{"id":45366,"date":"2015-08-25T15:14:46","date_gmt":"2015-08-25T13:14:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jensunmack.dk\/wordpress-3\/?p=45366"},"modified":"2015-08-25T17:11:43","modified_gmt":"2015-08-25T15:11:43","slug":"born-to-last","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jensunmack.dk\/wordpress-3\/born-to-last\/","title":{"rendered":"Born to last"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"11891216_10153453128725250_3524069032972856303_n\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Alt for mange st\u00f8vede jubil\u00e6er for nu s\u00e5 fjerne udgivelser, koncerter, begivenheder, heltes f\u00f8dselsdage. Og i dag er ingen undtagelse. Mandag 25. august 1975 udsendte Bruce Springsteen sin gennembrudsplade Born to Run<\/em>, der efter to\u00a0kommercielle forbiere endelig lyste hans navn op\u00a0p\u00e5 rockhimlen i str\u00e5lende neon, s\u00e5 ingen l\u00e6ngere kunne overse\u00a0det. Born to Run<\/em> er et p\u00e5 alle m\u00e5der ekstremt forplanlagt og gennemarbejdet album, men dets perfektionistiske tilgang i arrangement, produktion og ord st\u00e5r lykkeligvis aldrig i vejen for Springsteen’s\u00a0store amerikanske fort\u00e6lling\u00a0om individets n\u00e5desl\u00f8se jagt\u00a0p\u00e5 tilh\u00f8rsforhold og forl\u00f8sning. Men stop mig her, og lad os istedet g\u00e5 tilbage til nogle af de mange inspirerede ord Rolling Stone’s Greil Marcus skrev om milep\u00e6len i 1975:<\/p>\n

One soft infested summer\/Me and Terry became friends\/Trying in vain to breathe\/The fire we was born in…\/Remember all the movies, Terry\/We’d go see\/Trying to learn to walk like the heroes\/We thought we had to be\/Well after all this time\/To find we’re just like all the rest\/Stranded in the park\/And forced to confess\/To\/Hiding on the backstreets\/Hiding on the backstreets\/Where we swore forever friends….<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Those are a few lines from “Backstreets,” a song that begins with music so stately, so heartbreaking, that it might be the prelude to a rock & roll version of\u00a0The Iliad.\u00a0Once the piano and organ have established the theme the entire band comes and plays the theme again. There is an overwhelming sense of recognition: No, you’ve never heard anything like this before, but you understand it instantly, because this music \u2014 or Springsteen crying, singing wordlessly, moaning over the last guitar lines of “Born to Run,” or the astonishing chords that follow each verse of “Jungleland,” or the opening of “Thunder Road” \u2014 is what rock & roll is supposed to sound like.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The songs, the best of them, are adventures in the dark, incidents of wasted fury. Tales of kids born to run who lose anyway, the songs can, as with “Backstreets,” hit so hard and fast that it is almost impossible to sit through them without weeping. And yet the music is exhilarating. You may find yourself shaking your head in wonder, smiling through tears at the beauty of it all. I’m not talking about lyrics; they’re buried, as they should be, hard to hear for the first dozen playings or so, coming out in bits and pieces. To hear Springsteen sing the line “Hiding on the backstreets” is to be captured by an image; the details can come later. Who needed to figure out all the words to “Like a Rolling Stone” to understand it?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

It is a measure of Springsteen’s ability to make his music bleed that “Backstreets,” which is about friendship and betrayal between a boy and a girl, is far more deathly than “Jungleland,” which is about a gang war. The music isn’t “better,” nor is the singing \u2014 but it is more passionate, more deathly and, necessarily, more alive. That, if anything, might be the key to this music: As a ride through terror, it resolves itself finally as a ride into delight.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

“Oh-o, come on, take my hand,” Springsteen sings, “Riding out to case the promised land.” And there, in a line, is\u00a0Born to Run.\u00a0You take what you find, but you never give up your demand for something better because you know, in your heart, that you deserve it. That contradiction is what keeps Springsteen’s story, and the promised land’s, alive. Springsteen took what he found and made something better himself. This album is it.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a9 Greil Marcus \/ Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n