Carlin revisits those pivotal years with a fan’s fervor and a journalist’s attention to detail ... Like a director’s cut, Tonight in Jungleland expands on, updates and sometimes revises his researches into Springsteen’s self-invention in the 1970s ... Carlin’s prose heightens the drama of the album’s construction ... Vividly summons the album’s struggle and its spirit.
Few writers make the recording and writing process feel as alive as Carlin does, recounting the story behind Born to Run with a deep appreciation for Springsteen’s craft and artistry; it’s music writing and biography at its finest ... A unique look inside the artistic process.
Carlin made the most of his remarkable access to Springsteen’s bandmates, producer, agent–and The Boss himself ... Chapters devoted to individual songs...reveal both the inspiration as well as the prolonged struggles involved ... You don’t have to be a Springsteen fan or even a rock music fan to appreciate this book. It reads like a novel, shining a light on the power of authenticity.
Told through both archival and original interviews, including one with The Boss himself over this past winter, Tonight in Jungleland digs deep to tell the magnificent story ... Carlin is able to tell us more in a book that is a must-read accompaniment to the biography of a man that many of us have only known to exist in the stratosphere of musical artists. But what makes this book remarkable is what almost wasn’t — his most perfect album.
As Carlin details the actual recording sessions, he seems to use both new and archival interviews of those involved, as well as transcripts of the session tapes ... In this book, the songs are dissected musically, lyrically, and thematically ... What Carlin does here is more than just music journalism. He creates a story, a mood, and triumphs and challenges for its main and supporting characters, almost novelistic in its approach and analysis.
Carlin delves into the messy details surrounding the mercurial, obviously talented then-25-year-old ... Readers will be amply rewarded—swept up in the whirlwind of Springsteen’s touring circuit, exhausted by his long sessions in the recording studio, and elated at the triumphant conclusion ... Carlin admirably maintains a sense of immediacy. This book is an exemplary rock history, by turns poetic and gritty.
An admirably comprehensive study ... Born To Run was a triumph, installing Springsteen in rock’s canon, but this book thrives in exploring the hard work that preceded it.
Carlin takes a fascinating look at the challenges of making an album whose success now seems inevitable, exploring what drives artists to create as well as how their relationship with their work can shift as it becomes part of popular culture. Springsteen fans should snap this up.
