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Bruce Springsteen sets autobiography, ‘Born to Run’

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“Born to Run,” meet “Born to Run.”

Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography, “Born to Run,” will be published Sept. 26, the legendary rocker announced Thursday. It will come 41 years after his 1975 album, “Born to Run,” propelled him to stardom and made him the cover subject of issues of Time and Newsweek magazine that came out the same week.

The Boss, as Springsteen has long been known by fans, began writing his book shortly after he and his E Street Band performed at the 2009 Super Bowl halftime show. “Born to Run” will be published in hardcover, ebook, and audio editions by Simon & Schuster in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, India and Australia. It will also be published in more than half a dozen European countries, from France and Italy to Spain and Norway.

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“Writing about yourself is a funny business,” Mr. Springsteen observes in his book. “But in a project like this, the writer has made one promise, to show the reader his mind. In these pages, I’ve tried to do this.”

Springsteen has been the subject of a number of biographies. What will his cover?

According to Thursday’s announcement, “In Born to Run, Mr. Springsteen describes growing up in Freehold, New Jersey amid the “poetry, danger, and darkness” that fueled his imagination. He vividly recounts his relentless drive to become a musician, his early days as a bar band king in Asbury Park, and the rise of the E Street Band. With disarming candor, he also tells for the first time the story of the personal struggles that inspired his best work, and shows us why the song “Born to Run” reveals more than we previously realized.”

Springsteen and his band are now embarked on “The River Tour,” which includes three March concerts at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. He and his group have not performed in San Diego since 1972, despite the fact that rare is a Springsteen concert that does not feature his rousing song, “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight),” which includes the lines: “I know a pretty little place in Southern California, down San Diego way / There’s a little cafe, where they play guitars all night and all day / You can hear them in the back room strummin’.”

Will “Born to Run” devote a chapter, or even a paragraph, to why The Boss and the E Street Band have not performed here together in 34 years? Or that his parents apparently lived here for a while, after his father retired? Or, according to street lore, that Springsteen once drove down from Los Angeles to have a piece of furniture restored in Ocean Beach?

Time will tell.

Probably not, but let’s wait and see.

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