The album that started it all, and remained the "gold standard" for the rest of his discography. The first bravura tracks in the vein of "Rosalita" featuring a depiction of those left behind by the American dream, adorned with a sequence that is no accident: "Thunder Road" begins in the morning, "Backstreets" evokes a hot afternoon (with the humidity conveyed by the repetition - more than twenty times - of "hiding on the backstreets"), the anthem "Born To Run" an evening, and the interminable "Jungleland," which concludes on the following morning. Jon Landau, the co-producer and manager, asserted his influence over Bruce Springsteen's future ex-entourage: against general opinion, for instance, he advised moving the sax solo in "Thunder Road" to the end rather than the middle, where it had diminished the song's energy. His young sound engineer, Jimmy Iovine, would later make a name for himself as producer of the Patti Smith Group's *Easter*, among other works, and then as founder of the Interscope label. Among the many songs recorded but excluded from this album, two emerged in the 1998 *Tracks* box set: "Linda Let Me Be The One" and "So Young And In Love," and one in *The Essential* compilation in 2003: "None But The Brave."
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