Published on Dec 13, 2000
Look at the cover of
Nebraska and you can almost hear the hush of the desolate
highway the driver is traveling on. That hush reflects the quiet
moments in this album, recorded only on a 4-track. That hush can
also be heard from critics who, until then, wrote off Bruce
Springsteen as a hopeless Dylan-wannabe.
Springsteen has always written about the common man/woman who is
trapped by a prison far more powerful than Folsom or Attica. He
refers to the trappings of small town life; how people either rot
staying in a crippling existence of monotony or burn out trying to
get away. However, his legendary backup band, the E Street Band,
and Springsteen’s uncanny ability to write a memorable chorus
typically dispelled people from looking further within his songs
for meaning.
No such mistake needed to be made with
Nebraska. Armed with an acoustic guitar and a 4-track,
Springsteen opted not to record with the E Street Band. He also
opted to sharpen his character profiles. I can’t imagine what the
record executives thought when they heard the title track. In a
simple, detailed account, Springsteen tells the story of Charlie
Starkweather, one of the granddaddies of modern serial killers.
“Sheriff when the man pulls that switch sir and snaps my poor head
back/ You make sure my pretty baby is sittin’ right there on my
lap,” Springsteen’s voice doesn’t laud or condemn Starkweather. He
just tells the story in all its chilly, barren setting.
Springsteen’s status as a songwriter would have been elevated
with that single song. However, he continues his vivid portraits
throughout the rest of the album. A man tries to calm his woman’s
fears about trying to keep a roof over their heads in “Atlantic
City,” a man battles insomnia and a hard ass supervisor in “Open
All Night.” Perhaps the most chilling visual Springsteen paints us
is on “Johnny 99.”
The character in “Johnny 99” gets drunk to alleviate his
depression after he loses his job. In a stupor, he guns down a
night clerk and gets apprehended by an off-duty cop. In a
heartbreaking climax, the character tells the judge, who gave him
life, “Then won’t you sit back in that chair and think it over
judge one more time/ And let ’em shave off my hair and put me on
that execution line.” Springsteen then lets out a chilly cry and
the harmonica kicks in.
In one of my earlier reviews,
The Ghost Of Tom Joad, I described the characters in the
album as people who were on the verge of having the bottom fall out
from under them. In comparison, the characters in
Nebraska have already experienced the bottom falling out and
have fallen through to another bottom that few people know
about.
There is some hope for most of the characters in
Nebraska. Repeated prayers of “Hi ho, silver-o, deliver me
from nowhere,” can be heard on multiple songs. And radio and
telephone lines stretch out like a row of crucifixes is another
metaphor that Springsteen incorporates throughout the album.
Salvation through rock: If one artist can do that, it is
Springsteen. The final track, “Reason to Believe,” even has
Springsteen singing hopefully, yes, you guessed it, “Still at the
end of every hard earned day, people find some reason to
believe.”
Nebraska may not be played as much, or at all on radio, but
you do not have to go far to hear its influences. You can hear
“State Trooper” being played during the finale of the first season
of “The Sopranos.” A movie, made by Sean Penn, was based on the
song, “Highway Patrolman.” The Cowboy Junkies do a wicked cover of
that song on their double-live album. And Sub-Pop just released an
entire tribute album to
Nebraska with
Badlands: A Tribute To Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska.
Nebraska is the work of an artist who still had something to
prove to doubters. His next album,
Born In The U.S.A., would be the pop-savvy album that record
execs were hoping the Jersey artist could deliver. However,
Nebraska would forever change the course of the rest of his
albums. Just listening to some of the lyrics in
Tunnel Of Love,
Born In The U.S.A. and
Lucky Town, Springsteen may have played ball to sell albums,
but his lyrics are unmistakable in their uncompromising nature.
True to that form, when then President Ronald Reagan wished to use
”
Born In The U.S.A. as a campaign slogan, Springsteen
announced in concert that he doubted Reagan ever heard one song off
of
Nebraska.
Springsteen would obviously release a companion to
Nebraska with
The Ghost Of Tom Joad in 1995; a great album unto itself.
However,
Nebraska stands alone as Bruce Springsteen’s finest
recording. Few artists as big as Springsteen would have dared to
release such a bleak album as his popularity was steamrolling
toward superstardom. Its unfortunate that the album is only just
now getting the true praises it so richly deserves.