In the midst of a personal crisis, Bruce Springsteen recorded these haunting demos and carried the tape around for months before deciding to make them his next album. Springsteen sang and played guitar, harmonica, mandolin, glockenspiel, tambourine, and organ in his bedroom in Colt’s Neck, New Jersey. He brought the songs to the E Street Band and they worked on them at the Power Station studio in New York City; but the newer versions were missing an otherworldly quality that the demos captured. Springsteen remembers: "I was just doing songs for the next rock album, and I decided that what always took me so long in the studio was the writing. I would get in there, and I just wouldn't have the material written, or it wasn't written well enough, and so I'd record for a month, get a couple of things, go home write some more, record for another month — it wasn't very efficient. So this time, I got a little Teac four-track cassette machine, and I said, I'm gonna record these songs, and if they sound good with just me doin' 'em, then I'll teach 'em to the band. I could sing and play the guitar, and then I had two tracks to do somethin' else, like overdub a guitar or add a harmony. It was just gonna be a demo. Then I had a little Echoplex that I mixed through, and that was it. And that was the tape that became the record. It's amazing that it got there, 'cause I was carryin' that cassette around with me in my pocket without a case for a couple of week, just draggin' it around. Finally, we realized, ‘Uh-oh, that's the album.’ Technically, it was difficult to get it on a disc. The stuff was recorded so strangely, the needle would read a lot of distortion and wouldn't track in the wax. We almost had to release it as a cassette."
The subject matter reflected Springsteen’s deep depression over the state of the country and his disbelief in his own fame: “My issues weren’t as obvious as drugs. Mine were different, they were quieter—just as problematic, but quieter. With all artists, because of the undertow of history and self-loathing, there is a tremendous push toward self-obliteration that occurs onstage. It’s both things: there’s a tremendous finding of the self while also an abandonment of the self at the same time. You are free of yourself for those hours; all the voices in your head are gone. Just gone. There’s no room for them. There’s one voice, the voice you’re speaking in.”
Steve Van Zandt told him: "The fact that you didn't intend to release it makes it the most intimate record you'll ever do. This is an absolutely legitimate piece of art." Bruce considers: "‘Nebraska’ is built on the premise that everybody knows what it's like to be condemned."
http://brucespringsteen.net/
"Nebraska"
"Atlantic City"
"Mansion on the Hill"
"State Trooper"
"Open All Night"
"My Father's House"
"Reason to Believe"
‘Nebraska’
full album
All tracks written by Bruce Springsteen.
Side one
1. "Nebraska" 4:32
2. "Atlantic City" 4:00
3. "Mansion on the Hill" 4:08
4. "Johnny 99" 3:44
5. "Highway Patrolman" 5:40
6. "State Trooper" 3:17
Side two
7. "Used Cars" 3:11
8. "Open All Night" 2:58
9. "My Father's House" 5:07
10. "Reason to Believe" 4:11
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq5_IODrGmKhnRw0HdFxmXPPchNwg0Ual
live
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgIc9WiDLPQ
1 -Nebraska
2 -Atlantic City 05:21
3 -Mansion On The Hill 10:26
4 -Johnny 99 14:19
5 -Highway Patrolman 18:29
6 -State Trooper 25:01
7 -Used Cars 29:10
8 -Open All Night 32:29
9 -My Father's House 40:54
10-Reason To Believe 46:23
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