Why Electric Nebraska Matters

A brand new used car indeed.

I’ve never been to Nebraska. I don’t even know anyone from Nebraska. I know one gal from Oklahoma and one guy from Kansas (both film critics) and one time I was in Arkansas for 15 minutes when I made a wrong turn in Memphis. (It was red and flat.) But I’ve listened to Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska about 400,000 times, so that ought to count for something.

Only one of the 10 songs on Nebraska is explicitly set in Nebraska, the one called “Nebraska.” And even that one moves its narrative — sketches drawn from the Starkweather killings via a late night airing of Terry Malick’s Badlands — “from the town of Lincoln, Nebraska… to the badlands of Wyoming.” The nine remaining tracks are hardcore Jersey.

“Atlantic City” is explicitly so, “Johnny 99” mentions the auto plant in Mahwah (closed, to everyone’s detriment), “Mansion on the Hill” visits Linden, “Highway Patrolman” is about a troubled police officer in Perrineville, “State Trooper” declares its setting with the opening words “New Jersey Turnpike,” “Open All Night” scopes out the “North Jersey industrial skyline,” and “Reason to Believe” mentions Rt. 31, which runs through Trenton and, so Wikipedia tells me, was called Rt. 69 until 1967 when it was changed due to a rash of prurient sign theft.

“My Father’s House” mentions “pines” and “The Devil” so maybe this is a reference to the Jersey Devil in the Pine Barrens. Anything is possible. “Used Cars,” which the best of the 10 songs in my opinion, is the only one that is left geographically vague.

So why the hell did Bruce Springsteen call the album Nebraska? Well, as the new (and good) movie Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere will show you, he wasn’t exactly in his right mind when he was putting this all together.

Anyone who has read Springsteen’s memoir Born to Run already knows about the fork-in-the-road that Bruce faced when he concluded his tour in 1981. The boardwalk balladeer was finally achieving real fame with “Hungry Heart,” a bonafide hit. He was bursting with anthems — “Born in the U.S.A.,” “Glory Days,” “Dancing in the Dark,” “Cover Me,” and “I’m on Fire” were within his grasp, but before he could get there he had to face the demons of his youth and his undiagnosed depression. As they say, men would rather self-tape 10 tracks about murder and regret in a hidden rented house before going to therapy. (The movie, which really does win points for sticking to its guns, has as its climax Jeremy Allen White finally on a shrink’s couch, bawling his eyes out.)

Though Bruce wasn’t afraid to throw an acoustic tune onto an album here and there, he was a rocker. (See The River, Side 3, Track 3, “I’m a Rocker.”) Nebraska, recorded with simple microphones to a home four-track kit and mixed down to a boom box that got water damage on a fishing trip at the Manasquan Reservoir, is, as David Krumholtz’s character shouts in the movie, “a fucking folk album!” And it still rules.

I came to it juuuuuust before the “MTV Unplugged” fad became a thing, thus according me the opportunity to say “the Boss did this in the 80s, man!”

Anyway, most righteous people recognize how wonderful Nebraska is, but part of its lore is that before Springsteen insisted to release the demos in situ, he brought the material to the E Street Band … but it just didn’t work.

For years Bruce has denied that there was ever an electric Nebraska, even though others, like drummer Max Weinberg, have mentioned the sessions in interviews going back 40 years. Bruce was still singing this “it’s a myth” tune this year. In a way, he was right. His vaults never had band versions of the full 10 songs that appear on Nebraska. But there are electric versions of six of songs — no “Used Cars,” but that demo already has glockenspiel — plus two big surprises, which I’ll get to in a moment.

Electric Nebraska is part of a box set called Nebraska ‘82 that was released this weekend, and I have been playing pretty much on a loop. For a hardcore Springsteen fanatic (I would classify myself as a moderate Springsteen fanatic) this is a “pinch me, I’m dreaming” moment.

Whenever some pop culture dream finally comes to life, it always makes me a little upset. I can’t help but think about a guy who loved Bruce more than anything, but was diagnosed with terminal cancer some months ago and was hoping to make it long enough to hear this… but died on Thursday at 11pm, an hour before these tracks hit Spotify. Statistically speaking, that has to have happened. Right now there’s some weirdo with a disease hanging on just to see The Day the Clown Cried, and I hope they make it.

Given the darkness of Nebraska (electric or otherwise) this is not such a strange thing to dwell upon. If, in 1981 in that rented house in the Colts Neck woods, Springsteen were going to write a song about someone who cared about pop culture, it would be about something like this.

Luckily for me, if I may tangent, there are only two “from the vault” things that, should I learn from beyond the grave were finally released, it would posthumously piss me off. And neither will ever happen. One pertains to the movie Anhedonia, which allegedly clocked in at 140 minutes. It was then cut down to 93 and retitled Annie Hall, the best motion picture ever made by a country mile.

No one other than the nearly-90-year-old Woody Allen knows what’s become of that footage, and he’s a guy who claims not to have “a text number.” Co-writer Marshall Brickman and editor Ralph Rosenbloom are both gone; maybe producer Robert Greenhut, age 82, could shed some insight. What is known for sure is that one sequence was set “in Hell”; there is a promo shot of Allen, Diane Keaton (RIP), Tony Roberts (RIP), and a devilish-looking fella making a descent on a New York service elevator. A lot of this was supposedly repurposed in for the Hell scenes in Deconstructing Harry with Billy Crystal. Also, the original cut is believed to have had a whole murder mystery thread, which was later revived into Manhattan Murder Mystery. Anyway, there’s no possible way this will ever be released. If this were a just world, a company like The Criterion Collection would be financing a high resolution remastering of whatever reels are wasting away in Iron Mountain, but we live in a world of cowards.

