Back in the early '70s, a then-homeless Bruce Springsteen rented a small shack from Marilyn Rocky in Long Branch, New Jersey. Inside the shack was an upright piano that "The Boss" grew very fondly of. With the instrument's keys, he was able to write many of the songs in his third album "Born to Run," which turned into a commercial success. The rest is history, but the piano itself has been missing for 30 years.
Videos by Wide Open Country
"When I rented the house to Bruce in 1974, he moved in and he had this little upright piano. When he moved out two years later, he left it there," Rocky said, according to the New York Post. She rented the shack to Springsteen who was on the lookout for a place to crash. His first two albums, while critically acclaimed, were commercial failures.
"He was just so young, he was a boy," Rocky continues. "And this was the first time ever that he lived on his own outside of his house, or wasn't sleeping on the floor of the Student Prince in Asbury, or on the road doing concerts."
A "stand-up tenant," Bruce Springsteen discovered the upright piano as a powerful songwriting tool. According to Rob Kirkpatrick, described as an E Street superfan, the introduction of the piano was vital to Springsteen's songwriting process.
"I think we hear the fruits of Bruce composing a song not as a virtuoso on piano, but as someone who is writing very deliberately for emotion rather than technique," Kirkpatrick said. And Kirkpatrick is right. What followed was the critically acclaimed and commercially successful "Born to Run," released in 1975. Since its release, it has gone seven times platinum.
Piano Gone Missing
Bruce Springsteen, eventually, left Rocky's shack, and many guests came and went throughout the decades. However, she eventually sold the shack during the '90s and told her last tenant to throw away all the old furniture as it was "old and beat up."
However, this would prove to be a huge mistake. Just days later, she stumbled upon Springsteen's saxophonist, Clarence Clemons, at the dentist. Of all things, he asked Rocky about the upright piano in Springsteen's former shack.
"He said, 'Well, you know when we finished writing all the music for 'Born to Run,' some of us were in the house one day and we saw it. We lifted up the top and we signed it and left it there for you," Rocky recalled.
Understanding the historic value of the instrument, Rocky called the tenant in the hopes of retrieving the piano. However, her call was in vain. "He said, 'Well, that's a problem.' And I said, 'Problem being what?' And he said, Well, you told me to clean things out, that old piano's been sitting there... I threw it out' And he said it was picked up two days ago," Rocky said. "That's the last anybody has ever seen or heard of it."
An Invaluable Historic Instrument
For both Kirkpatrick and Rocky, the piano, if found, could be an invaluable part of American music history. According to an appraiser, the piano could be worth as "little" as $300,000. Rocky, however, believes it could sell for far more than that.
"Any history of rock and roll in the 20th century is incomplete without talking about Born to Run," Kirkpatrick said. "So the instrument on which most of it was composed and which gave it it's musical identity —the value of such a piece is... it's invaluable."
So, should someone in the New Jersey swamps find Springsteen's estranged piano, know that you might have a historic instrument in your hands. You might want to clean it up first, though, 30 years of mud and moisture will surely deteriorate everything, especially an upright piano.
