"Born to Run" at 40

It's hard to explain what it was like - 40 years ago - to first hear the songs from Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" on the radio (WNEW-FM!) while growing up in Long Branch, N.J., next to Asbury Park. Those songs invested the places I knew so well - Palace Amusements, The Circuit and more - with an almost mystical presence, and elevated them from the prosaic to the poetic. Forty years - and more than 100 shows - later, I'm still along for the ride.

Here's one of my favorite outtakes from the album, an early acoustic version of "Thunder Road."