(CNN) — Turns out that Bruce Springsteen’s scribblings were worth more than even the auctioneers imagined.
An anonymous $197,000 bid won Thursday’s auction for handwritten lyrics to Springsteen’s 1975 hit song “Born to Run.” The purchase was part of a “Fine Books and Manuscripts including Americana” auction at Sotheby’s auction house in New York.
The starting bid was $40,000, and Sotheby’s had expected the lyrics to fetch between $70,000 and $100,000
“Born to Run” reached only No. 23 on the Billboard Hot 100, but it aged incredibly well, earning the No. 21 spot on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of all-time greatest songs and being named among the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 songs that shaped the genre.
CNN’s Eliott C. McLaughlin and Luisa Navarro contributed to this report.
