'Fresh Air' Favorites: Bruce Springsteen

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, editor of the website TV Worth Watching, sitting in for Terry Gross. Today we continue our series of staff picks of favorite interviews from the past decade. Coming up later in the show, Bruce Springsteen. But first, Patti Smith.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GLORIA")

PATTI SMITH: (Singing) Oh, she was so good. Oh, she was so fine. And I'm going to tell the world that I just ah-ah made her mine. And I said, darling, tell me you name. She told me her name. She whispered to me. She told me her name. And her name is, and her name is, and her name is, and her name is G-L-O-R-I - G-L-O-R-I-A. Gloria, G-L-O-R-I-A. Gloria, G-L-O-R-I-A. Gloria, G-L-O-R-I-A. Gloria.

BIANCULLI: That's Patti Smith in the opening track of her 1975 debut studio album "Horses." Known as the Godmother of Punk, she created a hybrid of poetry and rock and developed a high-energy performance style that was sometimes aggressive and sometimes ecstatic.

Terry Gross interviewed Patti Smith in 2010 after the publication of her memoir, "Just Kids," which won a National Book Award. It's about growing up in New Jersey, moving to New York in 1967 and slowly evolving into a poet, songwriter and performer. The book revolves around her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, whom she met just after she got to New York. They became soulmates and both aspired to be artists. She became famous first. The album that made her famous, "Horses," had an iconic photo of her taken by Mapplethorpe. He later became known for his erotic and sadomasochistic photos of gay men. He died of AIDS in 1989.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

TERRY GROSS, BYLINE: Patti Smith, welcome back to FRESH AIR. It's in New York that you met Robert Mapplethorpe, and, you know, you changed the course of each other's lives. Would you tell the story of how you met Robert Mapplethorpe?

SMITH: Well, our - my first meeting was very simple. I had some friends at Pratt Institute, people that went to my high school that had the means to go to art school. And I - I was looking for them, hoping for a little shelter since I had nowhere to sleep that night.

But when I went to visit them, they had moved, and the boy that answered the door didn't know where my friends had moved and said, well, go in there and maybe my roommate will know where they are. And I went in a room and there was a boy sleeping, lying on a little iron bed and just with a mass of dark curls.

And as soon as I walked in, he awoke and looked at me and smiled. And then I talked, and he knew where my friends had lived. But the thing that I remember, the very first impression I have of Robert is waking up and smiling.

GROSS: At some point, you realize that Mapplethorpe was gay. At some point, he realized that he was gay. How did it affect his relationship with you? When he came to terms with being gay and had lovers and eventually had a long-time lover, were you able to stay as close, even though the relationship had changed?

SMITH: Oh, Robert and I always were just as close. I mean, we had to work out, obviously, the physical aspect of our relationship. And it was really me who, in the end, severed the physical aspect of our relationship. You know, and in the end, we worked that out. I mean, because we were so close and our love for each other was so deep that the absence of - and we were still physical with one another. He was always very affectionate. Till the day he died, we were still affectionate toward one another.

GROSS: In your book, you write about how Mapplethorpe's work started to change and become more sadomasochistic in its imagery, which he became quite famous for. And you write that that imagery was bewildering and frightening to you. You write, he couldn't share things with me because it was so outside our realm and that you couldn't comprehend the brutality of his images of self-inflicted pain. It was hard for you to match it with the boy you had met. Can you talk a little bit about - a little bit more about your reaction to his images and what you found disturbing and incomprehensible about it?

SMITH: Well, they were disturbing images.

GROSS: They're meant to be disturbing, yeah, right.

SMITH: I'm just - I mean, Robert - I mean, a lot of my reaction was out of, first of all, naietivity (ph). I didn't know anything about that world. I still know very little about that world. And my protective instincts for Robert - they frightened me. I worried that he would be hurt or something bad would happen to him.

But he was - always assured me that all of these situations were controlled, consensual situations. I mean, there were a few of these images that I thought were actually brilliant. And so we were able, after I processed the subject matter, to talk to - to talk about these images as art. But I was never really curious to talk about them in any other way. And he respected that.

GROSS: You say that until a friend suggested that you be in a rock 'n' roll band, it had never occurred to you. It was just, like, not part of your world.

