The photograph on the cover perfectly captures the mood. Cold, lonely and hopeless. This isn't a happy record but it is a beautiful one. Sandwiched between the double album, The River, and the world-conquering Born In The USA it could be more different to both.
The ten short songs that make up NEBRASKA feature Bruce and only Bruce singing sad stories about blue collar workers, everyday Joe's and folks who fall on the wrong side of the law. There's no romance nostalgia here and the stories don't end well for these men.
We start with the track 'Nebraska' which is a retelling of the Charles Starkweather murders of the 1950s when Starkweather and his teenage girlfriend went on an eight day killing spree that cost eleven people their lives. Starkweather got the chair in this version of his final moments he's asked why he did it. He replies "I guess there's just a meanness in this world". It sets the bleak tone for the rest of the album.
'Atlantic City' recounts the fictional story of a down on his luck man who gives up trying to do the right thing and always coming out on the losing end. He decides to do 'some work' for a guy he's met who's on the wrong side of the law. Resigned to his likely fate he's sings "everything dies baby, that's a fact, but maybe everything dies some day comes back". It's like he's trying to put a brave face on the inevitable.
In 'Highway Patrolman' we follow an honest man, a patrolman Joe Roberts. He has a brother, Franky who's always in trouble with the law. Joe admits "if it was any other man, I'd put him straightaway / but when it's your brother sometimes you look the other way". When Franky returns from Vietnam he gets into trouble in a roadhouse, a young man ends up in a bad way. Joe spots Franky's car and chases him in his until they come within five miles of the Canadian boarder, then Joe pulls to the side of the road and watches the tail lights disappear. Loyalty to his brother being greater than the law; if a "man turns his back on his family well he just ain't no good".
The only track to feature an electric guitar is 'Open All Night' which is a Chuck Berry style rock n roller about a boy heading down the Route 60 turnpike late at night to get to his girl who's working at Bob's Big Boy diner. But still being just Brucey and his guitar, no accompaniment, you get a sense of the car racing along a this cold, dangerous road at high speeds being complete isolated. As the protagonist sings, "this turnpike sure is spooky at night when you're all alone".
NEBRASKA is Bruce stripped right back to guitar, harmonica, mandolin and the occasional tamborine. They're demos he recorded on a cassette tape portastudio. The songs were originally intended for a full electric record with the E Street Band. The intended full version of the album was recorded with the band but is has never seen the light of day. Instead Springsteen released these raw versions and rightly so. It's hard to imagine tha the full version could have the same subtle power and emotional kick as these simple recordings.
NEBRASKA has a tone that Springsteen has tried to captured since with two equally pared-back albums, The Ghost of Tom Joad and Devils & Dust, but to diminishing returns. Perhaps because these were never intended to be anything more than rough demos, there is a greater honesty, intimacy and truth conveyed than a carefully mixed and recorded album could ever possibly hope to have.
Though largely miserable record, NEBRASKA is a happy accident and impossible to repeat.
ATLANTIC CITY
HIGHWAY PATROLMAN
OPEN ALL NIGHT
No comments:
Post a Comment