Born to Run is Bruce Springsteen's 1975 third album, released after his first two records had failed commercially. Springsteen wanted a mainstream hit, and he aimed for the huge, layered sound of Phil Spector's Wall of Sound. The recording stretched from January 1974 to July 1975, and the title track alone took six months. The lyrics describe people who feel trapped and dream of escaping through highways and travel, and Springsteen imagined the songs happening over one long summer day and night. The album reached number three on the US chart and became his breakthrough.

In 1909 D. W. Griffith made a 14-minute film about a speculator who corners the wheat market and doubles the price of bread. A farmer sows his field while a 'Wheat King' gambles in the Chicago wheat pit; bakers raise the loaf from five cents to ten and the poor line up for bread. Griffith cut back and forth between the farm, the feast and the breadline, a technique called parallel editing, so audiences saw both ends of the economy at once. The film drew on Frank Norris's stories and on a real scheme: months earlier Chicago financier James Patten had cornered wheat, sent bread prices up and made about $5 million, roughly $185 million today.