SMITH: No, why would it? You know, I'm not a musician. You know, I didn't play any instrument. I didn't have any specific talents. I mean, I came from the South Jersey-Philadelphia area. And in early '60s, everybody sang. They sang on street corners, three-part harmonies, a cappella. Most of my friends were better singers than me.

There was nothing in what I did that would give a sense that I should be in a rock 'n' roll band. Also, girls weren't in rock 'n' roll bands. I mean, they sang, but, you know, the closest thing to a rock singer, a real rock singer that we had was Grace Slick, and I certainly didn't have Grace Slick's voice.

GROSS: You were saying that you didn't have - you know, you didn't think of yourself as a singer, per se, that your friends had better voices than you did. But you created this new style, really, that was a combination of poetry and music. It wasn't about having, like, a perfect singer's voice. It was the style that you performed and the personality that you put into it - the kind of defiance that you had in some songs, the energy. Would you talk about what you felt you were doing early on that was different from what you'd seen other people do?

SMITH: I think my perception of myself was really as a performer and a communicator. I had a mission when we recorded "Horses." My mission was...

GROSS: It was your first album.

SMITH: My first album "Horses," my mission and the collective band mission was really, on one level, to merge poetry and rock 'n' roll but more humanistically, to reach out to other disenfranchised people.

In 1975, the, you know, young homosexual kids were, you know, being disowned by their families. The kids were, you know, kids like me, who were a little weird or a little different, were often persecuted in their small towns. And it wasn't just, you know, because of sexual persuasion. It was for any reason - for being an artist, for being different, for having political views, for just wanting to be free. And I really recorded the record to connect with these people, you know, and also in terms of our place in rock 'n' roll, just to create some bridge between our great artists that we had just lost - Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison among them - and to create space for what I felt would be the new guard, which I didn't really include myself.

I was really anticipating people or bands like The Clash and The Ramones. I was anticipating in my mind that a new breed would come - Television - a new breed would come and they would be less materialistic, more bonded with the people and not so glamorous. I wasn't thinking so much of music. I wasn't thinking so much of perfection or stardom or any of that stuff. I was thinking - I had this mission, and I thought I would do this record and then go back to my writing and my drawing, and, you know, return to my, you know, my somewhat abnormal normal life. But "Horses" took me on a whole different path.

GROSS: Is there a track from "Horses" that particularly illustrates what you were describing as what your mission was?

SMITH: "Birdland."

GROSS: OK.

SMITH: I think "Birdland" because - for various reasons. "Birdland" was an improvisation built on an improvisation. It so much exemplifies the communication of my band, especially between Richard, Lenny and I. And it speaks of this new breed, you know, the new generations who will be dreaming in animation, you know, the new generations that will race across the fields no longer presidents, but prophets. That - it's - that was my - it was like my telegram to the new breed.

GROSS: Oh, let's hear it. This is "Birdland" from Patti Smith's first album "Horses."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BIRDLAND")

SMITH: (Singing) I'll give you my eyes, take me up, oh yeah, please take me up. I'm helium raven waiting for you, please take me up. Don't leave me here. The son, the sign, the cross, like the shape of a tortured woman, the true shape of a tortured woman, the mother standing in the doorway letting her sons no longer presidents but prophets.

They're all dreaming they're going to bear the prophet. He's going to run through the fields dreaming in animation. It's all going to split his skull. It's going to come out like a black bouquet shining like a fist that's going to shoot them up like light, like Mohammed Boxer. Take them up, up, up, up, up, up. Oh, let's go up, up, take me up, I'll go up, I'm going up, I'm going up. Take me up, I'm going up, I'll go up there. Go up, go up, go up, go up, up, up, up, up, up, up. Up, up to the belly of a ship.

BIANCULLI: That's Patti Smith from her 1975 debut studio album "Horses." We'll hear more of her interview with Terry Gross after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry's 2010 interview with poet, songwriter and performer Patti Smith, one of our staff picks for favorite interviews of the past decade.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

GROSS: Robert Mapplethorpe did the very iconic photograph for the cover of "Horses." Would you briefly describe the photo?

