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Franz Schubert wrote over 600 songs, which puts him in the same category as McCartney and Gershwin. But Schubert’s lyrics were written by the great and lesser German poets of the era, not by himself.

One poet was Ernest Schulze, who was certifiably insane. Schubert set a number of his poems in 1826 but didn’t organize them into a song cycle. One of the songs is German rock and roll, and it sounds like it was written for Springsteen. It’s like an 1826 version of “Born to Run”. I’ve often thought of changing the German lyrics from a man riding his horse through the woods on the way to his girlfriend and her cheating heart, to English lyrics about a man on his Harley on the two-lane blacktop doing the same thing.

The piano accompaniment is pure rock and roll, and sounds a bit like “At the Hop.”

This particular video offers lyrics in both German and English.

Schubert: “On the Bridge”