“Born to Run”, the original by Bruce Springsteen or the cover of Frankie Goes to Hollywood?

On a tour at the end of the month in Lille and Marseille, the boss will be sure to sing this iconic track, which has never left his set list since its creation. So iconic that he named his (excellent) autobiography and, above all, the album of the same name. A famous, powerful, and epic album that takes the New Jersey native , author of a pair of essays relatively ignored by both the public and critics despite a growing stage reputation, into another dimension. Born to Run is precisely the exalted cry of rage of a young rebel eager to shatter the routine of a defined life. A supercharged song with soaring sax and guitars, but one that Springsteen has not hesitated in the past to strip down to the bone in a striking live acoustic version. And in the future?

Common point between New Jersey and Liverpool, where the creators of the proto-gay hits Relax or Two Tribes come from , a certain industrial decrepitude started at the end of the 70s. Is this the reason for the choice of this cover in the middle of the first album produced by Trevor Horn? Not sure. We would bet more on the excitement provoked on these "lads" by Bruce sweating on stage in Marcel when he sang at the time his backfiring anthem. We are not going to beat around the (exhaust) pot, this too studious adaptation where the singer Holy Johnson tries to exist on arrangements all in grandiloquence with his frenetic organ thrusts, can easily figure in the list of the worst covers in the history of pop. It is for this reason that we are talking about it.