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
Badlands (Bruce Springsteen song) progressive rock and album-oriented rock radio airplay at the time, and classic rock airplay since. The song has appeared on eight Springsteen releases: "Darkness on the Edge of Town", "Live/1975–85", the 1995 "Greatest Hits", "", "Live in Barcelona", "The Essential Bruce Springsteen", the Wal-Mart-only 2009 "Greatest Hits", and "Collection: 1973-2012". "Rolling Stone" editors rated "Badlands" to be Springsteen's second-greatest song all time, behind only "Born to Run," and consider it to fit the definition of a rock anthem derived by The Who guitarist Pete Townshend, in that it is "praying onstage." According to contemporary musician Jackson Browne, "Badlands" is "cool