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Nebraska
Studio album by
Bruce Springsteen
ReleasedSeptember 30, 1982 (1982-09-30)
RecordedDecember 17, 1981, to January 3, 1982, except "My Father's House", May 25, 1982
StudioSpringsteen's home in Colts Neck, New Jersey
Genre
Length41:02
LabelColumbia
ProducerMike Batlan (engineer)[a]
Bruce Springsteen chronology
The River
(1980) 		Nebraska
(1982) 		Born in the U.S.A.
(1984)
Singles from Nebraska
  1. "Atlantic City"
    Released: October 8, 1982 (Europe and Japan only)
  2. "Open All Night"
    Released: November 22, 1982 (Europe only)

Nebraska is the sixth studio album by the American singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen, released on September 30, 1982, by Columbia Records. Springsteen recorded the songs as demos using a four-track recorder in the bedroom of his home in Colts Neck, New Jersey, intending to rerecord them with the E Street Band, but decided to release them as they were after full-band renditions were deemed unsatisfactory. The material features Springsteen alone, mostly accompanied by acoustic guitar and harmonica. Fifteen songs appeared on the tape, ten of which appeared on Nebraska, while others appeared in full-band renditions on the follow-up album Born in the U.S.A. (1984) and as B-sides.

Living isolated in Colts Neck following the River Tour, Springsteen was influenced by American literature, films, and folk music when writing the Nebraska songs. The short stories of Flannery O'Connor particularly inspired him to write about his own childhood memories. Featuring a stark, lo-fi sound, the tracks tell the stories of ordinary, blue-collar individuals who try to succeed in life but fail at every turn, going in search of deliverance that never comes. Some songs are told through the eyes of outlaws and criminals, such as the killer Charles Starkweather on the title track. The album's cover artwork, taken by David Michael Kennedy, depicts a black-top road under a cloudy sky through the windshield of a car.

It was accompanied by two European singles—"Atlantic City" and "Open All Night"; the former was supported by Springsteen's first music video. For the first time, Springsteen did not tour the record, believing listeners should experience the record for themselves.

A feature film based on the making of Nebraska titled Deliver Me from Nowhere is currently in development and will star Jeremy Allen White as Springsteen.

Background and development

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Springsteen in 1981

Bruce Springsteen's fifth studio album The River was released in October 1980.[5] The album and supporting tour brought Springsteen and the E Street Band their largest amount of commercial success yet.[6] Nevertheless, his newfound attention led him to look inward about his role as an entertainer.[7] Springsteen later explained that The River's success led to him dealing with "very conflicted feelings about being so separate from the people that I'd grown up around and that I wrote about".[8] At the end of the tour, he retreated to his newly-rented ranch in Colts Neck, New Jersey, in September 1981.[9][10]

Living isolated in Colts Neck,[11] Springsteen engrossed himself in American history, reading books and watching films in search of stories to use for songwriting.[12][13] Books he read included Joe Klein's Woody Guthrie: A Life (1980), Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States (1980), The Pocket History of the United States, and Ron Kovic's autobiography Born on the Fourth of July (1976),[7] while films he watched included John Ford's adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Terrence Malick's Badlands (1973), John Huston's adaptation of Wise Blood (1979), and Ulu Grosbard's True Confessions (1981).[14][15] Springsteen also began reflecting on his own childhood and studied the romans noirs of James M. Cain and Jim Thompson, the Gothic short stories of Flannery O'Connor, and the music of folk singer-songwriters Guthrie, Bob Dylan, and Hank Williams.[16] Consequence of Sound's Bill See says that from these sources, Springsteen retrieved "a humanity and a curiosity about why certain people lose connection with themselves, their families, their community, [and] their government".[14]

 
The short stories of Flannery O'Connor (pictured in 1947) influenced Springsteen when writing Nebraska.

O'Connor's writings were particularly influential on Springsteen.[17] The author and critic Dave Marsh said that Springsteen became impressed by the "minute-precision" of O'Connor's prose and believed that he had felt that his songwriting had been too vague, too "dreamlike",[18] instead wanting to write songs that were more detailed and concrete, away from the "clash and babble of metaphor" found occasionally on his previous albums.[19] O'Connor wrote some of her stories from a child's perspective,[20] which inspired Springsteen to write songs in a similar manner. Springsteen himself stated that the songs from the period were more "connected" to his childhood than ever before.[21][22] O'Connor's Catholicism was also an influence.[23] Springsteen stated in his 2003 book Songs: "Her stories reminded me of the unknowability of God and contained a dark spirituality that resonated with my own feelings at the time."[15] Songs written during the period featured stories ranging from Springsteen's childhood to ones about criminals and violence, as well as one about a Vietnam veteran returning home from the war to an unenthusiastic response.[24][25]

Recording

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Colts Neck

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Annoyed at how long it took him to record in the studio, Springsteen decided to record the new songs as solo demos, intending to rerecord them with the E Street Band – Roy Bittan (piano), Clarence Clemons (saxophone), Danny Federici (organ), Garry Tallent (bass), Steven Van Zandt (guitar), and Max Weinberg (drums) – at a later date.[26][27][28][29] He later told the author Warren Zanes: "The recordings were just meant to get us a jump start on work in the studio with the band. I'd always spent a lot of time writing in the studio. I was trying to be more efficient, I guess. Certainly trying to spend a little less money."[30]

 
Springsteen played a Gibson J-200 acoustic guitar for the Nebraska songs, similar to the one pictured here.

