20 years ago today (April 7th), the TV special Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band: Live in New York City aired on HBO. Their breakthrough hit, Born To Run was a surprisingly disappointing one in that it didn’t even crack the Top 20, Bruce’s fourth single, it was his first to crack the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number-23. “Born to Run” was the only song on the Born to Run album to feature the late E Street Band keyboardist Danny Federici. In 1993, he spoke about his contribution to the song and how sure they were that it would be their breakthrough hit.
“Absolutely. Oh, full blast, turn the volume up, this is the one, this is gonna do it. I actually went to Bruce’s house, he was living in Long Branch, and he was playing me the middle of the song and we couldn’t decide what to put in the middle of the song. We ended up putting an organ growling in the middle. We actually listened to some soundtracks of motorcycles and cars burning rubber and street sounds. We were real hot on the song. I think we thought it was going to do better than it did.”
REUTERS PHOTO
