about Springsteen since the late 1970s. In Runaway American Dream, he delves deep into dramatic and crucial moments from every phase of Springsteen's career, interpreting the songs and incisively commenting on the man and the culture at large to deliver a nuanced portrait of The Boss from the earliest days right up to Springsteen's 2005 album, Devils & Dust.

Over the course of a career now in its fourth decade, Bruce Springsteen has earned one of the most passionate, devoted followings in all rock `n¿ roll. He¿s selling more records & concert tickets in his fifties than he sold in his twenties. Yet to many fans he remains an enigma. Jimmy Guterman has been writing about Springsteen since the 1970s. Here, he delves deep into dramatic & crucial moments from every phase of Springsteen¿s career, interpreting the songs & incisively commenting on the man & the culture at large to deliver a nuanced portrait of The Boss from the earliest days right up to Springsteen¿s 2005 album, ¿Devils & Dust.¿

Bruce Springsteen often prefers to let his music do the talking. His onstage stories and shaggy dog tales have long entertained his fans, but his songs and his guitar provide the most direct line to their hearts. Considering his prominence on the rock 'n' roll landscape, Springsteen has spent remarkably little of his 40-year recording career speaking to the press. But when he does decide to sit down and talk, the conversations tend to be momentous. Q&As with Bruce Springsteen reveal an artist with great insight and self-awareness, a student of music, an avid searcher, an astute observer of humanity from the boardwalk to America at large. Much has been written about the Boss, but few can be said to know the man as well as he knows himself, and the best of Springsteen's own words are collected here in Talk About a Dream. Gathering more than 30 different interviews spanning from 1973 to 2013, this volume captures his remarkable personality-one that takes interviews as seriously as making music. These eye-opening conversations chart Springsteen's development as an artist, a thinker, and a public figure, shedding light on everything from the meaning of lyrics to his evolution from rebel rocker to global icon.

There is little question about the incredible power of Bruce Springsteen's work as a particularly transformative art, as a lyrical and musical fusion that never shies away from sifting through the rubble of human conflict. As Rolling Stone magazine's Parke Puterbaugh observes, Springsteen 'is a peerless songwriter and consummate artist whose every painstakingly crafted album serves as an impassioned and literate pulse taking of a generation's fortunes. He is the foremost live performer in the history of rock and roll, a self-described prisoner of the music he loves, for whom every show is played as if it might be his last.' In recent decades, Puterbaugh adds, 'Springsteen's music developed a conscience that didn't ignore the darkening of the runaway American Dream as the country greedily blundered its way through the 1980s' and into the sociocultural detritus of a new century paralysed by isolation and uncertainty. Bruce Springsteen, Cultural Studies, and the Runaway American Dream reflects the significant critical interest in understanding Springsteen's resounding impact upon the ways in which we think and feel about politics, religion, gender, and the pursuit of the American Dream. By assembling a host of essays that engage in interdisciplinary commentary regarding one of Western culture's most enduring artistic and socially radicalizing phenomena, this book offers a cohesive, intellectual, and often entertaining introduction to the many ways in which Springsteen continues to impact our lives by challenging our minds through his lyrics and music.