Springsteen tasked his guitar technician, Mike Batlan, with buying a simple tape recorder to work out some demos and tinker with arrangements. Batlan picked up a four-track TEAC Tascam Portastudio 144 recorder,[13] a then-relatively new device[31] that allowed musicians to perform a basic track first before adding additional parts on the remaining tracks.[32][33][34] Springsteen believed these overdubbed instruments would help the band understand how the final track should sound.[35] He and Batlan set the recorder up in the bedroom of his Colts Neck home.[36] They connected the machine to two Shure SM57 microphones on stands.[37] Springsteen played a Gibson J-200 acoustic guitar,[38] overdubbing harmonica, percussion, mandolin, and glockenspiel.[39][40] The demos were recorded between December 17, 1981, to January 3, 1982.[b][43][44] Most of the basic tracks (vocals and acoustic guitar) were finished in four to six takes.[41]

Springsteen and Batlan mixed the sound by plugging the recorder into an Echoplex, a tape delay effects machine, and using an old water-logged Panasonic boombox[c] as a mix-down deck to bring the final mix onto a cassette tape.[46][47][43] In his 2003 book Songs, Springsteen stated he recorded this way because he "found the atmosphere in the studio to be sterile and isolating".[48] Fifteen songs were recorded on the initial cassette tape: "Bye Bye Johnny",[d] "Starkweather"/"Nebraska", "Atlantic City", "Mansion on the Hill", "Born in the U.S.A.", "Johnny 99", "Downbound Train", "The Losin' Kind", "State Trooper", "Used Cars", "Wanda (Open All Night)", "Child Bride", "Pink Cadillac", "Highway Patrolman", and "Reason to Believe".[50][51]

Following mixing,[41] Springsteen sent the tape to his manager-producer Jon Landau with two pages of handwritten notes about arrangements and mixes.[46][52] According to the biographer Peter Ames Carlin, Landau was "impressed by the power of the songs' minimalist narratives" and the "yelping desperation in the performances".[41] In the subsequent months, Springsteen recorded two more songs at Colts Neck using the same recording methods: "The Big Payback", between March and April,[e][54] and "My Father's House", on May 25.[55][56]

Attempted rerecordings

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See also: Electric Nebraska and Born in the U.S.A.

In April 1982, Springsteen and the E Street Band rehearsed the demos at Bittan's house[43] before regrouping at the Power Station in New York City to rerecord them for release on the next album.[f][58][59] The band spent two weeks attempting full-band arrangements of the Colts Neck tracks but Springsteen and his co-producers—Landau, Van Zandt, and Chuck Plotkin—were dissatisfied with the results.[59][60][61] Springsteen, in particular, felt the full-band versions failed to capture the spirit of the demos,[62] while Plotkin blamed the studio's "tendency to conventionalize sounds".[63] Other songs from the tape, including "Born in the U.S.A.", "Downbound Train", "Child Bride" (rewritten as "Working on the Highway"), and "Pink Cadillac" proved successful in full-band arrangements.[51] Continuing into May, the band also recorded newly-written songs absent from the tape, including "Glory Days", "I'm Goin' Down", and "I'm on Fire".[64][65]

Despite the band's productivity and excitement about the recorded material, Springsteen remained focused on the rest of the Colts Neck songs.[66] Attached to the cassette's "authentic" sound,[67] he carried the cassette with him in his jeans pocket, unsure of what to do with the material.[13][43] Realizing the tracks would not work in full-band arrangements, a decision was made to release the demos as is.[g][13][69] Van Zandt told Springsteen: "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."[29] Springsteen briefly considered releasing a double album of acoustic and electric songs before deciding to release the acoustic ones on their own to give them "greater stature".[70][71][72][73] The album, titled Nebraska, became Springsteen's first and only album he made without knowing he was making a record.[73]

Springsteen's fans have long speculated whether the full-band recordings of the Nebraska material, nicknamed Electric Nebraska, will ever surface.[28][42] In a 1984 interview with Rolling Stone, Springsteen believed an official release was unlikely, saying: "A lot of [Nebraska's] content was in its style, in the treatment of it. It needed that really kinda austere, echoey sound, just one guitar—one guy telling his story."[74] Decades later in 2006, Landau said that the electric release is unlikely because "the right version came out".[75] Nevertheless, in a 2010 interview with Rolling Stone, Weinberg praised the full-band renditions as "killing" and "very hard-edged".[76]

Mastering

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Springsteen tasked the engineer Toby Scott with mastering the recordings, which proved problematic due to how he and Batlan recorded them.[77] According to Classic Rock Review, the demos were not recorded at optimal volume or with optimal noise reduction, meaning it was difficult to transfer the recordings to vinyl.[28] For weeks, Plotkin and Scott attempted to transfer the recordings to the mixing console in the Power Station with no success. Attempts at remixing Springsteen and Batlan's original mixes also failed. Plotkin and Scott eventually took the tape to different mastering facilities, with failed attempts by the mastering engineers Bob Ludwig, Steve Marcussen, and Greg Calbi.[78] The final master was made at New York City's Atlantic Studios by Dennis King,[67] who was able to resolve the tape's low recording volume with noise reduction techniques.[42] In a 2007 interview, Scott explained: "[W]e ended up having Bob Ludwig use his EQ and his mastering facility, but with Dennis [King's] mastering parameters. And that's the master we ended up using."[79]

Music and lyrics

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I wanted black bedtime stories. I thought of the records of John Lee Hooker and Robert Johnson, music that sounded so good with the lights out. I wanted the listener to hear my characters think, to feel their thoughts, their choices. [...] If there's a theme that runs through the record, it's the thin line between stability and that moment when time stops and everything goes to black, when the things that connect you to your world–your job, your family, friends, your faith, the love and grace in your heart–fail you.[80]

—Bruce Springsteen, Songs, 2003

Nebraska represented a major stylistic departure for Springsteen,[4][71][81] although several songs from The River foreshadowed its direction,[72][82] including "Stolen Car", "The River", and "Wreck On the Highway".[13][71] Featuring only Springsteen,[83] Nebraska is a minimalist[84][85] folk record,[86][87] with folk rock,[86] heartland rock,[88] lo-fi,[85][89][90] and country influences.[91] Commentators have described its music and lyrics as stark,[h] bleak,[95][96] somber,[97] depressing,[98] and brutal.[90] AllMusic's William Ruhlmann called the recordings themselves "unpolished" and sounding unfinished.[4] Consequence of Sound's Bill See noted the numerous "imperfections" in the mix,[29] including "the creaking of a chair, the "P's" that pop, the over-modulated harmonicas and Jimmy Rogers-like howls that pin the VU meters".[14] Joe Pelone of punknews.org argues that the album's lo-fi nature gives the songs a "hazy atmosphere" that "forces listeners to imagine more about what's going on, creating sounds that aren't there".[85] Springsteen explained: "My Nebraska songs were the opposite of the rock music I'd been writing. These new songs were narrative, restrained, linear, and musically minimal. Yet their depiction of characters out on the edge contextualized them as rock and roll."[22]

