Nebraska - Springsteen, Bruce (CD 1990)

1982 s Nebraska comes in close second on my list of Bruce Springsteen s albums, after the gorgeous Born to run.




Born in the U.S.A.


Bruce s music occupies a very special place in my life. I still consider Born to run (1975) the best album I bought in America last summer. Now, as I keep running in my life, his music follows me, ever reminding me of my dreams, as each day brings me closer to their fulfillment. There s something genuinely special about Born to run, an album for tramps and dreamers, and the culmination of the early E Street Band musical prowess. That little album was also Bruce s breakthrough. Eight years later he would become one of America s favorite stars of the early MTV era, with the 1983 smash Born in the U.S.A.. Admittedly, Bruce is at his most accessible on the aforementioned two commercially successful albums. Much less people are down with the three records released in between 1975 and 1983. And this is just my opinion, but I would anytime go with the third of those in-between records, Nebraska, over Born in the U.S.A.


So heartland is his music, that almost every Bruce Springsteen album could be called Born in the U.S.A. The same is true for Nebraska - Bruce doesn t just sing about one particular state here, Nebraska on this album symbolizes desolation, despair and pain in the lives of ordinary Americans everywhere. Easily Springsteen s gloomiest and darkest work it may as well be one of the most heartbreaking records ever.






Unplugged


Nebraska is both a tough and an easy listen. Tough, because the album finds Bruce retreating from the lush sound of Born to run and The River - gone are the big drums, guitar and saxophone solos the Big Man, as actually the whole E Street Band don t participate in the making of this record. Easy, because Nebraska tries and in my opinion succeeds in creating a very intimate dialog with the listener, employing only acoustic and at times electric guitars, backed by harmonicas and slightly discernible bass tracks all played by Bruce alone. This is one of the most brilliant demo records ever released on a major label, and the Boss has plenty of material to make almost every song unforgettable. Sometimes beauty is in simple things. This is one of those times.






Bruce Springsteen and his fellow Americans


The album doesn t need big guitars and stuff, because music (admittedly brilliant) is only a minor factor here. More than any other Springsteen record, Nebraska is all about the people Bruce sees around him and feels for. I ve picked five highlights from this album.


The opener Nebraska could be one of the most controversial songs ever, a first-person account of the mass murderer Charlie Starkweather. A stunning way to open an album dedicated to people who hurt and suffer, in it s last verse this simple acoustic guitar and harmonica based song provides the listener with Bruce s explanation why.


They declared me unfit to live, said into that
great void my soul d be hurled
They wanted to know why I did what I did
Well sir I guess there s just a meanness in this world



Atlantic city is a story of a man who tells his girlfriend he is going to do something to get them out of the debts that no honest man could pay. One of Bruce s best ballads, Atlantic city boasts one of the most unforgettable riffs ever, even more chilling as Bruce echoes his own voice with a hollow background vocal few love songs have sounded this heartbreaking.


Everything dies baby that s a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty and
meet me tonight in Atlantic City



Johnny 99 just might well tears in your eyes. Ralph, a young man who cannot get a job in Mahwah, gets drunk one night and shoots a night clerk. The city supplied a public defender but the judge was Mean John Brown - one mistake and the boy s life has come undone. Upbeat as it storms through 6 verses with Bruce s swift strumming the song basically makes you feel how in just one day a person can lose everything. The middle two verses are impossible to not be moved by


Well, the evidence is clear
gotta let the sentence son fit the crime
Prison for 98 and a year
And we ll call it even Johnny 99

A fistfight broke out in the courtroom
they had to drag Johnny s girl away
His mamma stood up and shouted
judge don t take my boy this way

Well son you got a statement you d like to make?
Before the bailiff comes to forever take you away



that Johnny in the closing two verses asks the judge to put him on the execution line is only logical. Another heartbreaking story, Highway patrolman is about two brothers one cop, another a waste. The former, Joe Roberts, is the narrator, and tells in three verses a story of how he kept covering up his wayward brother Franky, until once.


Now ever since we was young men it s been the same come down
I get a call over the radio Franky s in trouble downtown
Well if it was any other man I d put him straight away
But when it s your brother sometimes you look the other way



State trooper is absolutely bad*ss as the nervously droning guitars contrast the state employee s subdued approach of Highway patrolman. The song is a quiet mantra murmured by a lonely driver who has obviously done something illegal and now drives to his girlfriend, praying a cop don t pull him off. More than any other song on Nebraska, State trooper oozes danger


Maybe you got a kid
Maybe you got a pretty wife
The only thing that I got
been botherin me my whole life

Mister state trooper
please don t stop me



As Bruce suddenly shouts whoo after the second chorus, you feel the man behind the wheel is a predator who only wants to cross the forest unhindered either way he has to cross it. One s only left wondering what is that thing that s been bothering him his whole life.






A rock n roll heart


Ranging from quiet ballads to upbeat rockers, even without drums and big guitars Nebraska is an excellent rock n roll record. Stripped down to just a pair of chords, the songs always put the performer and his message in the foreground. And that s what Bruce does, he takes a chair right there next to you, a guitar on his knees, his left hand on the frets and his right on the strings, and helps you concentrate on the lyrics of his songs, backed by wonderful harmonicas, very seldom by an overdubbed background vocal, and sometimes by a bass. A couple of songs towards the end of the record break out of an overall desperate soundscape, one of them my favorite track here and one of my all time fave Springsteen songs Open all night. The song is probably the sequel to State trooper, as a man is coming to see his girlfriend, driving through Jersey at night - even the same lyrics turn up here and there - however and thankfully, this time around everything sounds absolutely upbeat.


Your eyes get itchy in the wee wee hours
Sun s just a red ball risin over them refinery towers
Radio s jammed up with gospel stations
Lost souls callin long distance salvation

Hey mr. deejay woncha hear my last prayer
Hey ho rock n roll deliver me from nowhere



and, as Bruce strums away happily on the electric guitar, you already can t help smiling. In the end of every hard earned day, people find reason to believe, states the album in the closer.






Reason to believe


Time to sum it up. This album is highly recommended. Bruce has great characters to tell about on almost every other album, but Nebraska digs the deepest, as it concentrates on people who have lost faith in everything. And yet they search for a reason to believe, which in the end one of the characters finds. Unbelievable as it may seem, this is a downbeat album with a happy ending. And that's the amazing thing about it - Nebraska is an earnest life commentary, yet it won't make the listener feel down after the closer has faded. In other words, this album is a masterpiece you might enjoy having.


Thanks for reading.