Springsteen Talks Writing Autobiography ‘Born to Run’

Videos by American Songwriter

In penning his autobiography, Bruce Springsteen took the same approach he uses when writing songs.

“You write down your first thoughts which is a blueprint, and see if you have something that can be worked on,” Springsteen says in a new video interview, which you can watch below.

The book, titled Born To Run, comes out September 27 and is being published by Simon & Schuster.

The Boss says he worked on the book off and on over the course of seven years. “Mainly I was just trying to write as well as I could,” he said.

“The hardest part is … writing about the present, [because] it’s all people you’re living with in your life today,” he added. “That was the most challenging part. Writing about stuff in the past you felt you had a lot of freedom there.”

Springsteen is releasing a companion album to the book called Chapter and Verse, which will include five unreleased tracks.

Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Bob Woodruff Foundation