The songs on Nebraska tell the stories of ordinary, blue-collar individuals who try to succeed in life but fail at every turn.[14][71] Caught in the midst of existential crises, they realize that their lives are devoid of meaning and search for a deliverance that never comes.[17][86] Their desperation and alienation pushes them to commit unspeakable acts.[99][90] See noted the subservient role the working class characters have accepted through the use of the words "sir" and "son".[14] In their analyses of the album, the writers Ryan Sheeler and David McLaughlin state that the songs dissect the vulnerability of the American Dream, offering a harsh look on life through the eyes of outlaws, poor folk, and estranged families, and what happens when the pillars of life – work, love, family and friends – crumble and there is nowhere left to run.[90][92] Stories told through the eyes of criminals include "Nebraska" and "Johnny 99",[100][101] as well as through Springsteen's own childhood memories on "Mansion on the Hill", "Used Cars", and "My Father's House".[55] Several songs are driven by automobiles.[13][102] Compared to Springsteen's previous records, where the car represented escape (Born to Run) and a place where stories unfolded (Darkness on the Edge of Town and portions of The River), cars on Nebraska represent a chamber that keeps its characters isolated,[13] or one they travel in while searching for some type of connection as the world passes them by.[90]

Side one

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"Nebraska" is sung from the point-of-view of the killer Charles Starkweather, pictured here with his girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate in December 1957.

The opening track, "Nebraska", tells the story of the killer Charles Starkweather,[86] who murdered ten people from 1957 to 1958 between Nebraska and Wyoming while traveling with his girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate.[83][103][104][101] After his capture, Starkweather is sentenced to death by electric chair but remains unrepentant, blaming his actions on the "meanness" of the world.[101][17] Springsteen wrote the song after watching Badlands, a film about the couple,[90] and reading the Ninette Beaver book Caril (1974).[104][101] The song is sung from a first-person perspective; Springsteen said in 2005 that "everyone knows what it is like to be condemned".[104] The song's music was described by Rolling Stone's Steve Pond as "gentle" and "soothing".[86]

"Atlantic City" follows the mob wars in the titular city.[86] At the time it was written in the early 1980s, Atlantic City was controlled by corruption and had turned to gambling in hopes of revitalizing the city. In the song, a young man struggles to make an honest living, forcing him and his girlfriend to relocate to the city so he can join the mob.[28][97][105] Springsteen mentions "the Chicken Man from Philly", which referred to the mafia boss Philip Testa, who was murdered in 1981.[28][106] Margotin and Guesdon note the song's "dense atmosphere and the performance's feeling or urgency".[105]

"Mansion on the Hill" evokes Springsteen's childhood memories, remembering a large mansion on top of a hill that piqued his curiosity, and car rides with his father.[107][108] Its title was taken from a Hank Williams song of the same name.[107] Like other songs on the album, the musical arrangement is minimal, with guitar and harmonica.[109] Margotin and Guesdon note "a spellbinding, hypnotic atmosphere" that is "filled with emotion and restraint".[107]

In "Johnny 99", the narrator is laid off from his job at the Ford assembly plant in Mahwah, New Jersey, and takes out his frustration by murdering a hotel clerk; he is captured and subsequently sentenced to 99 years in prison and begs for the death penalty.[i] Unlike the murderer in "Nebraska", the perpetrator on "Johnny 99" shows remorse for his action, saying he is "better off dead" due to his large debts and a house being foreclosed.[111] Musically, it features a rock'n'roll/rockabilly rhythm with echoed vocals and an ambient atmosphere.[110] AllMusic's William Ruhlmann describes Springsteen's performance as "raucous", one that starts with "lonely falsetto wails" and ends with "exuberant falsetto shouts".[100]

"Highway Patrolman" "juxtaposes the duty to carry out the law with the blood ties of family loyalty".[14] It tells the story of an honest police officer named Joe Roberts who is given a choice of turning his own brother in for committing a crime or letting him go, ultimately going with the latter.[83][112][113] Springsteen argues in the song's chorus, "Man turns his back on his family/Well, he just ain't no good."[112]

"State Trooper" is a lo-fi folk song led solely by vocals and guitar.[13][114] Classic Rock Review describes the guitar line as emulating "the recurring sound of the road".[28] Musically, the track was directly influenced by "Frankie Teardrop" by the synth-punk band Suicide.[13][114][115] Lyrically, the song is told from the point-of-view of a car thief;[115] he does not have a license or registration and becomes increasingly paranoid the farther he travels on a deserted highway.[28][116][114] The verses end with the driver's plea to a state trooper—either real or imaginary—not to stop him as he drives through the night.[115]

Side two

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"Used Cars" uses Springsteen's childhood to describe his own experiences with his father and differences in social classes growing up.[117] Set to gentle music,[13] the narrator watches his father purchase a used car as the family cannot afford a new one.[14] The father, worn from years of manual labor and ashamed of his poor income, is unable to share his feelings with his son.[13][108] The family shows off their "brand new used car" to the neighbors, after which the narrator clings to the hope that he can escape from this reality and win the lottery, vowing he is "never gonna ride in no used car again".[14][118][108]

"Open All Night" has a more light-hearted mood compared to the rest of the album, being an up-tempo rock song with a Chuck Berry-style melody and rhythm.[83][119][120][121] The singer wants to be delivered from nowhere, but requests that rock and roll music accompany his long journey driving down the New Jersey Turnpike.[83][119][121] The song was inspired by an unnamed short story by the novelist William Price Fox.[120]

"My Father's House" is the final song on the album relating to Springsteen's childhood.[86][55] It returns to a sadder mood,[55] wherein the narrator has a dream in which, as a child, he is saved by his father from dark forces in a forest. Upon waking up, he decides to reconcile with his estranged father.[108] When the narrator arrives at his father's house, the narrator finds he no longer lives there, with his dreams of making peace with his father crushed.[55]

