The Story and Unlikely Friendship Behind Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’

The "Dancing in the Dark" singer revealed the chance encounter that shaped one of his most iconic songs. The rock icon traces it back to a fateful meeting at a legendary Hollywood hotel.

Bruce Springsteen is opening up about the chance encounter that inspired one of the defining songs of his career — and it all traces back to Los Angeles' famously storied Sunset Marquis Hotel.

Bruce Springsteen arrives at the 2025 AFI Fest - Opening Night Gala Premiere of "Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere" TCL Chinese Theatre on October 22, 2025 in Hollywood, California. | Source: Getty Images

The decades-old celebrity haunt is now the focus of a new documentary, "If These Walls Could Rock," which digs into the hotel's colorful history through the recollections of stars who've passed through its doors, for better or worse.

Springsteen is one of the voices featured in the film, and he used his moment on camera to revisit the encounter that eventually led to one of his biggest hits. He recalled a cross-country drive in the mid-1970s, during which he picked up a book to pass the time on the road.

Bruce Springsteen takes a break from the soundcheck before performing with The E-Street Band at Alex Cooley's Electric Ballroom on August 22, 1975 in Atlanta, Georgia. | Source: Getty Images

"I bought a book called Born on the 4th of July and I devoured it on the way to Los Angeles. And I was still under its spell when we pulled into the Sunset Marquis hotel, the rocker's hideaway on Alta Loma Road," he recalled.

The rocker continued, "And I'm sitting by the pool, and there's a young guy in a wheelchair sitting down the other end. And I had the book with me, and he said, 'Man, I wrote that book.'"

That poolside exchange marked the start of Springsteen's friendship with Ron Kovic, the wounded Vietnam veteran and author behind the memoir. Kovic later invited the singer to join him on a visit to a veterans' hospital, an experience that would go on to inspire the song "Born in the U.S.A."

"And I've had a lifelong relationship with Ronnie. And that all started, one of the many things that started, at the Sunset Marquis," Springsteen concluded.