“A goodbye to my adopted hometown and the life I’d lived there before I recorded. Sandy was a composite of some of the girls I’d known along the Shore. I used the boardwalk and the closing down of the town as a metaphor for the end fo summer romance and the changes I was experiencing in my own life.”Bruce Springsteen (1200)

“It was a black comedy based on my memories of the fairs and the Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus that visited Freehold every summer when I was a kid. “Wild Billy” was also a song about the seduction and loneliness of a life outside the margins.Bruce Springsteen (1201)

““Incident on 57th Street” and “New York City Serenade” were my romantic stories of New York City, a place that had been my getaway from small-town New Jersey since I was sixteen. “Incident” particularly featured a theme I’d return to often in the future: the search for redemption.Bruce Springsteen (1202)

““Rosalita” was my musical autobiography. It was my “getting out of town” preview for Born to Run with more humor. As a teenager, I’d had a girlfriend whose mother had threatened to get a court injunction against me to keep me away from her daughter due to my low-rent beginnings and defiant (for my little town) appearance. The daughter was a sweet blonde who I believe was the first gal I had successful intercourse with, one fumbling afternoon at chez mama. I wrote “Rosalita” as a kiss-off to everybody who counted you out, put you down or decided you weren’t good enough.”Bruce Springsteen (1202)

“It used biblical images to summon the hard inheritance handed down from father to son.”Bruce Springsteen (1205)

“It’s a portrait of a family man caught in the shadow of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident.”Bruce Springsteen (1207)

“My song about my own alienation, fatigue and desire to get out from inside the studio, my room, my record, my head and…live.”Bruce Springsteen (1208)

“After the crash of 2008, I was furious at what had been done by a handful of trading companies on Wall Street. “Wrecking Ball” was a shot of anger at the injustice that continues on and has widened with deregulation, dysfunctional regulatory agencies and capitalism gone wild at the expense of hardworking America. The middle class? Stomped on. Income disparity climbed as we lived through a new Gilded Age.”Bruce Springsteen (1209)

“Terry was my aide for 23 years and the man who’d fired Steve and me from our last-chance bar gig at the Captain’s Garter 40 years earlier. Some people take whole worlds with them when they die. That was Terry Magovern. A Navy SEAL, Terry was the last great symbol of the raging honky-tonk Jersey Shore scene of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Bar manager, feared bouncer, lifeguard, father, grandfather, loyal friend and working companion – Terry covered it all, and I wrote “Terry’s Song” for him.”Bruce Springsteen (1210)

“It’s probably the best song I’ve written about my dad, but its conclusion wasn’t going to be enough for me.”Bruce Springsteen (1211)

“In this song I lay out the wish I’ve had for my children. We honor our parents by not accepting as the final equation the most troubling characteristics of our relationship.”Bruce Springsteen (1211)