The album's closing track, "Reason to Believe", Springsteen tells four short stories across four verses:[121] a man hopes to revive a dead dog on the side of a highway by poking it; a woman waits at the end of a road for a man who never comes; a child is born and a man dies; and a groom waits for bride who stood him up.[86][98] The verses are unified by the singer's humorous outlook that individuals always find "some reason to believe".[98] The author Rob Kirkpatrick argues that the song's point is that "people endure, that they struggle against all evidence to the contrary, because it's the only thing that they can do—or else they end up dead, spiritually or literally".[122] According to the writer Irwin Streight, the song "seeks to resolve the litanies of meanness, desperation, hopelessness, and longing recounted in the preceding stories, and to resolve them in a decidedly Catholic fashion".[17] Margotin and Guesdon describe the musical performance as emitting "sorrow and fatalism".[123]

Artwork and packaging

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The cover artwork of Nebraska is a black-and-white photograph of a black-top road under a cloudy sky taken through the windshield of a car.[29][37] The photograph was originally taken by the landscape photographer David Michael Kennedy during the winter of 1975.[37][124] Springsteen did not want himself on the cover, instead envisioning a landscape. Kennedy was hired by the art director Andrea Klein after showing Springsteen some of Kennedy's work. Kennedy provided various images before Springsteen selected the final one.[37][124] Some commentators have agreed that the artwork matches the album's tone and mood perfectly.[29][37] The singer's name and album title appear in bright red above and below the image, respectively, stylized in all caps.[37][125] Springsteen said of the image:[124]

"I liked the photograph [Klein] found and what was done with it, just the stark red-and-black, black-and-white layout, and the big letters. It was all just very bloody in its own way. I remember a lot of work, a lot of fussing over many of the album covers, but I don't remember Nebraska being one of them."

The back of the sleeve contains a photograph of Springsteen taken by Kennedy in a brightly lit room.[37][125] Springsteen said he wanted his presence both known and unknown: "The picture we used inside, it was kind of my ghost. It wasn't quite me. It was ... the earlier part of yourself that stays with you."[125] The inside sleeve includes lyrics of the album's ten songs.[37]

Release

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Columbia and its international arm CBS Records were ecstatic when Springsteen and Landau presented Nebraska to them. The labels' presidents, Walter Yetnikoff and Al Teller, respectively, believed the album would not sell as well as The River, but loved the music and felt it represented an artistic growth for Springsteen. Teller promised a more subdued advertising campaign compared to The River and anticipated sales of less than one million copies.[77]

Nebraska was released on September 30, 1982.[90][126] It stylistically stood apart from other releases in the year by artists such as A Flock of Seagulls, Stray Cats, and Lionel Richie,[127] and at a time when sales charts were dominated by artists such as Olivia Newton-John, the Human League, and Survivor.[14] It confused both casual and serious fans,[77] but debuted on the U.S. Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart at number 29,[128] peaking at number three.[129] By 1989, it had sold one million copies and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).[130] Elsewhere, the album peaked at number two in Sweden,[131] three in Canada,[132] Norway,[133] New Zealand,[134] and the U.K.,[135] seven in the Netherlands,[136] eight in Australia,[137] and ten in Japan.[138] It also reached number 18 in France and 37 in West Germany.[139][140]

Nebraska was supported by two singles. The first, "Atlantic City", with "Mansion on the Hill" as the B-side, was released in Europe and Japan only[105] on October 8, 1982.[citation needed] Springsteen's first ever music video was produced as promotion for rotation on MTV. Directed by Arnold Levine, the "Atlantic City" video does not feature Springsteen himself, instead featuring black-and-white documentary-style footage of the titular city shot on location.[141] Commentators have described the video as "bleak" and "atmospheric".[142][122] "Open All Night" was released as the second single, again in Europe only, on November 22.[120] Its B-side was "The Big Payback", a rockabilly song with lyrics related to working life.[54]

Springsteen himself did not promote the album; he conducted no interviews and, for the first time after an album release, did not tour.[143][144][90] In his 2016 autobiography Born to Run, he explained that "it felt too soon after The River, and Nebraska's quiet stillness would take me a while longer to bring to the stage".[145] He also stated that he wanted listeners to experience the album for themselves: "I thought I could only hurt the project at that moment by trying to explain it ... if I could explain it."[146]

Following Nebraska's release, Springsteen vacationed on a cross-country road trip to California,[147] taping several new demos at his newly-purchased home in Los Angeles before returning to New York to continue recording with the E Street Band.[148][149] Sessions lasted until February 1984,[150] during which the band recorded between 70 to 90 songs.[151] The follow-up to Nebraska, Born in the U.S.A., was released in June 1984.[152] It featured full-band arrangements of three songs from the original Colts Neck tape: "Born in the U.S.A.", "Downbound Train", and "Working on the Highway" (reworked from "Child Bride"), while the electric versions of "Pink Cadillac" and "Bye Bye Johnny" (possibly re-recorded as "Johnny Bye-Bye") were released as the B-sides of the "Dancing in the Dark" and "I'm on Fire" singles, respectively.[51][49][153] Out of the fifteen (seventeen) songs on the original demo tape, the crime tale "The Losin' Kind" is the only one that remains unreleased.[51][154]

Critical reception

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Professional ratings
Initial reviews
Review scores
SourceRating
Record Mirror     [155]
Rolling Stone     [86]
Smash Hits6½/10[95]
The Village VoiceA−[156]

On its original release, Nebraska was described by critics as an unexpected,[95] brave,[86] and artistically daring record.[157]

Springsteen's most personal album up to that point.[83][87][91][157]

"Many critics praised the album's sincerity."[122]

Time described it as "an acoustic bypass through the American heartland ... like a Library of Congress field recording made out behind some shutdown auto plant"[122]

Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle[157]

  • "Nebraska is an artist's sketchbook. On this record, Springsteen fouls up time and meter on frequent occasion, mumbles inarticulate lyrics at points, and generally includes stray marks and moments of human fallibility anybody else would have taken the time to record over. Not that Springsteen is lazy, but, rather, the obvious intention of this work is to let the listener in on the creative process at a tender, fragile moment that can never been recaptured."
  • "But Nebraska only recalls the early works of Bob Dylan and his folk movement colleagues as far as the instrumental approach. The ten songs are rich Springsteen, full of automobiles, working class heroes, and the dreams and nightmares of everyday people."
  • "These are stories as much as they are songs."
  • "Never before has a major recording artist made himself so vulnerable or open. Only somebody who is as trusted, known and loved as Springsteen could get away with dashing off a few quick sketches, throwing them in frames and mounting them on the gallery walls."