SMITH: Well, it's very classic photograph by Robert, very simple. I'm standing against a white wall with a triangular shadow, dressed in the clothes typical of myself then. And just an old white shirt - a clean old white shirt - sort of a black ribbon that symbolizes a tie or a cravat, black pants, jacket's slung over my shoulder, looking directly at Robert. It's - has a little bit of Baudelaire, a little bit of Catholic boy, a little bit of Frank Sinatra and a lot of Robert.

GROSS: (Laughter) What impact do you think that photo had on how people perceived you?

SMITH: Well, I - you know, I don't know. I (laughter), I know people really liked it. I know the record company didn't.

GROSS: They didn't? That's such a great photo. Why didn't the record company like it?

SMITH: 'Cause my hair was messy, because you know, it just - it was a little incomprehensible to them at the time. But I fought for it, and they did try to airbrush my hair, but I made sure that was fixed.

People were very upset constantly about my appearance when I was young. I don't know what it was. You know, they just - it was very hard for them to factor. But I've always had that problem, even as a child. You know, I used to go to the beach when I was a little kid and just want to wear my dungarees and my flannel shirt. And the whole time, people would be, why are you wearing that? Why don't you get a bathing suit, you know, why are - it's like, leave me alone. (Laughter). It's just like, I'm not bothering you. Why are you worried about, you know, what I look like, you know? It's just - I'm not trying to bother anybody.

But people loved the photograph. The people on the streets loved the photograph. And it gave Robert some instant attention. I think it was his, you know, the - where he - it really helped, you know, launch his work into the public consciousness. And so we were both very happy about that. And the funniest thing and sort of the sweetest thing was, when I started performing after the record came out, I would go to clubs anywhere - it could be Denmark, it could be in Youngstown, Ohio - and I would come on stage and at least half of the kids had white shirts and black ties on.

GROSS: (Laughter).

SMITH: It was kind of cool. We were all - we all had suddenly turned Catholic.

GROSS: You write that, you know, when Mapplethorpe died of AIDS in March of '89, the morning that he died, you describe your feelings. And you say that you were shuddering, overwhelmed by a sense of excitement, acceleration, as if because of the closeness that you experienced with Robert, you were to be privy to his new adventure - the miracle of his death. You say this wild sensation stayed with you for some days. Could you describe that? Did you know he was dying when you - did - had you gotten the phone call when you felt this, or were you just feeling this, you know, without even...

SMITH: No, I felt that after he died.

GROSS: After he died.

SMITH: I had already received the call that he had died. I mean, we knew that he was dying. We knew that he was dying the last couple of weeks of his life. I talked to him. I talked to Robert in the last hour that he could still speak, and I listened to his breathing before I went to sleep. His brother called me and let me listen to his breathing, and he died that morning. So that sensation that I felt was his, you know, acceleration into his next place after death. I could really feel that.

I've experienced a lot of death since Robert. I sat with Allen Ginsberg when he died. I was with my husband when he died, my parents. But Robert - the acceleration in energy I felt after Robert's death was unique, and it did stay with me for quite a while. And I think that each of us - you know, our energy leaves in a different way according to the person - you know, according to the energy of the person, the way the spirit manifests. Each of us die differently. And we have - you know, I believe that - I believe we all have a unique journey, whether it's a journey of pure energy, if there's any intelligence within the journey. But I think each of us have our own way of dissipating or entering a new field.

GROSS: You say that one of the people who you were with when he died was Allen Ginsberg, and in your memoir, you mention some advice that Ginsberg had given you after your husband died. He said, let go of the spirit of the departed and continue your life's celebration. Having experienced as much death as you have, is that good advice, do you think?

SMITH: Yes. I mean, I think that, you know, there - the idea that time heals all wounds is not really true. Our wounds aren't really ever healed. We just learn to walk with them. We learn that some days, we're going to feel intense pain all over again. And we just have to say, OK, I know you; you can come along with me today, in the same way that, sometimes, we start laughing at - in the middle of nowhere remembering something that happened with someone we've lost.

