Entertainment

Bruce Springsteen to release memoir Born to Run later this year

Simon & Schuster announced Thursday that Bruce Springsteen has spent the past several years working on a memoir, which will come out Sept. 27, four days after Springsteen turns 67.
Bruce Springsteen, shown during a benefit concert November 10, 2015 in New York City. (Ilya S. Savenok/Getty for Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science)

Simon & Schuster announced Thursday that Bruce Springsteen has spent the past several years working on a memoir, which will come out Sept. 27, four days after Springsteen turns 67.

The book will be called Born to Run. Financial terms were not disclosed, although his deal is almost certainly worth millions.

"Writing about yourself is a funny business," Springsteen said in a statement that will appear in his book. "But in a project like this, the writer has made one promise, to show the reader his mind. In these pages, I've tried to do this."

According to Simon & Schuster, Springsteen will tell his story with "disarming candour" as he remembers his childhood in New Jersey, his rise to superstardom and "the personal struggles" that inspired such classics as Born to Run and Thunder Road.

Publishers have long sought a memoir from Springsteen, one of the world's most beloved rock stars and one who has long spoken of his love for John Steinbeck, Flannery O'Connor and other authors. He is writing the book himself and began working on it in 2009 after he and the E Street Band performed at the Super Bowl halftime show.

Springsteen is currently on tour, performing songs from The River, which was recently re-released as part of The Ties That Bind, an expanded package involving music from the sessions that produced the 1980 double album.

Since the release of Bob Dylan's Chronicles in 2004, there have been a host of memoirs from rock musicians, including Patti Smith, Neil Young, Keith Richards and Pete Townshend.

That glut led Springsteen as recently as 2012 to express ambivalence about the prospect of telling his story in a book, although he admitted at that time he had started the process.

With files from CBC News