Born to Run (Bruce Springsteen song) in Long Branch, New Jersey in early 1974, the song was Bruce Springsteen's final attempt to become successful. The prior year, Springsteen had released two albums to critical acclaim but with little commercial movement. Written in the first person, the song is a love letter to a girl named Wendy, for whom the hot rod-riding protagonist seems to possess the passion to love, just not the patience. However, Springsteen has noted that it has a much simpler core: getting out of Freehold. Route 9 is mentioned from the lyric "sprung from cages out on Highway 9". In his 1996 book
The Essential Bruce Springsteen The Essential Bruce Springsteen The Essential Bruce Springsteen is a compilation album by Bruce Springsteen, released November 11, 2003. The collection is part of a series of "Essential" sets released by Sony BMG (previously Sony Music Entertainment). It includes songs from various Springsteen albums and concerts up to the year 2003. The third disc includes previously unreleased cuts, B-sides, contributions to soundtracks and benefit albums, covers, and an alternate, "country-blues" acoustic version of "Countin' on a Miracle" from "The Rising". The album debuted on the "Billboard" 200 albums chart on November 29, 2003, at number 14, with sales of 90,000