Walk With Me
Born To Run
Of a runaway American dream
At night, we ride through mansions of glory
In suicide machines
Sprung from cages out on Highway 9
Chrome wheeled, fuel injected and steppin’ out over the line
Oh, baby this town rips the bones from your back
It’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap
We gotta get out while we’re young
‘Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run
Yes, girl, we were
Wendy let me in, I wanna be your friend
I want to guard your dreams and visions
Just wrap your legs ’round these velvet rims
And strap your hands across my engines
Together we could break this trap
We’ll run till we drop, baby we’ll never go back
Oh, will you walk with me out on the wire?
‘Cause baby I’m just a scared and lonely rider
But I gotta know how it feels
I want to know if love is wild, babe
I want to know if love is real
Oh, can you show me?
Beyond the palace, hemi-powered drones
Scream down the boulevard
The girls comb their hair in rearview mirrors
And the boys try to look so hard
The amusement park rises bold and stark
Kids are huddled on the beach in a mist
I wanna die with you, Wendy, on the streets tonight
In an everlasting kiss
(1, 2, 3, 4) The highways jammed with broken heroes
On a last chance power drive
Everybody’s out on the run tonight
But there’s no place left to hide
Together, Wendy, we can live with the sadness
I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul
Oh, someday girl, I don’t know when
We’re gonna get to that place
Where we really want to go, and we’ll walk in the sun
But till then, tramps like us
Baby, we were born to run
Oh honey, tramps like us
Baby, we were born to run
Come on with me, tramps like us
This lyric was written by a 24 year old adult song writer. Only by a retrospective look do any of us appreciate how good we in fact were, at that stage of adulthood. At 24 life is rife with currents of insecurity, and with ambition to find our place in our time. This is one of my best loved rock anthems. Bruce Springsteen felt the confluence of his New Jersey environment, a Catholic upbringing, good friends, and the gift of expression which music had come to mean for him.
Does this tune mark a fold-point, the inevitable disillusioned retreat from the post-WWII exuberance of flower power, the faith that love can transform all? Still there is hope, a concluding courageous note of resistance. Springsteen is quoted to have said this when the anthem was played in concert in 1980:
When this song was performed at The Spectrum in Philadelphia on the 9th of December 1980, it was the next day after John Lennon’s death. Bruce Springsteen opened the show with a dedication, “If it wasn’t for John Lennon, a lot of us would be some place much different tonight. It’s a hard world that asks you to live with a lot of things that are unlivable. And it’s hard to come out here and play tonight, but there’s nothing else to do.” Springsteen sang Twist And Shout at the end of the concert in tribute to Lennon.