Record Mirror[155]

  • "The subjects travel along well furrowed ground juxtaposing the American dream of escape into cars, desperate love and never-ending nights with the American reality of factory working and Catholic repression."
  • "Springsteen's gift for making epic aural stories out of such material is turned on its head by the simple backing. Those that think his power comes from the deft arrangement of the E Street Band's rock 'n' roll panache will find it a shock. There can be no doubt that the songs work well without the sometimes overblown bluster of the at times unwieldy outfit."
  • "If you already like peering through the windscreen of Springsteen's odyssey through America you'll probably enjoy this journey. If not, why not take a ride?"

Smash Hits[95]

  • " Nebraska is an all-acoustic effort that focuses on the darker, more introspective side of Springsteen's music. The bleak pessimism of the songs and their rather ponderous delivery is likely to ensure that this one will find favor with fans only"

Billboard[87]

  • "downbeat, intensely personal collection"
  • "spare acoustic guitar, harmonica, and occasional vocal overdubs leave room for his gripping lyrics to take center stage"
  • "radio may balk...but his fans will be moved"

Cash Box[91]

  • "an intensely personal, passionate work"
  • "Sparse, acoustical musical context"
  • "the entire LP's powerful depth demands attention"

Jon Young, Trouser Press[81]

  • "Nebraska is a radical change for Bruce Springsteen"
  • "He may have scaled down his attack, but Springsteen hasn't diminished his ambition one bit. He's still striving to depict the drama and romance in the lives of ordinary folks."
  • "Springsteen now seeks to place himself in the tradition of the guitar-strumming storyteller. He succeeds, too, although his whoops and affected "folksy" diction indicate too clearly the depths of his self-consciousness. On the other hand, it's hard to resist the plaintiveness of a lonesome harmonica imitating a train whistle."
  • "One thing has not changed. Springsteen still treats life as a big deal, full of high drama with inner meaning for those intent on finding it. The consequent generalizing and mythologizing undermines his ability to evoke a specific situation.
  • "he shows signs of growth"
  • "When Springsteen doesn't force Big Truths onto his subject matter he's a more perceptive commentator and ultimately more profound. It's nice to hear he's learning that very difficult lesson."

Steve Pond, Rolling Stone[86]

  • "This is the bravest of Springsteen’s six records; it’s also his most startling, direct and chilling. And if it’s a risky move commercially, Nebraska is also a tactical masterstroke, an inspired way out of the high-stakes rock & roll game that requires each new record to be bigger and grander than the last."
  • "But Nebraska comes as a shock, a violent, acid-etched portrait of a wounded America that fuels its machinery by consuming its people’s dreams."
  • "Nebraska is an acoustic triumph, a basic folk album on which Springsteen has stripped his art down to the core. It’s as harrowing as Darkness on the Edge of Town, but more measured. Every small touch speaks volumes: the delicacy of the acoustic guitars, the blurred sting of the electric guitars, the spare, grim images."
  • "If this record is as deep and unsettling as anything Springsteen has recorded, it is also his narrowest and most single-minded work. He is not extending or advancing his own style so much as he is temporarily adopting a style codified by others. But in that decision are multiple strengths: Springsteen’s clear, sharp focus, his insistence on painting small details so clearly and his determination to make a folk album firmly in the tradition."

In Musician, Paul Nelson said the album sounded “demoralizing” and “murderously monotonous ... deprived of spark or hope.”[122]

Greil Marcus said it was "the most complete and probably the most convincing statement of resistance and refusal that Ronald Reagan's U.S.A. has yet elicited from any artist or any politician."[158]

  • "The countless details of craft and empathy that underlie this album portray... a world in which honest work has been trivialized and honest goals reduced to a bet on a state lottery; a world where the rich live as a different species, so far above the aspirations of ordinary people as to seem like gods."

Ariel Swartley, The Boston Phoenix[102]

  • album "is the rock-and-roller's version of joining a monastery or running away to farm: solo, acoustic, old-fashioned, homemade."
  • "an escape to, not from, reality"

Robert Palmer, The New York Times[83]

  • "Nebraska is a stark, brooding, and frequently ominous album, shot full of pain and loss. ... "But this is his most personal record, and his most disturbing."
  • "It's been a long time since a mainstream rock star made an album that asks such tough questions and refuses to settle for easy answers – let alone an album suggesting that perhaps there are no answers."

Writing in 1984, Robert Hilburn described Nebraska as "one of the most bold uncompromising artistic statements since John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band album in 1970"[159]

Robert Christgau[156]

  • "Literary worth is established with the title tune, in which Springsteen's Charlie Starkweather becomes the first mass murderer in the history of socially relevant singer-songwriting to entertain a revealing thought--wants his pretty baby to sit in his lap when he gets the chair. Good thing he didn't turn that one into a rousing rocker, wouldn't you say, though (Hüsker Dü please note) I grant that some hardcore atonality might also produce the appropriate alienation effect. But the music is a problem here--unlike, er, Dylan, or Robert Johnson, or Johnny Shines or Si Kahn or Kevin Coyne, Springsteen isn't imaginative enough vocally or melodically to enrich these bitter tales of late capitalism with nothing but a guitar, a harmonica, and a few brave arrangements. Still, this is a conceptual coup, especially since it's selling. What better way to set right the misleading premise that rock and roll equals liberation?"

