Nebraska (album)

Nebraska
Bruce Springsteen's studio album
Publication (s)	20th September 1982
Label (s)	Columbia Records
Format (s)	LP, CD
Genre (s)	Folk , rock
Title (number)	10
running time	40:50
occupation	Bruce Springsteen - guitar , harmonica , vocals
production	Bruce Springsteen, Mike Batlan
Studio (s)	January 3, 1982, Bruce Springsteen's bedroom in Colts Neck ( New Jersey )
chronology The River (1980) Nebraska Born in the USA (1984)

Nebraska is Bruce Springsteen's sixth studio album . It was released in 1982 and most of it was recorded by Springsteen alone in his bedroom on January 3rd of the same year. With reference to this, "January 3rd, 1982" was initially discussed as an alternative album title.

Originally, the tracks on the record are demo versions of the songs on the upcoming Springsteen album. After a few rehearsals with the E Street Band , however, Springsteen decided to release the demo versions, which he had recorded with a four-track tape recorder in his bedroom in January, in album form.

A few more tracks from this session that are not on Nebraska later appeared in significantly rockier versions on the follow-up album Born in the USA , including the title track of this album. The demo version of Born in the USA from the Nebraska session appeared later on the rarity collection Tracks and on its shortened version 18 tracks .

Style and subject

Much of the album consists only of vocals, acoustic guitar and harmonica. Springsteen, however, resorted to the electric guitar for some songs (State Trooper & Open All Night), and accompanied some compositions with a glockenspiel. Most of the pieces are characterized by a calm to depressive mood, which is also expressed in the texts, which, in addition to Springsteen's personal memories, above all describe strokes of fate and desperate acts of simple people . Nebraska is not a concept album , but it can be viewed as thematically self-contained.

The title track deals with the story of Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugate, but is based on the same topic Badlands with Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek , which also contains fictional elements. Springsteen tells the story from the perpetrator's first-person perspective during a fictional court hearing. A similar style, but with a changing narrative perspective, shows the play Johnny 99 , in which the content is also about the story of a murder and the subsequent trial. Other pieces deal with the fate of petty criminals ( Atlantic City ), family dramas ( Highway Patrolman ), loneliness ( State Trooper ) or childhood memories ( Mansion on the Hill , Used Cars ). Springsteen's relationship to his father, which often plays a role in his texts, is also discussed ( My Father's House ).

The ten songs on the album mention the deaths of a total of thirteen people and a dog, twelve of whom are violently killed. The fate of another victim of violence remains unclear ( Highway Patrolman ). One criminal is sentenced to death, one to 99 years in prison, he asks for the sentence to be commuted to the death penalty, two others are on the run, one person decides to join organized crime and two romantic relationships fail. Long, lonely car journeys, usually at night, also play a major role. Seven of the ten songs mention a total of thirteen people who drive in a car and one person who has just got out of a car. Three pieces also mention that the protagonists are overindebted, with the phrase “debts no honest man can pay” appearing in both Atlantic City and Johnny 99 . In Highway Patrolman , the narrative character has to change jobs due to financial difficulties. This piece also deals with the career of a Vietnam veteran, whose fate is also dealt with in Born in the USA , which was published later but was created at the same time .

By the simple exploitation and continuously melancholy mood differs Nebraska significantly from the previously published material Springsteen and also by most of his later published works, especially from his second album Born in the USA , the two also instrumentalized albums Only scantily The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995) and Devils & Dust (2005) again show a style similar to Nebraska .

Track list

1. Nebraska - 4:32
2. Atlantic City - 4:02
3. Mansion on the Hill - 4:08
4. Johnny 99 - 3:43
5. Highway Patrolman - 5:41
6. State Trooper - 3:17
7. Used Cars - 3:11
8. Open all night - 2:58
9. My Father's House - 5:08 am
10. Reason to Believe - 4:08

All pieces were written by Bruce Springsteen.

Trivia

• The album was not toured. Springsteen only played songs from Nebraska live on the Born in the USA tour over two years after they were released .
• The European version of the LP appeared in a gatefold cover with the English texts printed on the inside. The lyrics were translated into German and French on the inner sleeve of the LP. These translations are not included in the CD version that was released later. The cover photo is by David Kennedy and was taken back in 1975.
• Various Japanese CD pressings of the album contain a longer (5'35 ") version of the song" My Father's House "with an additional running time of 28 seconds. The master tape with this version was only used in Japan.
• Director Sean Penn processed the story of the play Highway Patrolman into the film Indian Runner in 1991 .
• The album Nebraska has its own cover album , which was released in 2000 under the title Badlands - A Tribute to Bruce Springsteens Nebraska and on which Chrissie Hynde , Johnny Cash and Los Lobos, among others, replay the entire album as well as three other pieces from the original session . Among these three are two songs, I'm on Fire and Downbound Train , which, as extracts from the follow-up album Born in the USA, were Springsteen's big single hits.
• From Rolling Stone Magazine album in 2003 at number 224 which was 500 greatest albums of all time set.
• In 2010 the album was released with Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ , The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle , Born to Run . Darkness on the Edge of Town , The River and the following studio albums, Born in the USA , in the CD box set The Collection 1973-84 .

literature

• Uwe Böhm / Gerd Buschmann, Pop Music - Religion - Lessons. Models and materials for didactics of popular culture (Symbol - Mythos - Medien Vol. 5). Münster 2002. pp. 135-146.

Web links

• English-language page with the lyrics of the album