Dozens of followers and students got here from as distant as France for a New Jersey symposium celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of Bruce Springsteen’s landmark album “Born to Run.”
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The display screen door slams. Mary’s costume sways. Like a imaginative and prescient, she dances throughout the porch because the radio performs.
These are the primary phrases on the primary observe of Bruce Springsteen’s album “Born To Run.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BORN TO RUN”)
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: (Singing) ‘Trigger tramps like us, child, we have been born to run.
INSKEEP: You possibly can consider this as pop music, however some students see it as poetry. And for years, they’ve met to debate it at Monmouth College in New Jersey. NPR’s Frank Langfitt just lately attended a symposium celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the album.
FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: Bob Santinelli runs the Bruce Springsteen Archives & Middle for American Music at Monmouth. Earlier this yr, he put out a name for tutorial analysis.
BOB SANTINELLI: We hoped for 32 papers – obtained 139.
LANGFITT: The college devoted a whole day to displays, together with a whopping 27 breakout classes. One was dedicated to this tune.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THUNDER ROAD”)
SPRINGSTEEN: (Singing) Ooh, oh, oh, oh, Thunder Street, sit tight. Take maintain, Thunder Street.
ERNIE SANDONATO: Hello. I am Ernie Sandonato, and I am right here as a result of I like Bruce. I have been coming to those since 2005. I am a retired schoolteacher.
LANGFITT: Sandonato taught English for practically 4 a long time in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He used Springsteen’s lyrics to show poetry.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SANDONATO: At the moment, I will discuss concerning the carpe diem message in “Thunder Street.”
LANGFITT: It is a traditional rock-and-roll narrative.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THUNDER ROAD”)
SPRINGSTEEN: (Singing) Ooh, oh, come take my hand. We’re using out tonight to case the promised land.
LANGFITT: Man urges his girlfriend to take an opportunity and go away their dead-end city.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THUNDER ROAD”)
SPRINGSTEEN: (Singing) It is a city stuffed with losers. I am pulling out of right here to win.
LANGFITT: Sandonato mentioned the identical seize-the-day theme seems greater than three centuries earlier in English poetry. Contemplate this poem, which was featured within the 1989 Robin Williams movie “The Lifeless Poets Society.”
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “DEAD POETS SOCIETY”)
JAMES WATERSTON: (As Gerard Pitts) Collect ye rosebuds whereas ye might. Outdated Time remains to be a-flying. And this similar flower that smiles in the present day tomorrow shall be dying.
LANGFITT: Sandonato defined.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SANDONATO: It is concerning the fleeting nature of youth and seizing alternatives, the urgency of motion, and it calls for quick response.
LANGFITT: Springsteen’s lyrics resonated with Anthony Larson when he first heard them rising up on a farm in Kansas.
ANTHONY LARSON: Once I was younger, it was this type of, like, wow. Right here we go. It is simply, like, this invitation to get out of city. And it was superb.
LANGFITT: Larson took that recommendation. At the moment he is a professor of American research in France. He flew in to current his paper on how “Born To Run” captures the social and financial contradictions of the Nineteen Seventies.
LARSON: I used to be thrilled to have the ability to submit a paper proposal and to have it accepted. I am unable to imagine my luck.
LANGFITT: And that luck continued. Springsteen made a shock look on the symposium – performed “Born To Run” and “Thunder Street” with the E Road Band.
LARSON: Once we heard Bruce play these songs yesterday, I imply, there have been tears in my eyes. “Thunder Street” – I imply, it is simply – it is an America that – the place I do not stay anymore and that I’ve misplaced. I preserve it alive in imaginary locations.
LANGFITT: And that imaginary place is?
LARSON: The music of Bruce Springsteen.
LANGFITT: Not everybody got here right here as a result of Springsteen spoke to their teenage expertise.
TWILA PERRY: I am Twila Perry, and I am truly a retired legislation professor from Rutgers.
LANGFITT: Perry’s 75 and grew up in Harlem. Her style stretches from opera to Prince. She says she simply likes Springsteen for his music and lyrics. Her favourite tune? “Thunder Street.”
(SOUNDBITE OF BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN SONG, “THUNDER ROAD”)
PERRY: The way in which it begins out with the piano and the harmonica – it is simply lovely.
LANGFITT: And the story.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THUNDER ROAD”)
SPRINGSTEEN: (Singing) The display screen door slams. Mary’s costume sways.
PERRY: It’s extremely visible. I imply, I can see it.
LANGFITT: Perry says she does not have many pals who like Springsteen. This was a uncommon probability to hang around with so many who do – a pop-up group of followers and students analyzing one of many nice rock-and-roll albums a half-century on.
Frank Langfitt, NPR Information, West Lengthy Department, New Jersey.
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