And, you know, life is the best thing that we have. We each have a life. We have to negotiate it, navigate it. And I think it's very important that we enjoy our life, that we get everything we can out of it. And it doesn't take away from our love of the departed. I mean, I take Fred along with me in the things that I do or Robert or my father or my mother. You know, whoever wants to come along, they can be with me, and - you know, and if I want them, I can sense them. You know, we have our own life, but we can still walk with the people that we miss or that we lose. And I think it's very important to not be afraid to experience joy in the middle of sorrow because, you know, that's what our life is. You know, our art, it's the fearful symmetry of Blake - you know, joy and sorrow. You don't want to just feel one of them. They're both valuable to the spirit.

GROSS: Patti Smith, thank you so much for talking with us.

SMITH: Oh, you're welcome. Nice to talk to you, too.

BIANCULLI: Poet, songwriter and performer Patti Smith speaking to Terry Gross in 2010. Their talk was one of our staff picks for favorite interviews of the past decade. After a break, another favorite staff pick - Terry's interview with Bruce Springsteen. This is his version of "Because The Night," a song that he and Patti Smith wrote together. I'm David Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BECAUSE THE NIGHT")

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: (Singing) Take me now, baby, here as I am. Pull me close. Try and understand. Desire is hunger is the fire I breathe. Love is a banquet on which we feed. Come on, now. Try and understand the way I feel when I'm in your hands. Take my hand. Come undercover. They can't hurt you now. They can't hurt you now. They can't hurt you now because the night belongs to lovers, because the night belongs to lust, because the night belongs to lovers, because the night belongs to us. Have I doubt when I'm alone, love is a ring, the telephone.
DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli in for Terry Gross. Today we're continuing our series of staff picks of favorite interviews from the past decade. This one is with Bruce Springsteen, and it's special not only because of the conversation itself and the music we hear but also because Terry visited Springsteen at his home studio in New Jersey to record it. The rare on-location interview took place in 2016, when he was publishing his memoir, which shares its title with one of his biggest hits, "Born To Run." We'll start by hearing a demo recording of his song "Growin' Up" from the album "Chapter And Verse."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GROWIN' UP")

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: OK, take two.

(Singing) Well, I stood stone-like at midnight, suspended in my masquerade. I combed my hair till it was just right and commanded the night brigade. I was open to pain and crossed by the rain, and I walked on a crooked crutch. Well, I strolled all alone through a fallout zone and came out with my soul untouched. I hid in the clouded wrath of the crowd. They said, sit down. I stood up - ooh, growing up. Well, the flag of piracy flew from my mast.

TERRY GROSS, BYLINE: Bruce Springsteen, welcome to FRESH AIR, and thank you for welcoming us into your studio. I'd love it if you would start by reading the very opening from the forward of your book. It's really a fantastic book, and I'd like our listeners to just hear a little bit of your writing.

SPRINGSTEEN: OK, my pleasure.

(Reading) I come from a boardwalk town where almost everything is tinged with a bit of fraud. So am I. By 20, no race-car-driving rebel, I was a guitar player on the streets of Asbury Park and already a member in good standing amongst those who lie in service of the truth - artists with a small a. But I held four clean aces. I had youth, almost a decade of hardcore bar band experience, a good group of homegrown musicians who were attuned to my performance style and a story to tell. This book is both a continuation of that story and a search into its origins. I've taken as my parameters the events in my life I believe shaped that story and my performance work. One of the questions I'm asked over and over again by fans on the street is, how do you do it? In the following pages, I'll try to shed a little light on how and, more importantly, why.

GROSS: Thanks for reading that. So what's it like for you to write something that doesn't have to rhyme and that you don't have to perform onstage?

SPRINGSTEEN: (Laughter) That's actually - not having to perform it onstage is a good one. But it's a little different. You know, it's - I'm used to writing something, it becomes a record, it comes out, then I go perform and I play it, and I get this immediate feedback from the audience. So that's been the pattern of my life, but the book has been a little bit different, you know? I mean, you get feedback from the press, and the fans are just starting to get a chance to read it, so I'm looking forward to that.

But you still had to find the music inside your language, and it was - that's a big part of what sort of moved me to begin writing the book. I wrote a little essay, and I felt - yeah, this is a good voice. This is a good feeling. It feels like me. But then once you get into the book, you've got to constantly find your - the rhythm of your prose. And it ends up being quite a musical experience either way.

