Nebraska is a stark, spare meditation on hope, despair, corruption, poverty, faithfulness, infidelity, dreams gone bad and dreams still alive...The intimacy that is a hallmark of this album is achieved by the use of a Tascam 4-Track cassette tape recorder that was a gift from the record company (these days 4-Track analog cassette decks are a dime a dozen, what with the advent of the superior digital portastudios, but back in '82 they were quite the coveted centerpiece of home studios). Springsteen set it up in his living room and recorded songs and ideas for songs as they came to him, overdubbing when appropriate.
When he was finished with a set of demos he presented them to the record company executives with the tacit understanding that these were only demos, that band arrangements were soon to follow. But the execs were taken aback by the immediacy and honesty of these tracks and before too long the decision was made to simply master the original cassette recordings to a professional analog board and release them in their primitive state.
The result was a record unlike anything Springsteen had done in a short career that saw him changing and progressing over the course of 4 excellent albums. Miles away from the city landscapes that permeated Born to Run and The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle, the album continues in a vein that was hinted at on Darkness On The Edge Of Town, a more mid-western, southern Gothic setting, where State Troopers allow their "no good" brothers to cross the state line and mass murderers go on a killing spree from Lincoln, Nebraska to "the badlands of Wyoming" with a baton-twirling adolescent in the passenger seat.
The former, "Highway Patrolman" is a story of a lawman, Joe Roberts and his trouble making brother, Frankie. Two sides of the same familial coin, Joe has devoted his post to an "honest job", but he turns his head when Frankie gets in trouble. Frankie on the other hand, returns from Vietnam with a chip on his shoulder, and in one way or another he finds himself at odds with the law. Eventually Frankie goes overboard and winds up seriously injuring, perhaps even killing a man in a bar. This is probably the worst trouble Frankie has ever gotten himself into, and Joe, as he chases him down, is forced to contemplate his actions, his honesty and his dedication to his job as a lawman. The overriding thought that impresses him the most: Man turns his back on his family, he ain't no friend of mine....
And yet when Frankie gets to the Michigan county line all the way to the Canadian border Joe once again "turns the other way". And in doing so he proves the truth of those haunting thoughts, Man turns his back on his family he just ain't no good.
"Highway Patrolman" is the centerpiece of side one on the record. It's followed by a track called "State Trooper" which could very well be Frankie Roberts response to his brother Joe's life decisions. It's punctuated with a couple of unnerving shrieks that sound very much like Alan Vega's trademark "whoops" in the early '80's duo Suicide. Springsteen, when interviewed during press junkets for Nebraska briefly mentioned a taste for Suicide's confrontational brand of electro-shock. Nothing else here invokes that seminal New York band's sound, but the yelps in "State Trooper" are enough to conjure their spirit, especially the lyrics and theme of "Frankie Teardrop" (perhaps a clue, in dropping the name, that it is indeed Frankie Roberts narrating).
"Used Cars" is a sweet rumination of childhood, poverty and the dream of escaping into a better life than the one you grew up in. Used cars are a metaphor for all the things in our youth that we are ashamed of, even though they may be necessities. But, as in "Thunder Road", there is a long highway that takes you far away from all that, hopefully into a place where you won't ever have to ride in no used car again. There are details in this song that are bittersweet (Well, my mama fingers her wedding band and watches the salesman stare at my old man's hands)...and these details are woven through the set of songs that make up Nebraska.
If I remember correctly, the pre-release record company constructed buzz was that this album was going to be like a musical tribute to Bob Dylan. Once again they invoked Zimmy's name in hopes that it might sell a few records. There is very little here that's obviously Dylan inspired (though Woody Guthrie's ghost hovers over some of the proceedings), but it does have in common the same devotion to the songwriting craft and lyrical symbolism that reveals itself over the course of time.
With the success of Born To Run and the even more financially successful The River, Columbia records was willing to pretty much give Springsteen carte blanche for his next record. Say what you will about the negative aspects of record companies (and there are many) but it is a testament to Columbia's integrity and devotion to their artists that they would be willing to release this rough collection of demos. And in so doing they put out a true masterpiece that has inspired legions of singer/songwriters (there's even a full CD available of other artists covering the songs from Nebraska. Entitled Badlands: A Tribute To Bruce Springsteen's 'Nebraska', it's no "second tier performer"'s fare, as it features big names like Johnny Cash, Ani DiFranco, Ben Harper, Chrissie Hynde, Hank Williams III, Son Volt, Los Lobos and more).
I've only touched a few bases in this humble review of Nebraska, but it must be said that this is, in Springsteen's canon, an almost flawless album. It gets you further into his mind than just about anything he'd done before and really, just about everything that followed.
I would feel remiss, however, if I didn't say something about the concluding number. "Reason to Believe" is about how life deals some harsh blows, and it may strike you funny, but at the end of every hard earned day people need some reason to believe. And during that day the cycle of life goes on, as a baby is taken to the river to be baptized while, in an old shack on the other side of town, an old man passes away. All you can do is sit and watch "the river" roll on, and unlike man with his trials and tribulations that wound and scar for life, the river makes it's way "so effortlessly". Who knows but that contemplating that river may be enough to give someone "reason to believe".
"Reason to Believe" is the only logical choice with which to close Nebraska, as we've come to know so many different people and so many different stories throughout the course of the record, all of whom are searching for that same reason, none of whom will find an adequate reason, but the lucky ones will believe anyway.
5 Stars
Favorite Tracks: "Reason to Believe", "Used Cars", "Atlantic City", "Highway Patrolman"
Least Favorite Track: "Open All Night"
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