Springsteen ‘Born to Run’ exhibit opens in NJ

“Born to Run at 50.”

First of all, how dare you? How dare anyone put a nostalgic number of years onto something so painstakingly epic that it was timeless the moment it arrived?

Second of all, it’s the title of an exhibit that opens Thursday, March 6, at the Passaic County Arts Center in Goffle Brook Park in Hawthorne. It runs through July 19, and good thing because its opening night is already sold out.

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Born to Run

“Born to Run” is the album Bruce Springsteen put out in 1975 that turned the skinny kid from Jersey Shore bars to an arena filler. If his first two Columbia Records releases with the E-Street Band were good but leaning too hard to channel Bob Dylan’s writing, this was the album where he found his own voice. To call it a masterpiece doesn’t begin to cut it.

“Outside, the street's on fire in a real death waltz

Between what's flesh and what's fantasy

And the poets down here don't write nothing at all

They just stand back and let it all be

And in the quick of the night

They reach for their moment and try to make an honest stand”

With lyrics like that, if you don’t understand this isn’t just a song and not even just brilliant poetry, but a sample of our very DNA, then you don’t understand New Jersey.

New Jersey, where beauty is found even in broken dreams.

50 year anniversary

To celebrate the 50-year anniversary of the release of “Born to Run,” the exhibit opening Thursday, March 6, will share artifacts, videos, rare photo outtakes, and much more. Nj.com reports even the marquee from his famous 1978 three-night run at Passaic’s Capitol Theater is there.

Find more information here.