In the Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop critics poll, Nebraska was voted the third best album of 1982, behind Elvis Costello's Imperial Bedroom and Richard and Linda Thompson's Shoot Out the Lights.[160] Rolling Stone included it in their list of the year's top 40 albums,[161] while NME placed it at number 33 in their end-of-year list.[162] In a 2022 list compiling the 50 best albums of 1982, Spin placed Nebraska at number 17.[163]

Legacy

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Later records by Springsteen

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In the decades following its release, Springsteen has released two albums in a similar stripped-down acoustic style of Nebraska: The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995) and Devils & Dust (2005).[42] With Ghost, Springsteen said that he wanted to "pick up where I'd left off with Nebraska, set the stories in the mid-'90s and in the land of my current residence, California."[164] With Devils, Springsteen felt that his acoustic demos were superior to full-band renditions.[165] Both albums contained downbeat themes, but unlike Nebraska, featured a handful of other musicians accompanying Springsteen on many tracks.[166] Many critics agree that the two albums failed to match the power and consistency of Nebraska.[13][85][42] Speaking in 2023, Springsteen referred to Nebraska as his definitive album.[167]

Retrospective reviews

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Professional ratings
Retrospective reviews
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic     [4]
Chicago Tribune    [168]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music     [169]
MusicHound Rock3.5/5[170]
New Musical Express7/10[171]
Pitchfork10/10[13]
Q     [172]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide     [173]
Tom HullB+[174]

Nebraska remains one of the most highly regarded albums in his catalogue.[175]

masterpiece[29][14][84][96]

classic[176]

an outlier in his discography[13][177]

the album non-Springsteen fans enjoy the most[178][94]

timeless[84][93]

one that enjoys repeated listens[72]

"for many fans, including singer Steve Earle, it remains the towering masterpiece of the Boss's career."[29] "the imperfections are somehow part of the record's ultimate charm"[29]

Richard Williams wrote in Q magazine that "Nebraska would simply have been a vastly better record with the benefit of the E Street Band and a few months in the studio."[172]

Pitchfork[13]

  • "The power of Nebraska’s whole comes from Springsteen’s blend of fiction and memoir—some songs are personal and intimate with details drawn from Springsteen’s own life, others are the stuff of novels and cinema."
  • "On paper, this is Springsteen at his most novelistic, trying to get into the heads of murderers and corrupt cops, or diaristic, revisiting detailed scenes from his childhood. ... But the record’s most lasting power comes not from its words or melodies but from its sound. The atmosphere in the room and the grain of Springsteen’s processed voice scramble notions of a fixed time and place. To put on Nebraska and hear its world of echo is to enter a dream. As Bruce Springsteen songs go, these are very good ones, but their true meaning came out in the presentation."
  • "The atmospheric processing on Nebraska, the vast majority of which was imparted by the Echoplex during the mixdown stage, is crucial to the album’s meaning. The slapback echo present on some of the songs conjure early rockabilly..., and the heavy dose of reverb has been present in all kinds of music, from Bobby Vinton’s “Blue Velvet” to any number of country hits. But rather than invoking a certain era, genre, or style, the sound of Nebraska brings to mind the radio, the medium through which these techniques were first widely distributed."
  • "The right amount of reverb and echo can make a cheap speaker in a car’s dashboard sound lush and dreamy. Nebraska’s homespun production reinforces the notion that recorded music happens across vast amounts of time and space. The guy playing and singing alone in this rented room in 1982 is connected to the person hearing it by invisible forces moving through the air. That separation, underscored by the arrangements, give the album its force."

Sylvie Simmons, Mojo[179]

  • "that nakedness and willingness to face the darkness head-on that made Nebraska a touchstone for a whole new wave of young American bands."

Consequence of Sound[72]

  • "one of the darkest, most macabre, utterly heart-wrenching albums of all time."
  • "Sandwiched between two stadium-sized rock monoliths, The River (1980) and Born in the USA (1984), that’s what we in the business like to call punk as fuck."
  • "Nebraska finds Bruce’s rambunctious ragamuffin pals Sloppy Sue, Big Bones Billy, and Bad Scooter a decade down the line, still languishing in the suffocating towns from which they swore they’d escape. It’s about the folks that never glanced up at their rearview mirrors as their hometowns melted into the horizon. These are the ones that stayed behind or, worse yet, got left behind."
  • "The line “Hi ho Silver-o, deliver me from nowhere” encapsulates the entire album perfectly. Here is someone who is so dead inside that even God has given up on him. There’s no hope left, so he’s going to sit back and watch the world burn. That, to me, is what Nebraska is all about. It’s also why the album isn’t widely appreciated outside of Springsteen diehards. His storytelling had never been stronger, but these weren’t necessarily tales people were comfortable hearing, let alone playing at family BBQs or karaoke bars."


Ringer[96]

  • "Decades after its release, the haunted highways and haunted characters of the Boss’s largely acoustic masterpiece still haunt the American psyche"
  • contains more info on Reagan context"

Ian Winwood, The Daily Telegraph[180]

  • "the 10-song collection is its author's most complete, not to mention his most compelling, examination of street-level America."
  • a timeless record; "none of these characters have aged a single day"; "As economic and political headwinds bring havoc to their streets once more, the cast of Nebraska could just as plausibly be trudging through the sludge of 2022 with the same kind of buckled tenacity as they did four decades earlier."
  • "it’s also proved to be his most enduring. Certainly, in the 21st Century, this strange and troubled piece about the cacophony of an American nightmare has become the record of choice for the committed connoisseur. The hard truths behind its cold stare have proved persistent to the point of immovability."

Margotin/Guesdon: "Nebraska played a major part in Springsteen's elevation to the very select ranks of the best singers in American popular music, thanks to the emotion he conveys to his listeners."[71]

Sheeler: "We will see that Springsteen puts himself into the situations taking a dual stance as narrator and character in these songs. This puts a unique spin on the narrative, where the lines are blurred and each scene seems like a homespun conversation with each character as they share about their lives, losses, crimes, sins, and personal struggles. This use of narrative and context makes the collection very effective for its impact."[92]

Bill See, Consequence of Sound[14]

  • "one of the most extraordinarily brave records ever released by a major artist"
  • "one of the true masterpieces in American music."
  • "Nebraska is high art on a par with Guthrie, Steinbeck and O’Connor. It’s a work that endures because it reveals something about ourselves, particularly as Americans, about the loneliness that lives in all of us and a reminder that we share more than we’d like to admit with those we loathe and try to put out of our minds."