GROSS: Well, that's one of things I love about the book - is that there is rhythm and music in it even though it's not a song. So many of your songs, particularly the early ones, are about, you know, like, searching for a dream and running to, like, bust out of the confines of your life. And in some ways, you know, I get the impression from your book that that was your father's story, except he never found the dream. It's kind of like - a little bit like the story that you describe in your song "The River."

SPRINGSTEEN: Right. Well, my dad was young. He went to work, but he had been to war. He'd seen some of the world. It wasn't like he was going to be an extensive traveler or something. That didn't seem to be in the nature of - in his nature or in the nature of his parents or many of the folks in my family, really. There were - we had a cousin that went to - off to Brown University. It was like a nuclear explosion took place.

(LAUGHTER)

SPRINGSTEEN: You know, it was just incredible for everybody. So you're correct that my parents did really sort of live out a big part of that story, and to a certain degree, he did find his little piece of what he was looking for in California.

GROSS: 'Cause when you were 19, he moved to California.

SPRINGSTEEN: Yeah.

GROSS: Yeah.

SPRINGSTEEN: They moved out west, which was a huge undertaking because no one - it's like - it was like moving to another planet for them, but I think that's what my father wanted to do. He wanted to move to another planet. And they had very little. They had $3,000, and they - I think they had an old Rambler. And they slept two nights in the car and a night in a motel, and they had my little sister with them with all their stuff packed on top. It was a really go-for-broke decision, and it did pay off for them, you know? They - I think they enjoyed the West Coast and their California life quite a bit, you know? My father still had periods of illness that were...

GROSS: You're talking about mental illness?

SPRINGSTEEN: Yeah - difficult to manage. But I believe he did feel like he found something there that he couldn't have found at home.

GROSS: Do you think the song "Born To Run" is in part about him and in part about you?

SPRINGSTEEN: Well, someone mentioned that to me the other day. I always thought it was just about me (laughter), but what do you know? And looking back on it, my parents lived out quite a bit of that story themselves.

GROSS: So you had a dream in a way that your father maybe didn't have a dream that he could articulate.

SPRINGSTEEN: It certainly wasn't one he could articulate. It was just, I got to get out of here.

GROSS: Yeah, yeah. So you write, too, about your father that he was kind of very - let me quote you because you put it so well. You write that (reading) he loved me, but he couldn't stand me. He felt we competed for my mother's affections. We did. He also saw in me too much of his real self. Inside, beyond his rage, he harbored a gentleness, timidity, shyness and a dreamy insecurity. These were things I wore on the outside, and the reflection of these qualities in his boy repelled him. I was soft, and he hated soft. Of course, he'd been brought up soft - a mama's boy, just like me.

SPRINGSTEEN: (Laughter).

GROSS: So that timidity and shyness that you wore on the outside - it's kind of like the opposite of your stage persona.

SPRINGSTEEN: (Laughter) Yeah, it was bizarre.

GROSS: Can you tell us a little bit more about the timidity and shyness of your youth?

SPRINGSTEEN: Yeah. Well, T Bone Burnett once said that much of rock music is simply someone going wahhh (ph) daddy.

(LAUGHTER)

SPRINGSTEEN: So I've got to take my - I've got to take some blame for that myself, I guess. But, yeah, just it was - when I was young, you know, I was very shy, and that was my personality. You know, I was a pretty sensitive kid and quite neurotic, filled with a lot of anxiety, which all would have been very familiar to my pop, you know, except it was a part of himself he was trying to reject. So I got caught in the middle of it, I think.

GROSS: So do you think that your stage persona draws both from, like, the angry and uninhibited side of you and the more inhibited, timid side of you?

SPRINGSTEEN: I think it's both there. I think if you just - you know, I think plenty of folks, if you just looked at the outside, it can read - you know, it's pretty alpha male - you know? Which is - is a little ironic because, you know, it's - that was personally never exactly really me. I think I created my particular stage persona out of my dad's life. And perhaps I even built it to suit him to some degree. I was looking for - when I was looking for a voice to mix with my voice, I put on my father's work clothes, as I say in the book, and I went to work.

