Tramps like Bruce Springsteen may have been born to run, but “From Asbury Park to the Promised Land” was never supposed to leave its home base at Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. National Constitution Center president and CEO David Eisner offered three reasons why he felt it was so important to have the exhibit come to Philly.
“First, it gives us a very unique and exciting perspective on themes that are at the heart of what we do here,” Eisner said during a tour of the exhibit. “Second, we see the work of Bruce Springsteen as chronicling the quest for the American dream in the lives of we, the people, charting the distance between where we are and where we as a nation aspire to be.”
And third, naturally, “because this, for Bruce, is home.”
The show traces the Jersey icon’s rise from humble beginnings and bar bands to rock superstardom. Featured are a host of instruments worn down by years of use by the Boss and other members of the E Street Band; countless lyric sheets, including the handwritten words for some of Springsteen’s most revered songs; and outfits, including the jeans and T-shirt from the cover of “Born in the USA” and the leather jacket from “Born To Run.”
