Tonight in Jungleland

In the wake of middling sales from his first two albums, and with his record company’s faith in him waning, Bruce Springsteen needed a hit, according to this captivating blow-by-blow of the making of Born to Run. Drawing from conversations with the artist, his band members, and his friends, music writer Carlin (Bruce) unravels how the 1975 album came to be, beginning with Springsteen being tasked in 1973 with writing a successful single before Columbia would agree to finance the album.

From there, Carlin highlights Springsteen’s near-constant battles with the record label, whose ongoing failure to provide financial support hamstrung touring and production; the title track’s evolution from a bleak, gloomy portrait of a “diminished society” to a vibrant “highway saga” that contained dark undertones but offered a glimmer of hope; and Springsteen’s obsessive self-doubt—upon hearing the finished album, he initially suggested scrapping it and starting from scratch. Carlin takes a fascinating look at the challenges of making an album whose success now seems inevitable, exploring what drives artists to create as well as how their relationship with their work can shift as it becomes part of popular culture. Springsteen fans should snap this up.