Whether it was the result of wanting to emulate him so I felt closer or whether it was - I wanted - as I say in the book, I wanted to be the reasonable voice of revenge for what I'd seen his life come to, it was all of these things. And it was an unusual creation, but most of these - most people's stage personas are created out of the flotsam and jetsam of their internal geography. And they're trying to - they're trying to create something that solves a series of very complex problems inside of them or in their history.

And I think when I - unknowingly, when I went to do that, that's what I was - I was trying to integrate all of these very difficult things that I'd been unable to integrate in my life and in my life with my parents.

BIANCULLI: Bruce Springsteen speaking with Terry Gross in 2016. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN SONG, "JUNGLELAND")

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry's 2016 interview with Bruce Springsteen. He'd just published his memoir called "Born To Run," and Terry Gross visited his New Jersey home studio to ask him about his book, his songs and his life. It's one of our staff picks for best interviews of the past decade.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

GROSS: During your early years as a musician, you were in Asbury Park, boardwalk, carnival atmosphere. What did you love about that kind of urban beach (laughter), you know?

SPRINGSTEEN: Yeah.

GROSS: And the - you know, Madame Marie and all of the - like, all of the boardwalk regulars, you made great stories out of those characters, great songs out of those characters. But what appealed to you about knowing them and writing about them?

SPRINGSTEEN: It was just my location at the time. I didn't move to Asbury with the thought of - you know, it wasn't an anthropological (laughter)...

GROSS: But you connected in some way.

SPRINGSTEEN: ...Reason. But I went, and I just fit in there. Asbury was down on its luck but not as bad as it would get. And so there was a lot of room to move. You know, clubs were open till 5 a.m. There were gay clubs. In even the late '60s, it was a bit of an open city. So as young ne'er-do-wells, we fit very...

GROSS: (Laughter).

SPRINGSTEEN: You know, we fit very comfortably in that picture. And then when I went to write, I just wrote about what was around me. It fired my imagination. It was - of course, was a colorful locale. The city was filled with characters and plenty of people at loose ends. And so it just became a very natural thing to write about. I didn't give it too much thought at the time. But I did think that it gave me a very individual identity in that if I was going to go out into the musical world on a national level, I was very interested in being connected to my home, my home state. There wasn't anyone else writing in this way about these things at that time. So it was something I did very intentionally in the sense as creating a certain very, very specific and original identity.

GROSS: And that's one of the things that really interests me in comparing you to Dylan because when you first started, people comparing you to Dylan, one of the new Dylans...

SPRINGSTEEN: Sure.

GROSS: ...And everything. In some ways, like, persona-wise, you're the opposite. He changed his name. He surrounded himself in mystery. His lyrics are very obscure. Your lyrics tell stories. You're all about a place. You reveal so much about yourself and the world around you in your songs that - you know what I mean? Like, I know...

SPRINGSTEEN: Yeah.

GROSS: I know that you're more than what you literally tell us about in the songs. But still, you have an identity and try to tell us something of who you are in your songs.

SPRINGSTEEN: You just go where your psychology leads you. I think - you know, I've always loved the fact that Bob's been able to sustain his mystery over 50 or 60 years. That's - in this day and age, that's quite a feat in itself. And, you know, the things that I loved about Bob's music - and I describe him in the book as the father of my country, which he really is - were things that just didn't fit when I went to do my job. You know, I'd come out of a somewhat different circumstance. And shoes - the clothes just didn't fit.

GROSS: I want to quote you again. So you write - this is toward the beginning of your career - I wanted to be a voice that reflected experience and the world I live in. So I knew in 1972 that to do this, I would need to write very well and more individually than I had ever written before. And this was - at some point you realized, too, that although you had, like, the most popular bar band in (laughter) Asbury Park, that there was a bigger world. There was a lot of...

SPRINGSTEEN: Yeah.

GROSS: ...Talented people. And in order to, like, be someone in that world, to have a career, to make a difference, that you had to figure out what was unique about you, and you had to write great songs. And in fact, you achieved that. You wrote great songs. But, you know, how did you go about trying to write the best songs that you could, I mean, when you knew that a lot of this was going to depend on the songwriting?

