Good ni**********************

[Sue U]

Why does everyone seem to rave about what a great song Born to Run is? To me it is a collection of ridiculous rock 'n' roll/car/motorcycle cliches strung together over a forced and tedious melody.

I just don't get it...

Well, as an early-days Springsteen fan, me neither. I thought there were better tracks on the album (10th Avenue Freeze-Out and Thunder Road), and I thought the two previous albums were much better all around. (Back in those days, DJs still had control over their music selections, and both Asbury Park and E Street Shuffle got a lot of airtime in Philadelphia and New Jersey, particularly championed by DJs Ed Sciaky and Michael Tearson at WMMR in Philly.) But Born to Run got the big publicity push from the record company and finally broke Springsteen into the national market, particularly on the NY (and I presume LA) stations. As the single, Born To Run was probably the first Springsteen song most people heard, and so they have fond associations with it. Also, bombast plays well with adolescents, and if anything the song is bombastic. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing.

[Guinevere]

Sue beat me to the punch. I think you're confusing *real* Springsteen fans with the casual listener/hit song collector. It's a good song, but I would absolutely put Thunder Road and 10th Avenue above it in terms of quality of song and lyric. Although I wouldn't go so far as to call it a parody, I think analogy might be the more accurate description.

Of course one of my personal Springsteen faves really has even less to it than Born to Run, but it makes me want to turn the volume to 11 and get up and dance, and isn't that what great music is all about?

[Gob]

You may want to edit that last post Guin!

[Sean]

I'm not so sure anout that Guin...

From the song's wiki page:

Honors and accolades

In 2004, "Born to Run" was ranked #6 in WXPN's list of The 885 All-Time Greatest Songs.
Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time placed it at #21.
The song came in at #920 in Q's list of the "1001 Greatest Songs Ever" in 2003, in which they described the song as "best for working class heroes."
It is one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.[2]
In 2001, the RIAA's Songs of the Century placed the song 135th (out of 365).
In 1999, National Public Radio included the song in the "NPR 100", NPR's music editors' compilation of the one hundred most important American musical works of the 20th century.[3]
On June 12, 1979, "Born to Run" was named New Jersey's "Unofficial Youth Rock Anthem" by the New Jersey State Legislature,[citation needed] something Springsteen always considered ironic because it was "about leaving Jersey."

[Guinevere]

Sean, I'm pretty sure you just made my point ....

[Sue U]

You have to take that WXPN ranking with a huge cake of salt. As a Philadelphia radio station with an "Adult Alternative" format, there is a huge Springsteen bias in the listenership, since we all grew up with his music. In fact, we adopted "Spirits in the Night" as pretty much our theme song among my group of friends in high school; we thought it was all about us (it was).

You'd probably also find Todd Rundgren and Hall & Oates much higher on an 'XPN list than you would see them in any other city.