AllMusic:[4]

  • "Gradually, his songs became darker and more pessimistic, and those on Nebraska marked a new low. They also found him branching out into better developed stories. ... Just as the recordings were unpolished, the songs themselves didn't seem quite finished; sometimes the same line turned up in two songs. But that only served to unify the album. ... Still, Nebraska was one of the most challenging albums ever released by a major star on a major record label."

Louder[90]

  • "stark, dark sixth album might just be his best"

"Nebraska had something of a time-release quality. It revealed its strange power over the years, a thing people found in their own way and their own time. It was passed around like a rumor. Artists of different kinds would still be tapping Nebraska's meaning years after its initial release."[181]

Rankings

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Nebraska has appeared on multiple best-of lists. In 1989, it was ranked 43rd on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s.[182] In 2003, it was ranked number 224 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time,[182] 226 in a 2012 revised list,[183] and 150 in a 2020 reboot of the list.[184] In 2006, Q placed the album at number 13 in its list of "40 Best Albums of the '80s".[185] In 2012, Slant Magazine listed the album at number 57 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s".[186] The following year, NME ranked it number 148 in their list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.[187] Two years later, Ultimate Classic Rock included it in a list compiling the 100 best rock albums of the 1980s.[188] In 2018, Pitchfork listed it as the 28th greatest album of the 1980s.[89] In 2024, Paste magazine placed it at number 223 in their list of the 300 greatest albums of all time.[189] The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[190]


lists

Telegraph: #4: "may be the greatest and is almost certainly the most celebrated low fidelity album ever made. His socio-political vision growing darker with each release, here he gives us Reagan’s America in road songs that are running out of road. There is a haunting quality to Springsteen's vocals and the echoing guitar on these uncluttered songs. They burn with the deep truth of folk music. In 1982, it sounded shocking in its simplicity. Three decades later, it sounds eternal."[84]

NME: #3: [191]

Uproxx: #5: [178]

UCR, #4: "An unexpected treasure that has lost none of its power since its release."[93]

Spin: #6; " ... a cult classic,"[94]

Guardian: #5; [99]

Influence

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Impact on home recording

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Nebraska represented a breakthrough in home recording.[31][14][180] Spin magazine's Al Shipley wrote that at the time of its release, the majority of musical artists, including smaller indie bands, still only released music that was recorded in a studio and home demos were rarely made available to the public.[94] Nebraska has been credited as one of the first DIY records released by a major artist[14] and subsequently sparking a DIY revolution.[192] In the decades following its release, numerous artists began recording their own music at home.[14] Warren McQuiston wrote in Performer magazine: "The success of Nebraska strictly as a recording project was the "emperor has no clothes" moment. You could make a record at home, a real one that, and if done right could be good enough to be released on Colombia Records."[193]

Nebraska also influenced the indie rock and underground music scenes,[85][192] paving the way for releases by artists such as Ween, Neutral Milk Hotel, Iron & Wine, and Bon Iver.[193] Matt Berninger, lead singer of the National, said: "It wasn't just the fact that it was a magical record in terms of its scenes and characters. It was the idea that a major rock star could make something just in his bedroom. It exploded so many of my received ideas and told me that, maybe I could be a musician."[194] Nebraska is considered an essential home record,[13][84][177][195] and was named the greatest home recording ever made by Paste magazine in 2012.[196]

Tributes

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Numerous artists have paid tribute to Nebraska since its release. Johnny Cash covered "Johnny 99" and "Highway Patrolman" for his 1983 album Johnny 99.[197] A tribute album, Badlands: A Tribute to Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska, was released in 2000. Produced by Jim Sampas, it featured covers of the Nebraska songs recorded in the stripped-down spirit of the original recordings by artists including Cash, Hank Williams III, Los Lobos, Dar Williams, Deana Carter, Ani DiFranco, Son Volt, Ben Harper, Aimee Mann, and Michael Penn. The album also included covers of three other Springsteen tracks from the same period: "I'm on Fire", "Downbound Train", and "Wages of Sin".[176][198][199]

Other artists have described the album's impact on their music. Rage Against the Machine's guitarist Tom Morello said: "I didn't know there was music like that, that was as impactful and as heavy as Nebraska was. The alienation that I felt was for the first time expressed in music, and then I became a huge superfan."[142] The singers Kelly Clarkson, Justin Vernon, and rock band the Killers cited Nebraska as an influence when making the albums My December (2003), For Emma, Forever Ago (2007), and Pressure Machine (2021), respectively.[200][201][202] The singer-songwriters Aoife O'Donovan and Ryan Adams released full track-by-track covers of Nebraska in 2020 and 2022, respectively.[203][204] O'Donovan performed the album live in its entirety several times throughout 2023.[205] Zach Bryan cited Nebraska as his favorite album ever written, and used it as the recording template for his first two albums, DeAnn (2019) and Elisabeth (2020), with an additional nod in the lyrics to the title track of The Great American Bar Scene (2024).[206] Nebraska was also a favorite of Richard Thompson and Rosanne Cash.[207]

Outside of music, "Highway Patrolman" provided the inspiration for the 1991 film The Indian Runner. Written and directed by Sean Penn and starring David Morse and Viggo Mortensen, the film follows the same plot outline as the song, telling the story of a troubled relationship between two brothers, a deputy sheriff and a criminal.[113][191] In literature, the short stories in the Tennessee Jones book Deliver Me from Nowhere (2005) were inspired by the themes of Nebraska. The book takes its title from a line in "Open All Night" and "State Trooper".[176] Another book, David Burke's Heart of Darkness: Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska (2011), analyzed the album's influence decades after its release,[14] while another, Warren Zanes's Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska (2023), delved into the album's making, featuring interviews between Zanes and Springsteen.[208]

In media

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Deliver Me from Nowhere film