SPRINGSTEEN: When I thought about signing a record deal or writing something that might put me in the position - because I'd already had plenty of things that had fallen through with my rock bands - I looked at myself, and I just said, well, you know, I can sing, but I'm not the greatest singer in the world. I can play guitar very well, but I'm not the greatest guitar player in the world.

What excites me about a lot of the artists I love - and I realize, well, they created their own personal world that I could enter into through their music and through their songwriting. There's people that can do it instrumentally, like Jimi Hendrix or Edge of U2 or Pete Townshend. I didn't have as unique a purely musical signature. I was a creature of a lot of different influences. And so I said, well, if I'm going to project an individuality, it's going to have to be in my writing. And at the time - for one of the few times in my life, I didn't have a band. I just had myself and the guitar. So I was going to have to do something with just my voice, just the guitar and just my songs that was going to move someone enough to give me a shot.

So I wrote songs that were very lyrically alive and lyrically dense. And they were unique, but it really came out of the motivation to - or I understood it was - I was going to have to make my mark that way.

BIANCULLI: Bruce Springsteen speaking with Terry Gross in 2016. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN SONG, "THUNDERCRACK")

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry's 2016 interview with songwriter and performer Bruce Springsteen conducted at his home studio in New Jersey. He had just published his memoir called "Born To Run." This interview is one of our staff's favorites of the past decade.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

GROSS: You started going to therapy in 1983. And at some point, you say in your 60s, you had a really bad depression. And I'm wondering if you thought about, during that period when you were very depressed, how many people in the world really wanted to be you? And...

SPRINGSTEEN: (Laughter) Doesn't count for that much at the time.

GROSS: Yeah, right.

SPRINGSTEEN: (Laughter) You know, but - you know, people see you on stage and yeah, I'd want to be that guy. I want to be that guy myself very often.

GROSS: (Laughter).

SPRINGSTEEN: You know? I get plenty - I have plenty of days where I go, man, I wish I could be that guy. And...

GROSS: (Laughter).

SPRINGSTEEN: ...You know, it's not quite - there's a big difference between what you see on stage and then my general daily - (laughter) my daily existence.

GROSS: You write about - I'm sorry?

SPRINGSTEEN: No, I'm talking to myself.

GROSS: Oh, OK (laughter).

SPRINGSTEEN: Don't let that bother you. It's part of my illness. I do it all the time. (Laughter).

GROSS: You write about how being on stage is almost like medicine for you.

SPRINGSTEEN: Sure.

GROSS: You know, does it get you out of yourself? Does it...

SPRINGSTEEN: Oh, of course. You're immediately pulled out of the - your - the inside of your head, and it immediately changes your frame of mind. I've never been on stage where I've - no, that's not true. I have been on stage on a few occasions where I felt I couldn't escape the interior of my - my interior thoughts. But Peter Wolf once said, what's the strangest thing you can do on stage? Think about what you're doing.

GROSS: (Laughter).

SPRINGSTEEN: There's just nothing weirder you can do. If you're up there thinking about what you're doing, you're just not there. And it's not going to happen, you know? So trying to learn how to overcome those - which is a normal thing to do. You're in front of a lot of people. People going to get very self-conscious. So you have to learn to sort of overcome that tendency towards self-consciousness and just blow it wide open. And you jump in and join all those people that are out there enjoying what you're doing together.

GROSS: During the depression, there was a period of a year and a half when you weren't on the road. You were home with one of your sons - I guess with your youngest?

SPRINGSTEEN: Mmm hmm.

GROSS: Did that contribute to the depression because you couldn't be on stage, and you couldn't have that kind of cathartic experience?

SPRINGSTEEN: Yeah, I tend to be not my own best company. I can get a little lost if I don't have my work to occasionally focus me. But at the same time, you've got to be able to figure that out. The year and a half I was home, my son was in his last year of high school, and it was kind of my last opportunity to be here with him in the house. And I wanted to get that right.

GROSS: As you mention in your book, you wanted to write songs that you wouldn't outgrow, that you could sing as an adult...

SPRINGSTEEN: Right.

GROSS: ...That weren't just kids' songs and...

SPRINGSTEEN: Yeah.

GROSS: ...You know, done, accomplished.

SPRINGSTEEN: Yeah.

