The Author Behind One Of Rock's Greatest Anthems Was Born 77 Years Ago Today

Bruce Springsteen has several almost perfect songs, but "Born to Run" hits on a different level. It's the ultimate anthem about chasing freedom, made all the more exciting by its stadium-sized chorus and Clarence Clemons' epic saxophone solo. Everyone and their grandparents are probably familiar with the track at this point, and what better time to celebrate it than September 23? It's Springsteen's birthday, after all.

Springsteen was born in Long Beach, New Jersey, in 1949. He spent his childhood listening to the Beatles and Elvis Presley, which made him want to become a rock superstar in his own right. In 1973, he released his debut album, "Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.," establishing himself as a blue-collar poet — albeit one who found commercial success hard to come by early on. However, that all changed when "Born to Run" hit the airwaves nearly three years later, taking the Boss' career to the next level by entering the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 23.

Even though Springsteen's signature hit never hit No. 1, it still performed pretty well on the charts. These days, though, it's regarded as an all-time rock classic and a staple of the Boss' sets. With that in mind, how did the song come to fruition?

Bruce Springsteen needed a hit before "Born to Run" came out. He had some disagreements with the label while recording "The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle," to the point that Columbia executives were open to scrapping the whole thing. With that said, the New Jersey native wrote "Born to Run" with the goal of taking over the world — and it's safe to say he succeeded.

"I had these enormous ambitions," Springsteen told Rolling Stone. "I wanted to make the greatest rock record that I'd ever heard, and I wanted it to sound enormous and I wanted it to grab you by your throat and insist that you take that ride, insist that you pay attention, not to just the music, but just to life, to feeling alive, to being alive. That was sort of what the song was asking, and it was taking a step out into the unknown."

Springsteen hated "Born to Run" at first. In fact, he was against the whole album after he recorded it. In the end, he released it anyway, and he seems to have warmed to it over time. The Boss believes the track is timeless because everyone relates to its themes of longing in some way, which makes sense. That said, it's also a banger that still sounds enormous — and those are the best tracks to listen to with the volume turned all the way up.