Racing in the Street

So much has been written about Bruce Springsteen over the last few decades that it was difficult to know where to begin, or end. I wanted to include as representative a sampling of selections as possible and, with that in mind, I chose articles from the mainstream press, essays from academic journals, interviews, reviews, a poem or two, excerpts from novels and short stories, as well as articles that inspired Springsteen’s work. There’s certainly enough material to warrant a second volume. When appropriate, I have also added endnotes either for clarification purposes or as corrections to factual errors that appeared in the original pieces.

As always when compiling an anthology, some things got away. Sadly, I was unable to obtain permission to reprint “Growing Young with Rock and Roll” by Jon Landau that ran in the May 22, 1974, issue of The Real Paper, probably the most famous piece written about Springsteen (certainly the most quoted). Nor, for the most part, was inclusion of Rolling Stone articles and interviews possible since, as any true Springsteen fan knows, the magazine published Bruce Springsteen: The Rolling Stone Files in 1996. Of course, I think Racing in the Street is a terrific companion piece to that work and should be an indispensable item in any Springsteen collection.