Successfully negotiating the music industry for more than four decades, and coming out as the most celebrated rockstar of his generation, has taken more than mere artistic talents. It has surely required business acumen, working with lawyers, managing an extensive back catalogue and making countless strategic decisions. Perhaps most crucially, a little like politicians, artists benefit from curating a coherent public image, not only via their art but also through social media, public statements and books. It is something Springsteen appears to excel at. His 2016 memoir Born to Run is powerfully consistent with the beliefs set out in his discography. In fact certain passages, in their weave of biography and politics, could have been written by a senator with presidential ambition. ‘What were the social forces that held my parents’ lives in check?’ Springsteen writes at one point. ‘In my search [for the answer] I would blur the lines between the personal and the psychological factors that made my father's life so difficult and the political issues that kept a tight clamp on working-class lives across the United States.’

His lack of political experience might have counted against him at one time. But that was before Arnold Schwarzenegger became the governor of California in 2003. Having never held public office, Schwarzenegger's polling was boosted by the disproportionate media attention on him brought by his celebrity, according to one study. It wasn't long before outlets were dubbing him ‘the Governator’ after his starring role in The Terminator. It was before Trump successfully ran for the presidency with only a career in business and reality TV behind him. And most significantly, it was before many Americans’ trust in politicians collapsed, before they grew sick of technocrats and political speak, and began looking for someone more like them, someone who really understood.

And that's where Springsteen's music comes in. He communicates with a depth and directness few songwriters manage. His songs cut to the core of working-class lives, atomising their sense of hopelessness and entrapment, just as they do their hopes and desires. Springsteen has written soul-stirring musical testaments to the fact he understands ordinary people, and these convince in a way politicians saying they understand ‘hardworking folk’ simply don't.

Like Schwarzenegger and Trump, Springsteen already has a well established brand. His discography has entrenched his story and ethos into the American psyche, and it would provide important political capital on the campaign trail. In a world where spin is almost as important as policy, where Barack Obama’s three-word slogan in 2008 ‘yes we can' condensed his political message to powerful effect, and where Schwarzenegger was nicknamed the ‘the running man’ during his bid for governorship after his film of the same name, it isn't too much of a leap to imagine a Springsteen campaign bus emblazoned with his song titles: ‘Promised Land’, ‘Land of Hope and Dreams’ and ‘Tougher Than the Rest’.

The Boss running for president. It sounds crazy, doesn't it. But these are strange, unpredictable times and this is Bruce Springsteen: the blue-collar guy who turns up at old girlfriends’ houses in the middle of the night and convinces them to take off with him, in search of a better life. As he's been telling us for decades: he was born to run.