Bruce Springsteen: Nebraska - 1982
"I'm gonna record these songs, and if they sound good with just me doin' 'em, then I'll teach 'em to the band" - Bruce Springsteen
After the somewhat bloated, rock 'n' roll-influenced exercise of 1980's The River, in 1982, Springsteen stripped literally everything back to basics and recorded this marvellously evocative album of songs in an upstairs room of an old house, with only his acoustic guitar and a tape recorder for company.
It came as something of a shock to both long time fans and new-found ones alike as it was an acoustic, dark folk album with not a drum beat or saxophone anywhere within earshot although its brutally stark atmosphere and meaningful, socially-aware lyrics soon made it popular with Springsteen connoisseurs. For some it is his best album. There are convincing arguments to be made that suggest that in this album's pensive, often fatalistic, doom-laden sentiments can be found the very quintessential Bruce Springsteen.
So, mister, there's just a meanness in this world.....
Showing the artist's willingness to record what he wanted to and hang the commercial consequences, it is a remarkable collection of songs bleakly narrated in the first person, often delivered in the slightly deferential "sir" or "mister" form of addressing the listener, from a succession of characters (it seems) from America's "Badlands" (Nebraska), criminals (Johnny 99), honest working guys gone wrong (State Trooper), cops (Highway Patrolman), husbands (Open All Night), gamblers (Atlantic City), nostalgics (Mansion On The Hill) and no hopers (Reason To Believe). They are all there, telling their largely sad stories personalised by Springsteen's quiet, yearning delivery. There was also personal family nostalgia in the moving Used Cars and the less personal, more dream-inspired My Father's House.Inspired by a real killing spree from 1958 and a 1973 film entitled Badlands that dealt with the same subject, Nebraska was as stark a song as Springsteen could have used to open with ("stark" is an apt word, actually, as the killer was named Starkweather). The opening lines "I saw her standing on her front lawn, just a-twirling her baton" were taken directly from the film. The song closes with the chilling couplet "you wanna know why I did the things that I did? Well, mister, I guess there's just a meanness in this world", and it stands as a symbol for the entire album. The song's backing is acoustic and minimalist, suitably.
The tempo increases slightly on the (comparatively) lively Atlantic City, but it was an also intrinsically sombre number set in the New Jersey coastal gambling location of Atlantic City. Full of crime-ridden, seedy atmosphere, it also contains memorable lines such as "everything dies, baby that's a fact, but maybe everything that dies someday comes back -put your make-up on, fix your hair up pretty and meet me tonight in Atlantic City". This is romance, Springsteen style. The song is one that lends itself to a full band backing and has often been played that way in concert.Mansion On The Hill is one of my favourites from the album. Its narrator drives up into the hills to the big mansion that overlooked the industrial grime of the city below in which he lives and works. The song's symbolism highlights the difference between rich and poor perfectly. It has a sad and heartfelt slow melody.
Johnny 99 is a lively slightly rockabilly rhythm backs this hopeless tale of an ordinary guy who goes off the rails upon redundancy, forced into committing a petty crime due to poverty and desperation. He gets no sympathy from the judge, unsurprisingly. There's that meanness again.
Highway Patrolman is my absolute favourite. A Cain and Abel-esque tale of two brothers - one solid, respectable and loyal - a cop - and the other who "ain't no good". After "taking turns dancing with Maria" (the nice guy Joe's wife), bad bro Frankie takes off and commits a violent crime. Cop Joe has to chase him to the Canadian border, where he somewhat reluctantly lets him go, because if "a man turns his back on his family, well that man ain't no good". The song is one of moral conflict and is like a five-minute novel. Listening to it, you can envisage its various scenes, it is just so cinematic.
State Trooper is an insistent, bluesy and evocative number here, about a guy up to no good (possibly) who hopes the patrolling New jersey Turnpike state trooper won' catch him, or even pull him over. It is full of dark imagery which, once more, has a movie-like quality to it, forming vivid pictures in your head as you listen.
Another one that I really love here is Used Cars - "mister the day the lottery I win, I ain't ever gonna ride no used car again". More expressions of ambition that will never be achieved and based on Springsteen's upbringing. Actually, he did win the lottery, didn't he?
For Open All Night Springsteen revs it up a bit on this once again rockabilly-type faster number all about road tripping, gas stations, Texaco road maps, fried chicken and an accommodating girl called Wanda. It is the album's most lively, most "good-time" song. It would really suit a full band backing, but I don't think I have ever heard one, although a live version must have been played at some point. Incidentally, released as a single, Open All Nights' 'b' side, The Big Payback, is something of a Springsteen rarity.The ambience quietens again on My Father's House, a song that recalls Mansion On The Hill. It will not surprise to when I say that it is overflowing with atmosphere and cinematic images. It has often been misinterpreted as Springsteen singing about his own father. It is clear to me that it isn't. His father would not have lived in such a property. It is written in the first person but in the role of a different character.
"At the end of every hard-earned day people find some reason to believe". There's always some redemption somewhere with Bruce. It applies on this song and it is notable that it ends the album. So, this was Springsteen's "great American novel". The lyrics and the imagery are that good. I could have quoted line after line but in the interest of brevity I have tried to not do it too often, simply saying that one listen to the songs will suffice to invite them into your bloodstream and, despite the apparent despondent pessimism expressed in many of the songs, there is also a redemptive faith at the end of even the most trying day that gives us a reason to believe.
Characters such as the protagonists of Highway Patrolman, Used Cars and Reason To Believe personify this innate goodness and reassuring belief. Songs like Highway Patrolman, Used Cars, My Father's House, Mansion On The Hill and Atlantic City are up there with some of the best songs Springsteen has ever written. No question. If you want tub-thumping anthems, you certainly won't get them here. This album will not lift your spirits, but it will certainly make you think.
It is also important to remember that it was recorded at a time when there was a contemporary popular music culture of synthesiser-dominated pop and ostentatious costumes with floppy hair to match. Here we had a hard-hitting folk album that was in complete contrast to anything else put out at the time. This was no Culture Club, Duran Duran or Michael Jackson offering. It was also a year into Ronald Reagan's economically harsh presidency and the songs' baleful messages were ones of not much hope, its unlucky, downtrodden and sometimes feckless characters the same - the people that "Reaganomics" would trample all over.
Musically, although the acoustic vibe is a most evocative one, I would love to hear a “full band” version of all these songs, though. When played live with such arrangements, they have invariably been excellent. Indeed Springsteen said that "I'm gonna record these songs, and if they sound good with just me doin' 'em, then I'll teach 'em to the band".
Tracks that didn't make it on to the album but were recorded at its sessions were the original, slow bottleneck blues strains of Born In The USA (a completely different type of song to its eventual incarnation); a short, evocative Elvis Presley tribute in Johnny Bye Bye and a service veteran's nightmare in the stark Shut Out The Light.
