Bruce Springsteen tells the story of the night he left home at 19 years old

After sitting down with Jeffrey Brown for a two-part PBS NewsHour interview, Bruce Springsteen read us an excerpt from his new autobiography, “Born to Run.” The passage tells the story of the night he left his hometown of Freehold, New Jersey. At 19 years old, Springsteen describes loading a couch onto the back of a flatbed and reliving his childhood as the truck slowly rolled out of town. “I was slipping over the streets of my childhood,” Springsteen reads. “No longer a painful player in my, or my town’s history, but a passing and impassive observer.”

Watch the PBS NewsHour tonight and tomorrow (Dec. 19 and 20) for our two-part interview with Springsteen.