The other thing we’ll never see is the first cut of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Stanley Kubrick’s premiere at The Uptown Theatre in Washington, D.C. was 19 minutes longer than what we know. It is believed that the trims are mostly slow shots of spacecraft doing their thing, but I’d like to confirm this with my own eyes. Also: I’d do anything to see the 10 minute (or so) black and white footage Kubrick shot of experts talking about space travel and extra terrestrials, intended as a prologue. This was nixed before that first public screening, but the material was shot and screened for the execs at MGM. Freeman Dyson (of the Dyson Sphere fame) was one of the talking heads. Carl Sagan was supposed to be, too, but he and Kubrick locked horns.

Anyway, we’re really never going to see this. Kubrick was so hardcore that it’s possible he burned the negatives. It’s a shame.

So now we get back to Electric Nebraska, disc 2 of the new 4-disc package released in tandem with Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere. It’s here, it’s queer, and I’m getting used to it. Here are my thoughts on the eight tracks, as they appear.

“Nebraska”: The original, recorded in that echoey abyss, grabs you by the throat with that haunting harmonica intro. It’s replicated here and, yeah, Bruce was right. It’s not the same. It’s not as good. It’s too clear, it’s too present, and somehow it isn’t as powerful.

The rest of this version, however, is pretty great. The first minute is just voice and guitar, then a little bass and drums kick in after a minute. More instruments (Danny Federici on mandolin?) join in and it’s a good, moody song. But it’s not anything revelatory. I think Bruce made the right call on this one.

“Atlantic City”: Bruce, wyd? This version rips, and is better than what you hear on Nebraska. Steven Van Zandt singing (howling!) harmonies and the fiery drums are terrific. This could have fit in on Born in the U.S.A. and been a legendary hit instead of a beloved deep cut. I have seen Joe Russo’s Almost Dead tear this song up in concert and, of course, I enjoy the version that the Levon Helm-led The Band did in the early 1990s. But this kicks ass. This is why people have been praying for Electric Nebraska for over 40 years. (Though Bruce changes the “debts no honest man could pay” line, which is a shame.)

“Mansion on the Hill”: Yeah… this also doesn’t quite work. It’s a lot like the instrumentation of “Nebraska” but with some overbearing church-y organ. This song is a recollection of how Springsteen’s father, broken by society and the monkeys in his mind, only showed kindness to his children during car trips of envy and wonderment at the homes of wealthy neighbors. The tormented version on Nebraska is a shameful confession, and that isolation is necessary.

“Johnny 99”: This is one that’s had electric treatment in concert for years — you can hear it on the great Live 1975-1985 collection, or more recently, like the Live in Dublin collection with a big brass arrangement. It’s a load of fun here, with some scratchy guitar and no shortage of whoops, but it is not a “holy cow!” (Luckily this version does not nix its repeat of the “debts no honest man could pay” line.) This is a great, happy song about a man ground down by the gears of capitalism until he goes out and shoots someone for no reason. It ends with a yodeled “Glory, Glory Hallelujah” which is terrific.

“Downbound Train”: This is insane. Most of us know “Downbound Train” as a medium tempo tune from Born in the U.S.A., full of layered synthesizers and howls. This version rages at the speed of light with a barely recognizable melody. The drums are rolling, the piano is crashing, Bruce is screaming, and it’s a glorious mess. Putting the tune on the shelf for a while was the right move, but this is surprising and wonderful.

“Open All Night”: This bouncy song is probably my least favorite on Nebraska. I just find it a little repetitive. That’s part of why I find Son Volt’s slow-but-electric version so appealing. (Listen to it immediately if you’ve never heard it.) Jay Farrar’s voice is drenched in sorrow and the weepy steel guitar is perfect.

The Electric Nebraska version can’t hold a candle to what Son Volt did back in 2000. But it’s still really good and peppy. It has a “Darlington County” vibe. I think I prefer the electric version to the original.

“Born in the U.S.A.”: Okay, here comes the big surprise. Hardcore fans know that this song emerged from the Nebraska demos (and the movie spells it out.) That track has been out for a while, with a slightly different melodic line and some marginally different lyrics. It’s definitely darker. But the electric version is evil.

The guitar and especially the bass are heavily influenced by Lou Reed, Robert Quine, and Fernando Saunders’s work on The Blue Mask. (I don’t know this for a fact, but The Blue Mask came out just before these sessions; I’m willing to bet it all that I’m right, just listen and compare.)

This new, sinister “Born in the U.S.A.” is a treasure. No, it definitely should not have been released instead of the version the whole world plus Ronald Reagan fell in love with, but it’s an incredible document. I’m going to be playing this one a lot.

“Reason to Believe”: This rules, too. Much like “Johnny 99,” Bruce and the band soon played it electric (see Live 1975-1985) but I really like this clean version. This is the most (the only?) hopeful song on the album — despite all the foul and rotten imagery described in the lyrics, people still have faith. You can interpret it as sneering (“look at these dopes”) but I don’t see it that way. Putting it last, both on Electric Nebraska and Nebraska, leads me to think Springsteen doesn’t either.

**

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