Bruce Springsteen Admitted He Was ‘Filled With Arrogance’ When He Started Work on 1 Album
When Bruce Springsteen released the album Born to Run in 1975, he lifted his career to towering heights. While he had already released two albums, they had not performed nearly as well as Springsteen had hoped. Born to Run was critically and financially successful and has since been described as one of the greatest albums of all time. Some artists stumble into this type of success; Springsteen said he was intentionally aiming for it. He shared his mindset as he started working on the record.
Bruce Springsteen said he was aiming for major success with one album
After the low sales of his first two critically acclaimed albums, Springsteen knew he needed to achieve greater success. He also felt confident he had what it took to write something spectacular.
“[W]ith [Born to Run] I was shootin’ for the moon,” he told Entertainment Weekly in 2003, per the book Talk About a Dream by Christopher Phillips. “I said, ‘I don’t wanna make a good record, I wanna make The Greatest Record Somebody’s Ever Heard.’ I was filled with arrogance and thought, I can do that, y’know?”
Like his first two albums, Born to Run received critical acclaim. It was also a commercial success and effectively saved Springsteen’s career.
He said he felt more satisfied after releasing a different record
Though Springsteen aimed to make Born to Run the greatest record of all time and, in the eyes of some fans, succeeded, he said he felt more satisfied after the release of a different album. In 2002, Springsteen released The Rising, also to critical and commercial success.
“[I]f I had to measure it all up I don’t think I’ve ever been as satisfied as I am right now,” he said after its release. “The combination of this particular record coming at this particular time, and the band being present and everybody being alive and accounted for — only a few bands can say that.”
He loved having his band together as they’d been at the start of their careers.
“We go to Europe and the front of the stage is filled with 15-, 16-, 17-year-olds — they see [the E Street Band]. Who stood there 30 years ago,” he said. “And not only are my guys still there, they still mean it.”
Bruce Springsteen said he didn’t have such high aspirations for another album
Springsteen appreciated the success Born to Run brought him. Still, he liked writing his first two records and knowing there weren’t many people listening to him.
“Those first two records [1973’s Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. and The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle] were very freeing because I didn’t have an audience and I wasn’t reacting to something I’d done previously,” he said. “I just had this explosion of youthful creativity and exuberance.”
He admitted he wouldn’t write some of his early lyrics as he matured as a writer. He felt happy about the way they captured his youth, though.
“Those records were filled with exuberance and enormous energy … I had heroes I was emulating, but I also had my own little world that I was trying to give life to,” he said. “Those records always bring me back to the street life of my early 20s and the boardwalk.”
