STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
The screen door slams. Mary's dress sways. Like a vision, she dances across the porch as the radio plays.
Those are the first words on the first track of Bruce Springsteen's album "Born To Run."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BORN TO RUN")
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: (Singing) 'Cause tramps like us, baby, we were born to run.
INSKEEP: You can think of this as pop music, but some scholars see it as poetry. And for years, they have met to discuss it at Monmouth University in New Jersey. NPR's Frank Langfitt recently attended a symposium celebrating the 50th anniversary of the album.
FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: Bob Santinelli runs the Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music at Monmouth. Earlier this year, he put out a call for academic research.
BOB SANTINELLI: We hoped for 32 papers - got 139.
LANGFITT: The university devoted an entire day to presentations, including a whopping 27 breakout sessions. One was devoted to this song.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THUNDER ROAD")
SPRINGSTEEN: (Singing) Ooh, oh, oh, oh, Thunder Road, sit tight. Take hold, Thunder Road.
ERNIE SANDONATO: Hi. I'm Ernie Sandonato, and I'm here because I love Bruce. I've been coming to these since 2005. I'm a retired schoolteacher.
LANGFITT: Sandonato taught English for nearly four decades in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He used Springsteen's lyrics to teach poetry.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SANDONATO: Today, I'm going to talk about the carpe diem message in "Thunder Road."
LANGFITT: It's a classic rock-and-roll narrative.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THUNDER ROAD")
SPRINGSTEEN: (Singing) Ooh, oh, come take my hand. We're riding out tonight to case the promised land.
LANGFITT: Man urges his girlfriend to take a chance and leave their dead-end town.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THUNDER ROAD")
SPRINGSTEEN: (Singing) It's a town full of losers. I'm pulling out of here to win.
LANGFITT: Sandonato said the same seize-the-day theme appears more than three centuries earlier in English poetry. Consider this poem, which was featured in the 1989 Robin Williams film "The Dead Poets Society."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DEAD POETS SOCIETY")
JAMES WATERSTON: (As Gerard Pitts) Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. Old Time is still a-flying. And this same flower that smiles today tomorrow will be dying.
LANGFITT: Sandonato explained.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SANDONATO: It's about the fleeting nature of youth and seizing opportunities, the urgency of action, and it demands immediate response.
LANGFITT: Springsteen's lyrics resonated with Anthony Larson when he first heard them growing up on a farm in Kansas.
ANTHONY LARSON: When I was young, it was this sort of, like, wow. Here we go. It's just, like, this invitation to get out of town. And it was amazing.
LANGFITT: Larson took that advice. Today he's a professor of American studies in France. He flew in to present his paper on how "Born To Run" captures the social and economic contradictions of the 1970s.
LARSON: I was thrilled to be able to submit a paper proposal and to have it accepted. I can't believe my luck.
LANGFITT: And that luck continued. Springsteen made a surprise appearance at the symposium - played "Born To Run" and "Thunder Road" with the E Street Band.
LARSON: When we heard Bruce play those songs yesterday, I mean, there were tears in my eyes. "Thunder Road" - I mean, it's just - it's an America that - where I don't live anymore and that I've lost. I keep it alive in imaginary places.
LANGFITT: And that imaginary place is?
LARSON: The music of Bruce Springsteen.
LANGFITT: Not everyone came here because Springsteen spoke to their teenage experience.
TWILA PERRY: I'm Twila Perry, and I'm actually a retired law professor from Rutgers.
LANGFITT: Perry's 75 and grew up in Harlem. Her taste stretches from opera to Prince. She says she just likes Springsteen for his music and lyrics. Her favorite song? "Thunder Road."
(SOUNDBITE OF BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN SONG, "THUNDER ROAD")
PERRY: The way it starts out with the piano and the harmonica - it's just beautiful.
LANGFITT: And the story.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THUNDER ROAD")
SPRINGSTEEN: (Singing) The screen door slams. Mary's dress sways.
PERRY: It's very visual. I mean, I can see it.
LANGFITT: Perry says she doesn't have many friends who like Springsteen. This was a rare chance to hang out with so many who do - a pop-up community of fans and scholars analyzing one of the great rock-and-roll albums a half-century on.
Frank Langfitt, NPR News, West Long Branch, New Jersey. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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