The piano Bruce Springsteen used to put in writing “Born to Run” is lacking someplace within the swamps of Jersey — however may very well be value a fortune if ever recovered.
Little is thought concerning the previous piano, however anybody within the neighborhood of Lengthy Department with a beat-up previous Aeolian upright of their basement would do properly to test beneath the lid — in accordance with legend, your complete E Road band signed it once they completed recording Born to Run, then left the piano behind in Bruce’s previous home.
“Whoever discovers that piano, and opens it up and sees the signatures, will discover that they’ve occurred upon the holy grail in Springsteen world,” mentioned Rob Kirkpatrick, an E Road superfan and the writer of “Magic within the Night time: The Phrases and Music of Bruce Springsteen.”
The instrument hasn’t been seen for the reason that early Nineties, when Springsteen’s one-time landlord Marilyn Rocky had it hauled onto the sidewalk after years of it sitting within the modest Lengthy Department residence she rented out to the rocker as he was engaged on the legendary album.
“After I rented the home to Bruce in 1974, he moved in and he had this little upright piano. When he moved out two years later, he left it there,” mentioned Rocky, who would shout out the home’s quantity – “Seven-and-a-half!” – whereas watching Bruce play small golf equipment again within the early days.
When he heard her, he would inform the viewers his “Landlordess” was within the crowd, she mentioned.
Rocky, now 81, first met Springsteen when he was simply 24-years previous and down on his luck as he chased stardom. By then he had two albums beneath his belt, each of which had been met with important acclaim — however they’d offered abysmally, and Columbia Data was promising to drop him if the third wasn’t successful.
He’d been all however homeless whereas touring for the previous two years, however the Boss was in search of a spot to dig in and write one other album when he walked into Rocky’s actual property workplace and requested for a rental on his rock and roll turf in Asbury Park.
She had nothing there, however provided him a shotgun-shack she owned up the coast in Lengthy Department for $200 a month, she mentioned.
“He was simply so younger, he was a boy,” Rocky mentioned. “And this was the primary time ever that he lived on his personal exterior of his home, or wasn’t sleeping on the ground of the Scholar Prince in Asbury, or on the highway doing concert events.”
Springsteen was a stand-up tenant, Rocky mentioned. He reportedly tended the row of bushes alongside the porch, and would typically pay his lease months prematurely in anticipation of lengthy stretches of insolvency whereas he was on highway touring, or within the studio with out pay.
And he spent his nights seated on the Aeolian piano he’d introduced alongside and pushed towards a wall within the entrance room, feeling his manner throughout the keyboard of an instrument he barely knew tips on how to play.
The earlier two albums — “Greetings from Asbury Park” and “The Wild, the Harmless and the E Road Shuffle” — had been written on guitar, however Bruce turned to the piano for the primary time whereas writing “Born to Run,” and it remodeled his sound, in accordance with Kirkpatrick.
“Bruce has at all times primarily been a guitar participant,” Kirkpatrick mentioned. “Which isn’t to say he couldn’t play piano, however he’d described himself as ‘the quickest guitar in Asbury Park.’
“It should have an effect on your writing course of to not be in your major instrument,” Kirkpatrick mentioned. “And on songs like ‘Backstreets,’ I feel we hear the fruits of Bruce composing a tune not as a virtuoso on piano, however as somebody who’s writing very intentionally for emotion quite than method.”
These fruits grew to become music historical past. “Born to Run” was a smash hit when it was launched in August 1975, and launched Springsteen to stardom. That October he landed on the duvet of Time and Newsweek on the identical day; by November he was touring abroad for the primary time; and to today the album stays one of many defining achievements of rock and roll.
And it began on the piano he left behind in Marilyn Rocky’s front room, the place it sat steadily going out of tune for twenty years.
“Subsequent renters simply left it in the lounge, used it for no matter they discovered it helpful for,” mentioned Rocky, who offered the home someday between ’93 and ’94 and instructed her final tenant to toss all of the furnishings to the curb for trash pickup.
“It was not an excellent piece of furnishings. It was previous and beat up. Though, from what I recall, you can nonetheless pick a tune on the keys, however it had actually been sitting there for 20 years.”
Days later she was on the dentist, and of all folks bumped into Springsteen’s right-hand man and saxophone participant Clarence Clemons — he was additionally getting his tooth cleaned — and he requested if she nonetheless had the previous piano.
“He mentioned, ‘Nicely, you recognize, once we completed writing all of the music for ‘Born to Run,’ a few of us had been in the home in the future and we noticed it. We lifted up the highest and we signed it and left it there for you.’”
Floored, Rocky rushed to a cellphone and referred to as up her tenant to inform them to not go away till she had the piano — however it was too late.
“He mentioned, ‘Nicely, that’s drawback.’ And I mentioned, ‘Downside being what?’ And he mentioned, Nicely, you instructed me to wash issues out, that previous piano’s been sitting there… I threw it out’ And he mentioned it was picked up two days in the past.’”
“That’s the final anyone has ever seen or heard of it.”
Rocky thinks the piano was seemingly picked up by the rubbish collectors and that it’s “melted into the soil” in a dump someplace. However that hasn’t stopped rock and roll treasure-hunters from attempting to find it over time on the likelihood that it ended up saved from the sidewalk, or that it nonetheless lives in a dump someplace.
“I as soon as received a name from the president of the Piano Technicians Guild, who requested me if I may give them the precise date that the piano was thrown out and the place the rubbish would have been taken,” she mentioned, explaining they instructed her if Bruce had the instrument professionally tuned then the affiliation would seemingly have a report of it and so they’d have the ability to verify its id – if it may simply be discovered.
However within the three a long time because it went lacking no person has been capable of monitor it down — and public sale appraiser Leila Dunbar thinks it might be value not less than $300,000 if it ever turned up in salvageable situation
“And given the market, it may promote for extra,” she added, explaining that Freddie Mercury’s piano used to put in writing “Bohemian Rhapsody” offered for $2.1 million in 2023, whereas the piano John Lennon wrote “Think about” with offered for $2.1 million in 2000 and could be value as much as $10 million immediately.
Although not an appraiser, as a bona fide superfan Kirkpatrick thinks a “severe collector” would put down “seven figures” if the piano was ever present in salvageable situation.
“Any historical past of rock and roll within the twentieth century is incomplete with out speaking about Born to Run,” he mentioned. “So the instrument on which most of it was composed and which gave it it’s musical id —the worth of such a chunk is… it’s invaluable.”
As for Rocky, she thinks her time with Bruce and the band was value way over no matter worth the piano may ever have fetched her.
“If I didn’t know I had it or that they signed it, I definitely didn’t lose something!” she mentioned.
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