GROSS: But when you sing some of your early songs now as you still do, like "Born To Run," does the song have a different meaning to you than it did when you first started performing it?

SPRINGSTEEN: We just had a series of concerts where the show was very interesting because we'd start out with my earliest material. And we played about half a record off of our first record and then half or three quarters off of the second record, so I was going back to my earliest music and re-singing my earliest songs that I wrote when I was 22. And it was funny that they just fit perfectly well, you know? There was a - they sort of gather the years up as time passes, and you can revisit - the wonderful thing about my job is you can revisit your 22-year-old-self or your 24-year-old self any particular night you want. The songs pick up some extra resonance, I hope, but they're still - they're there, and I can revisit that period of my life when I choose.

So it's quite a nice experience. And the songs themselves do broaden out as time passes and take on subtly different meanings - take on more meaning, I find.

GROSS: What's an example of a song that's taken on a different meaning or more meaning for you?

SPRINGSTEEN: A lot of the ones that are people's favorites. You know, "Born To Run" - that expands every time we go out. It just seems to - even more of your life fills it in, fills in the story. And when we hit it every night, it's always a huge catharsis. It's fascinating to see the audience singing it back to me. It's quite wonderful, you know, to see people that intensely singing your song.

GROSS: As someone who grew up in Brooklyn and now lives in Philadelphia, I love that you've continued to live in New Jersey - not only in New Jersey, but not far from where you grew up. Why have you stayed close to the home that your father left? Your father went to the opposite coast...

SPRINGSTEEN: It's ironic, yeah.

GROSS: ...When you were a teenager.

SPRINGSTEEN: (Laughter) It's rather ironic, but I just felt very comfortable here. And I was uncomfortable with city life. I was more or less a kid that came out of a small town, and I was a beach bum and loved the ocean and loved the sun. And I liked the people that were here. I liked who I was when I was here. I wanted to continue writing about the things that I felt were important, and those things were pretty much here. I feel like a lot of my heroes from the past lost themselves in different ways once they had a certain amount of success, and I was nervous about that, and I wanted to remain grounded. And living in this part of New Jersey was something that was - it was essential to who I was and continues to this day to be that way.

GROSS: Bruce Springsteen, I can't thank you enough for...

SPRINGSTEEN: Thank you.

GROSS: ...Inviting us into your studio and allowing us to do this interview.

SPRINGSTEEN: Thank you very much.

GROSS: Thank you so much.

SPRINGSTEEN: Very enjoyable. I appreciate it.

GROSS: And I really love the book.

SPRINGSTEEN: Thanks a lot.

BIANCULLI: Bruce Springsteen speaking to Terry Gross at his home studio in New Jersey in 2016. He had just published his memoir, called "Born To Run," and their conversation was one of our staff picks for favorite interviews of the past decade.

On Monday's show, our guest will be Todd Phillips, who wrote and directed the new film "Joker," a realistic origin story on the Batman comic book villain. The Joker, played by Joaquin Phoenix, is a troubled man with a history of serious mental health problems. Phillips also directed "The Hangover" films. Hope you can join us.

FRESH AIR'S executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support from Joyce Lieberman and Julian Herzfeld. Our associate producer for digital media is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. For Terry Gross, I'm David Bianculli.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THUNDER ROAD")

SPRINGSTEEN: (Singing) The screen door slams. Mary's dress waves. Like a vision, she dances across the porch as the radio plays Roy Orbison signing for the lonely. Hey; that's me, and I want you only. Don't turn me home again. I just can't face myself alone again. Don't run back inside, darling. You know just what I'm here for. So you're scared, and you're thinking that maybe we ain't that young anymore. Show a little faith. There's magic in the night. You ain't a beauty, but hey; you're all right, oh, and that's all right with me. You can hide 'neath (ph) your covers and study your pain, make crosses from your lovers, throw roses in the rain, waste your summer praying in vain for a savior to rise from these streets. Well, now, I ain't no hero. That's understood. All the redemption I can offer, girl, is beneath this dirty hood. With a chance to make it good somehow, hey; what else can we do now except roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair? Well, the night's busting open. These two lanes will take us anywhere. We got one last chance to make it real, to trade in these wings on some wheels. Climb in back. Heaven's waiting on down the tracks.

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