“Nebraska” by Bruce Springsteen: a resurrection

A rock’n’roll that was a little Louisiana on the edges, almost Cajun, à la Jerry Lee Lewis, it was Bruce Springsteen, of course in « Johnny 99 ». A song that we have known since 1982, the year the album was released Nebraska. An album in which she appeared, but in a very different form. The story has been told many times. Springsteen was then thirty-two years old and he came, thanks to his album The Riverto achieve world glory. He achieved his dream and, after that, what to do? Repeat and do The River number 2? This is not what he has in mind. And then, it is a frequent effect of success, it is crossed by a form of guilt, undoubtedly unconscious. Of course, Springsteen is living his dream of recognition, of glory, but isn’t it also, from his point of view, a form of betrayal towards his family? In any case, this success risks, well, that’s what he feels, of isolating him from his friends, from those whose joys and sorrows he has shared, and from whom, unwillingly, the star he has become is in the process of moving away?

So, in short, his reaction is natural. Springsteen aims to make an anti-star album. He wants to reconnect with everything he is losing. He retreated to a farm he rented in Colts Neck, New Jersey, not far from New York. He immerses himself in stories, written and filmed, about the dark history of the United States, its past of violence, cruelty and suffering. It is said to be very inspired by the short stories of Flannery O’Connor, a woman writer and author of short stories which had a great impact on readers of the 50s and 60s, stories which take place in the very puritan southeast of the United States, featuring cursed anti-heroes, in search of redemption. Alone at home, Springsteen writes very dark, pessimistic songs. Its ambition is to portray characters who are off to a bad start in life, assassins, outlaws, misguided people who flee on the path of suicidal violence. Armed with a four-track tape recorder, he recorded them alone at home. A few months later, he gathered his group in the house of keyboardist Roy Bittan to rehearse them before leaving to record them with his musicians, therefore, in a studio in New York.

However, in the end, the result will not convince him. Springsteen will therefore make a very radical and daring decision: to publish his solo demos as is to better highlight his sung stories and especially the solitary point of view which is his at the time. The album will be called Nebraskabased on the song of the same title, a chilling evocation of a couple of serial killers from the late 1950s. The cover shows a black and white photo: a sad straight road in the middle of a bare, flat and sinister landscape, seen through the windshield of a car, with a remnant of snow lying on the windshield blades. Despite this austerity, Nebraskawhich was released at the end of 1982, reached a wide audience, above all in his country, the United States, where the meaning of his songs, what he said in them, came to the fore. Among Springsteen enthusiasts, we all know at least one, a curiosity was born in those years: hearing the electrified versions of the songs of Nebraskathose he recorded with his band at The Power Station studio in New York and which he put aside. Over time, it has become a sort of legendary Grail. Especially since Springsteen had until now always been reluctant to broadcast them, even in part.

It was necessary to start working on a film, Deliver Me from Nowherewhich has just been released, dedicated precisely to this episode of Nebraska which, in Springsteen’s life, acquired the dimension of a legend. A film that, I would like to point out, I have unfortunately not yet been able to see. On the occasion of this release, well a so-called expanded edition, expanded in English, from the album Nebraska has just been published. It allows you to discover many things: unreleased songs, outtakes, two period recordings, plus one from a recent concert. And especially this famous Nebraska electric, performed by Springsteen with his group, which we ended up wondering if it was not a myth, in the strict sense of the word, something fabulous, but which does not exist. Well, if it exists and it’s something. It’s a real shock, there are some breathtaking versions, sometimes it made me think of The Clash, yes, it has that power. We will hear other extracts, promised, during this special Very Good Trip dedicated to this release, which is truly an event, from Nebraska by Springsteen, illuminated in a new light, forty-three years after his birth.

In the meantime, here are two songs from Nebraskaperformed very recently solo by Sprinsgteen in a small theater in Red Bank, New Jersey, 1,500 seats, very close to where he recorded the album. His voice has aged, it has something more rocky, which suits him well and gives these songs another weight. This one, “Open All Night”, is in the classic Chuck Berry style: a guy who works nights leaves at dawn in his car that he customized, with which he is very much in love, to find his sweetheart, Wanda, whom he met at Bob’s Big Boy Fried Chicken, on route 60, which crosses the country from east to west, from Atlantic City to Salt Lake City, in the state of Utah. He drives for I don’t know how long, he listens to the radio, he comes across stations that broadcast sermons from preachers, but he has a prayer to say to the DJ who plays records on a rock’n’roll station: « Hey, ho, rock’n’roll, deliver me from nowhere »the title of the film, precisely, hey ho, rock’n’roll, deliver me from nowhere.

Playlist :

Bruce Springsteen

• « Johnny 99 – Electric Nebraska » album « Nebraska ’82 : Expanded Edition »
• « Open All Night – Nebraska Live » album « Nebraska ’82 : Expanded Edition »
• « Atlantic City – Nebraska Live » album « Nebraska ’82 : Expanded Edition »
• « Born in the U.S.A. – Electric Nebraska » album « Nebraska ’82 : Expanded Edition »
• « Downbound Train – Electric Nebraska » album « Nebraska ’82 : Expanded Edition » « Pink Cadillac – Nebraska Outtakes » album « Nebraska ’82 : Expanded Edition »
• « The Big Payback – Single B-Side – 1982 » album « Nebraska ’82 : Expanded Edition »
• « Working on the Highway – Nebraska Outtakes » album « Nebraska ’82 : Expanded Edition »
• « State Trooper – Nebraska Live » album Nebraska ’82 : Expanded Edition »
• « Mansion on the Hill – Nebraska Live » album Nebraska ’82 : Expanded Edition »
• « Gun in Every Home – Nebraska Outtakes » album « Nebraska ’82 : Expanded Edition »
• « Reason to Believe – Nebraska Live » album Nebraska ’82 : Expanded Edition »

To find out more, listen to the show…