Update (Nov. 17): Bruce Springsteen will narrate the audio edition of his #1 New York Times bestselling memoir Born to Run. Simon & Schuster Audio will publish the 18-hour-long audiobook on December 6. In addition to his narration, Springsteen recorded musical transitions for the audiobook at Stone Hill Studio in New Jersey. Excerpts from the original studio recordings of “Living Proof,” “Long Time Comin'” and “Born to Run” are also featured in the audiobook. Pre-order here.
Here is our original report on a Vanity Fair interview with Bruce in support of the memoir…
With his highly anticipated memoir, Born to Run, about to hit bookshelves (and digital e-readers) at the end of this month, Bruce Springsteen has begun to make the publicity rounds—not that most classic rock fans need to be sold on it. An extensive, revealing interview, serving as the cover story in the October issue of Vanity Fair, can be read in full here. In the conversation with writer David Kamp, Springsteen discusses not only his music—including how he prepares for those marathon four-hour shows—but his experiences with depression, his well-publicized, troubled relationship with his father and much more.
“My father was built big, so there was some element of ‘OK, I’m 34. I’m a man now.’ I remember my father at that age,” he says in the interview. “There was the idea of creating a man’s body to a certain degree. I suppose I was measuring that after my dad. And also, perhaps, in some way, trying to please him.”
Asked whether he ever gets tired of singing the signature song that doubles as the title of his book, Springsteen, as he often does, turns quasi-philosophical. “A good song gathers the years in,” Springsteen says. “It’s why you can sing it with such conviction 40 years after it’s been written. A good song takes on more meaning as the years pass by.”
Related: Read the foreword to Springsteen’s memoir, Born to Run
The book can be pre-ordered here; the companion album, Chapter and Verse, is available here.
Also interviewed for the article is longtime E Street Band guitarist Steve Van Zandt, who recalls Bruce as a “shut down and closed in” teen. “You remember the grunge guys, with the long hair, staring down at their shoes? That was him,” Van Zandt says in the article. “People were always wondering, ‘Why are you hanging out with him? He’s such a weirdo.’ Some people thought he was mental.”
Springsteen’s wife and bandmate Patti Scialfa is also quoted, admitting that there are parts of the book she’s not entirely comfortable with. “He approached the book the way he would approach writing a song, and a lot of times, you solve something that you’re trying to figure out through the process of writing—you bring something home to yourself,” she says. “So in that regard, I think it’s great for him to write about depression. A lot of his work comes from him trying to overcome that part of himself.”
Check back with Best Classic Bands toward the end of September for our review of Born to Run. In the meantime…
Watch Bruce and the E Street Band perform “Born to Run” in Berlin in June
