Books were called a “cornerstone” of Bruce Springsteen‘s creative process, as The Boss breaks down which books inspired him to write music.
The veteran performer has more than a few hits to his name and shared that it was fiction from great writers like Sherwood Anderson and Flannery O’Connor which influenced his writing style. In an interview given to the New York Times in 2014, Springsteen rattled off a few of his major influences and said the authors in question contributed to what is perceived as one of Springsteen’s most prolific and acclaimed periods. Reading their works at the time inspired the likes of Darkness on the Edge of Town, The River, and Nebraska.
Springsteen said: “I skipped most of college, becoming a road musician, so I didn’t begin reading seriously until 28 or 29. Then it was Flannery O’Connor, James M. Cain, John Cheever, Sherwood Anderson, and Jim Thompson, the great noir writer. These authors contributed greatly to the turn my music took around 1978-82.
“They brought out a sense of geography and the dark strain in my writing, broadened my horizons about what might be accomplished with a pop song and are still the cornerstone literally for what I try to accomplish today.”
In other interviews given by the Born to Run and Born in the U.S.A. songwriter, Springsteen would confirm he was not brought up in a house with books. Instead, TV was his gateway into the wider world.
He told the New York Times it was not until his late 20s that he began reading, but in a separate interview, he confirmed O’Connor was a huge influence on his worldview and how he would go on to write music. Springsteen said: “The really important reading that I did began in my late twenties, with authors like Flannery O’Connor.
“There was something in those stories of hers that I felt captured a certain part of the American character that I was interested in writing about. They were a big, big revelation.” The influence O’Connor had on Nebraska has since been confirmed by Springsteen, who suggested the “dark spirituality” of her work is what he connected with most at the time.
He added: “At home, just before recording Nebraska, I was reading Flannery O’Connor. Her stories reminded me of the unknowability of God and contained a dark spirituality that resonated with my feeling at the time.”
Springsteen would later list some of his favourite books, including Love in the Time of Cholera and Moby Dick. Elsewhere in the New York piece, he cited Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley, and The Stories of Chekov. Bob Dylan’s autobiography, Chronicles, was also listed, as was Keith Richards’ Life.
