Names and faces

Someone was willing to pay big bucks for an early glimpse of what would become the Boss’ “runaway American dream.” A handwritten, working lyric sheet for Bruce Springsteen’s 1975 hit “Born to Run” sold at Sotheby’s on Thursday for $197,000, well exceeding pre-sale estimates of between $70,000 and $100,000. The auction house didn’t reveal the identity of the seller or the telephone bidder who bought the document, which used to be in the collection of Springsteen’s former manager, Mike Appel. The title track of Springsteen’s 1975 multiplatinum album has revved up generations of fans, from its opening view of “the streets of a runaway American dream” to its high-octane chorus: “tramps like us/baby we were born to run.” Some Springsteen aficionados still refer to themselves as “tramps.” Most of the lines in this rough 1974 version, written in Long Branch, N.J., are apparently unpublished and unrecorded, but the manuscript does include “a nearly perfected chorus,” the auction house said. “Although Springsteen is known to have an intensive drafting process, few manuscripts of ‘Born to Run’ are available,” Sotheby’s said. Springsteen’s website describes the Born to Run album as “a sheer epic fueled by tangible energy, the idealized notion of escape and the romance of youth.” His Darkness on the Edge of Town album came out three years after the Born to Run album. For much of that interlude, Springsteen was prevented from releasing music due to a lawsuit involving Appel.

The X-Men franchise will get another boost in 2016 with the release of X-Men: Apocalypse. Veteran X-Men director and producer Bryan Singer hinted at the next installment via Twitter on Thursday when he wrote, “#Xmen #Apocalypse 2016!” Fox confirmed the film will open in wide release Memorial Day weekend, on May 27, 2016. Apocalypse is a major villain from the X-Men comics who appeared in the 1980s. Singer, meanwhile, is directing the next movie in the franchise, X-Men: Days of Future Past. Scheduled for a May 23, 2014, release, the film will star Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Halle Berry, Jennifer Lawrence, Anna Paquin, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Shawn Ashmore and Nicholas Hoult.

Front Section, Pages 2 on 12/07/2013

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