This year marks the 30th anniversary of the release of Bruce Springsteen’s groundbreaking Born to Run album. Columbia Records is celebrating by re-releasing the record with lots of audio and video stuff, including interview footage of Bruce talking about writing this seminal work. I’m a fan, so you can imagine I’ve been gobbling up this stuff like Thanksgiving is coming early!
What stands out to me is hearing how Springsteen was really up against the wall while creating this album. His record label was considering leaving him so he knew he had to make something happen. When people ask me “how do I know if my work is good enough?” I think of Springsteen because he surely wasn’t asking that when he was trying to figure out what to write. The answer might have been “it isn’t” if he had asked someone at his record company about it. He had to work and learn for himself how to know if his work was good enough. This is what I learned from how he did it.
1.) Learn from the Greats
In the summer of 1974, Springsteen might have been lamenting the fact that his first two albums had failed and he was living in a small house in New Jersey while the country was in the throes of a severe economic depression. But he wasn’t. He focused on the composition of it. “I had a record player next to my bed,” he wrote in the book Songs of Him. “At night I would lie back and listen to records by Roy Orbison, the Ronettes, the Beach Boys and other great artists of the ’60s. They were records whose depth I had missed the first time around. But now I was appreciating their craft and power.” Notice he wasn’t saying “There’s no way I can create songs like that!” Instead, he was considering “what can I add to the conversation?” He was being inspired and educated at the same time.
2.) Aspire to be great yourself
In an interview on Born to Run, Springsteen says he knew his record company was about to drop him. And he added: “I knew I had to write something great.” Springsteen didn’t have to write something great. He could have closed his shop and said, “They don’t like me, I’m going to stay at Asbury Park and play where people like me and that’s it.” But he didn’t do that. He also didn’t ask if it was good enough. He just challenged himself to go beyond himself, to be great. Ask yourself: what are you writing right now that challenges you to be great? What would it take for you to start thinking this way?
3.) Find Trusted Ears for Feedback
Yes, it’s hard to know for yourself if you’re on the right track with your writing. That’s when you recruit your own inner circle of readers whose ears and eyes you trust. Jon Landau became one of those trusted pairs of ears for Springsteen. They became friends while writing Born to Run and Bruce would often send Jon, then a music critic from Boston, tapes of the work as he went along. When work stalled, Landau was the one to come in and help Bruce put it all together. Who can be those ears or eyes for you? Try to keep the inner circle small. If you have too many opinions about his work, you can cloud his creative judgment.
4.) Try something different
Most of the songs on Born to Run were written on piano, this by a guy known for his raucous Fender guitar. But writing on the piano gave Springsteen new ideas and presented him with new opportunities to explore. It also gave the album an incredibly emotional and intimate vibe that I find intoxicating. What can you do differently that might inspire a jump to the next level? Does your novel set in 1905 instead of 2005? Write from the point of view of the opposite sex? Get a little creative with your nonfiction? take a chance No effort is ever wasted, even if you are typing poorly; you can still learn from what you have done wrong.
5.) Think local, write global
One of the changes Springsteen made with Born to Run was that the characters in his songs were “less eccentric and less local” than those on his previous albums. The people of Born to Run “could have been anyone and everyone,” he says. “When the screen door slams shut on ‘Thunder Road,’ you’re not necessarily on the Jersey Shore anymore. You could be anywhere in America.” And it’s true. Millions of people went online and bought Born to Run. I looked for the same kind of connection for my novel. Although the family in All I Need to Get By is African American, I have had readers of all races tell me how they have seen themselves in one or more of the characters and how they strongly relate to the family issues in the book. Touching people in this way is key to developing an attentive audience. How can you open up your work to a wider audience while staying true to your story?
If you are still in doubt, consider this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Whatever path you decide on, there will always be someone to tell you that you are wrong. Difficulties always arise that tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To plot a course of action and following through to the end requires… courage.” Be brave for yourself and for your writing. Your very own Born to Run may be waiting to get out.
© 2005 Sophronia Scott
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