{"id":18206,"date":"2024-02-22T10:52:55","date_gmt":"2024-02-22T15:52:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/?p=18206"},"modified":"2024-02-22T10:52:55","modified_gmt":"2024-02-22T15:52:55","slug":"song-sleuth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/song-sleuth\/","title":{"rendered":"Song Sleuth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Like the mysterious figures who inspired the Rolling Stones\u2019 \u201cAngie\u201d and Carley Simon\u2019s \u201cYou\u2019re So Vain,\u201d the identity of Wendy, the woman Bruce Springsteen implores to \u201clet me in\u201d in his song \u201cBorn to Run,\u201d has long been the subject of speculation. While some fans think it\u2019s a reference to Wendy Cook, a childhood acquaintance of Springsteen, others say the singer chose the name at random. A few have even theorized a link to Wendy Darling, the character in Peter Pan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senior English education major Carlee Migliorisi once counted herself among the random selection camp. \u201cI figured he just picked the name out of a hat and threw it in there,\u201d says the Springsteen uberfan. \u201cI didn\u2019t really think there was much significance to it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But after spending last summer researching the birth of the song, she\u2019s convinced there is a connection to the beloved children\u2019s story. And she shared what she discovered about the song\u2019s creation in an unexpected way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project started last spring after Migliorisi, who works as a student archivist in the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music<\/a>, stumbled upon an issue of the long-out of-print magazine Crawdaddy. Published in 1975, just after the \u201cBorn to Run\u201d album had been released, the magazine featured a cover story on Springsteen. Written by editor Peter Knobler, the article includes a brief description of the Long Branch, New Jersey, cottage in which Springsteen lived while working on the album. The bedroom there was a mess, Knobler wrote, with motorcycle magazines and records strewn about. But there was a key detail\u2014just a few words buried within eight pages of text\u2014that caught Migliorisi\u2019s eye. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAbove Springsteen\u2019s bed \u2026 was a tacked poster of Peter Pan leading Wendy out the window,\u201d she explains. It\u2019s common knowledge among fans that Springsteen wrote \u201cBorn to Run\u201d while sitting on the edge of his bed, says Migliorisi, and she thinks the singer likely found lyrical inspiration in his surroundings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

When you look at the lyrics, \u2018Wendy, let me in. I want to be your friend. I want to guard your dreams and visions,\u2019 to some extent, that is what Peter Pan is trying to do in the beloved classic story. \u2026 He doesn\u2019t want Wendy to grow up.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re just sitting there with a notebook and don\u2019t have any ideas on what to write about, you tend to look around,\u201d says Migliorisi. Given the additional context she found in Knobler\u2019s article, \u201cAll of the arrows are pointing in the direction of Springsteen sitting at the edge of his bed, looking up above his headboard \u2026 and there, right above him, are Wendy and Peter Pan.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Disappointed there was no photo of the room\u2014\u201cit\u2019s such a big piece of the story behind the song\u201d\u2014Migliorisi decided to re-create the iconic space in a painting. Wanting to make it \u201cas historically accurate as possible,\u201d she started combing through everything she could find in the Archives that would give her an idea of the room\u2019s contents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt that time, Springsteen was giving himself a crash course in \u201950s rock \u2019n\u2019 roll \u2026 and he had a 45 player right next to his bed so that he could just roll over and put a song on without having to get up,\u201d says Migliorisi. So, she researched which albums Springsteen would have been listening to\u2014Roy Orbison, the Everly Brothers, and Elvis, among others\u2014and incorporated them into her painting. Then she searched online for motorcycle magazines from the time period that Springsteen rented the house so that she could accurately depict those. She also studied typical 1970s bedroom decor; hence the \u201cawful green carpet\u201d in the painting. She even threw in an Easter egg: the cover of the Rolling Stone magazine that Springsteen was featured in at that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thought, \u2018He was in the issue, of course he probably had a copy laying around in his room,\u2019\u201d says Migliorisi. \u201cI pulled in everything that could have possibly been in that room to make the painting feel as authentic as possible.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Migliorisi says she\u2019s received \u201cpretty good reviews from people who lived through the \u201970s\u201d about the painting\u2019s authenticity, but one person\u2019s feedback was particularly meaningful. When Knobler visited campus last fall for a 50th anniversary symposium on \u201cThe Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle,\u201d Migliorisi showed him her creation.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"An
It\u2019s widely believed Springsteen wrote \u201cBorn to Run\u201d in the bedroom of the Long Branch, New Jersey, cottage in which he stayed while working on the album. But with no photos of the space, Carlee Migliorisi re-created it in a painting, referencing primary sources from the Archives to make it as historically accurate as she could.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cHe was honored that I took such inspiration from his article,\u201d she says. \u201cHe also seemed very touched when I told him how important I view Crawdaddy in the story of Bruce Springsteen. Being that the magazine did not last for more than 13 years, it is often forgotten or generally unknown to most people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Migliorisi, who\u2019s planning to pursue a Master\u2019s in English at Monmouth after graduating this May, says she hasn\u2019t ruled out compiling her research into a formal academic paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think Wendy is more of a symbol,\u201d says Migliorisi. \u201cWhen you look at the lyrics, \u2018Wendy, let me in. I want to be your friend. I want to guard your dreams and visions,\u2019 to some extent, that is what Peter Pan is trying to do in the beloved classic story. \u2026 He doesn\u2019t want Wendy to grow up.\u201d It\u2019s a theme that runs not just through the song \u201cBorn to Run\u201d but through the entire album, says Migliorisi. The coming-of-age narrative Springsteen crafted on \u201cBorn to Run\u201d is one he would build on in later works that feature characters who are forced to grow up and confront the challenges of adulthood, she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does that sound like the seeds of a yet-to- be-written master\u2019s thesis? Perhaps. But till then, \u201cIt\u2019s just a fun tidbit about one of my favorite artists and the inspiration for one of rock \u2019n\u2019 roll\u2019s most famous songs,\u201d says Migliorisi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carlee Migliorisi lets us in on the little-known history behind one of rock\u2019s legendary anthems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":18212,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"image_focus":"{\"x\":33,\"y\":30}","hide_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[91],"class_list":["post-18206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-currents","tag-alumni-student-faculty"],"thumbnail":"\"\"","catString":"Currents","issue":"Fall\/Winter 2023","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18206"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18259,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18206\/revisions\/18259"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}