This year marks the 30th anniversary of the release of Bruce Springsteen’s groundbreaking album Born to Run. Columbia Records is celebrating the record’s re-release with plenty of audio and video stuff, including interview footage of Bruce talking about the writing of this seminal work. I’m a fan, so you can imagine I’ve been devouring these things like Thanksgiving is early!

What stands out to me is hearing how Springsteen was really against the wall while creating this album. His record label was considering dropping him so he knew he had to make something happen. When people ask me “how do I know if my work is good enough?” I think of Springsteen because he surely wasn’t asking that when he was trying to figure out what to write. The answer might have been “it’s not” if he had asked someone at his record company. He had to work and teach himself how to tell if his work was good enough. This is what I learned from how he did it.

1.) Learn from the Greats

In the summer of 1974, Springsteen might have been lamenting the fact that his first two albums hadn’t been successful and he was living in a small house in New Jersey while the country was in the throes of a severe economic depression. But he wasn’t. He focused on the composition of him. “I had a record player next to my bed,” he wrote in the book Songs of Him. “At night I would lie down and listen to records by Roy Orbison, the Ronettes, the Beach Boys and other great artists of the ’60s. They were records whose depth I had missed the first time. But now I was appreciating their craft and power.” Notice he wasn’t saying “There’s no way I can create songs like that!” Instead, he was considering “what can I add to the conversation?” He was being inspired and educated at the same time.

2.) Aspire to be great yourself

In an interview on Born to Run, Springsteen says that he knew his record company was about to drop him. And he added: “I knew I had to write something great.” Springsteen didn’t have to write something great. He could have closed his shop and said, “They don’t like me, I’ll stay at Asbury Park and play where the people appreciate me and that’s it.” But he didn’t do that. He also didn’t ask if it was good enough. He just challenged himself to go beyond himself, to be great. Ask yourself: what are you writing right now that challenges you to be great? What would it take for you to start thinking this way?

3.) Find trusted ears for feedback

Yes, it’s hard to tell yourself if you’re on the right track with your writing. That’s when you recruit your own inner circle of readers whose ears and eyes you trust. Jon Landau became one of those trusted sets of ears for Springsteen. They became friends while writing Born to Run and Bruce often sent Jon, then a Boston music critic, tapes of the work as it progressed. When work got bogged down, Landau was the one to come in and help Bruce put it all together. Who can be those ears or eyes for you? Try to keep the inner circle small. If you have too many opinions about his work, it can cloud his creative judgment.

4.) Try something different

Most of the songs on Born to Run were written on piano, this by a guy known for his strident Fender guitar. But writing on the piano gave Springsteen new ideas and presented him with new opportunities to explore. It also gave the album an incredibly emotional and intimate vibe that I find intoxicating. What can you do differently that can inspire a leap to the next level? Is your novel set in 1905 instead of 2005? Write from the point of view of the opposite sex? Get a little creative with your nonfiction? take a chance No effort is ever wasted, even if you’re typing poorly; you can still learn from what you have done wrong.

5.) Think local, write global

One of the changes Springsteen made with Born to Run was that the characters in his songs were “less eccentric and less local” than those on his previous albums. The Born to Run crowd “could have been anyone and everyone,” he says. “When the screen door slams shut on ‘Thunder Road,’ you’re not necessarily at the Jersey Shore anymore. You could be anywhere in America.” And it’s true. Millions of people went online and bought Born to Run. I looked for the same type of connection for my novel. Although the family in All I Need to Get By is African American, I have had readers of all races tell me how they have seen themselves in one or more of the characters and how they relate strongly to the family issues in the book. Touching people in this way is key to developing an attentive audience. How can you open your work to a wider audience while remaining true to your story?

If you are still in doubt, think about this quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Whatever path you choose, there will always be someone to tell you that you are wrong. Difficulties always arise, tempting you to believe that your critics are right. To chart a course of action and following it through to the end requires… courage.” Be brave for yourself and for your writing. Your very own Born to Run may be waiting to come out.

© 2005 Sophronia Scott

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