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A biographical film based on the making of Nebraska is in development at 20th Century Studios. Written and directed by Scott Cooper, the film, based on Warren Zanes's book Deliver Me from Nowhere (2023), follows Springsteen as he wrote and recorded the Nebraska songs, while dealing with the personal struggles of becoming a superstar. Titled Deliver Me From Nowhere, the film will star Jeremy Allen White as Springsteen, with Jeremy Strong, Odessa Young, Paul Walter Hauser, Harrison Gilbertson, Stephen Graham, and Johnny Cannizzaro in supporting roles. Springsteen and Jon Landau are both heavily involved in the project.[209][210][211] In an interview with NME, Strong named Nebraska his favorite Springsteen album and spoke about its influence on him: "It just always spoke to me, there's a melancholy to it. I am doing [Deliver Me From Nowhere] but I'd always felt that way about that album. There's a narrative to it that comes from a very deep place in him and you can feel that."[212]

PBS special

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A television special celebrating Nebraska, titled Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska: A Celebration in Words and Music, aired on PBS on August 31, 2024. The special, hosted by Zanes, was filmed in Nashville on September 19, 2023, and features numerous musicians singing the album's songs, including Emmylou Harris, Noah Kahan, and Lucinda Williams, interspersed with interviews from Zanes about the album's legacy. Zanes stated in a statement announcing the special: "I wrote a book about Nebraska because the recording stayed with me over decades. Every time there was trouble in my life I reached for Nebraska. When I started doing events around the book's publication, I quickly realized the best of them had music. When I went to Nashville, I had a remarkable cast of musicians to help me tell this story."[213][214]

Reissues

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Nebraska was first released on CD in 1984.[133] This was followed by an LP and CD reissue by CBS in 1988.[136] Additional reissues followed in 2003 by Columbia and in 2008 by Sony BMG.[133] In 2015, Sony Music released a remastered version of the album on both LP and CD.[215][216] In October 2022, Sony Music reissued the album again on black smoke vinyl, featuring an original art print by Justin A. McHugh and a listening notes booklet with new sleeve notes by Springsteen biographer Peter Ames Carlin, to mark its 40th anniversary.[217]

Track listing

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All tracks are written by Bruce Springsteen[1]

Side one
No.TitleLength
1."Nebraska"4:27
2."Atlantic City"3:54
3."Mansion on the Hill"4:03
4."Johnny 99"3:38
5."Highway Patrolman"5:39
6."State Trooper"3:15
Side two
No.TitleLength
1."Used Cars"3:05
2."Open All Night"2:55
3."My Father's House"5:43
4."Reason to Believe"4:09
Total length:41:02

Personnel

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According to the liner notes and the authors Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon:[1][40]

Charts

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Certifications

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Sales certifications for Nebraska
Region Certification Certified units/sales
Australia (ARIA)[221] Platinum 70,000^
Canada (Music Canada)[222] Gold 50,000^
United Kingdom (BPI)[223] Gold 100,000^
United States (RIAA)[130] Platinum 1,000,000^

^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

Notes

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  1. ^ Nebraska's LP sleeve does not list an official producer, instead crediting Mike Batlan as the recording engineer.[1] Speaking to Warren Zanes, Springsteen's manager, Jon Landau, explained that due to the album's "special way of coming into being", giving Springsteen a producer credit "didn't feel right to Bruce". "There's certainly nobody else you could give that title to. But even Bruce didn't take it for himself. So there's no producer."[2] Other sources list Springsteen as the producer.[3][4]
  2. ^ Some commentators state the entire tape was recorded on January 3, 1982,[32][38][41][42] although others place the recording between December 17, 1981, to January 3, 1982.[43][44] According to Geoffrey Himes, Springsteen and Batlan "mixed the best songs from the new work the singer had been recording" on January 3.[45]
  3. ^ The boombox had fallen into a river while on a boating trip. The machine died but unexpectedly restarted a week later.[35]
  4. ^ A Chuck Berry cover[49]
  5. ^ Clinton Heylin states in the liner notes to the 2003 compilation album The Essential Bruce Springsteen that "The Big Payback" was recorded "shortly after" the Nebraska tape was completed.[53]
  6. ^ Springsteen and the E Street Band previously recorded The River at the Power Station.[57]
  7. ^ According to Zanes, Plotkin credits Landau with the idea of releasing the demos as-is, Landau credits Springsteen, while Van Zandt believes it was his idea.[68]
  8. ^ Attributed to multiple references:[72][92][90][85][93][94]
  9. ^ Attributed to multiple references:[83][90][100][110][111]

References

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  1. ^ a b c Nebraska (liner notes). Bruce Springsteen. US: Columbia Records. 1982. TC 38358.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  2. ^ Zanes 2023, p. 198.
  3. ^ Gaar 2016, p. 198.
  4. ^ a b c d e Ruhlmann, William. "Nebraska – Bruce Springsteen". AllMusic. Archived from the original on November 12, 2020. Retrieved February 12, 2014.
  5. ^ Lifton, Dave (October 17, 2015). "When Bruce Springsteen's 'The River' Became His First No. 1 Album". Ultimate Classic Rock. Archived from the original on November 30, 2023. Retrieved February 12, 2024.
  6. ^ Zanes 2023, pp. 70–71.
  7. ^ a b Zanes 2023, pp. 77–78.
  8. ^ Zanes 2023, p. 83.
  9. ^ Gaar 2016, p. 80.
  10. ^ Margotin & Guesdon 2020, p. 222.
  11. ^ Zanes 2023, p. 85.
  12. ^ Carlin 2012, p. 285.
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Richardson, Mark. "Bruce Springsteen: Nebraska Album Review". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on March 24, 2018. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o See, Bill (February 5, 2012). "'Nebraska': Bruce Springsteen's 'Heart of Darkness'". Consequence of Sound. Archived from the original on May 13, 2024. Retrieved May 13, 2024.
  15. ^ a b Springsteen 2003, p. 136.
  16. ^ Margotin & Guesdon 2020, pp. 190, 192.
  17. ^ a b c d Streight, Irwin (2008). "The Ghost of Flannery O'Connor in the Songs of Bruce Springsteen". Flannery O'Connor Review. 6: 11–29. ISSN 2687-8267. Archived from the original on August 17, 2024. Retrieved August 17, 2024.
  18. ^ Marsh 1987, p. 97.
  19. ^ Marsh 1987, p. 94.
  20. ^ Himes 2005, p. 61.
  21. ^ Kirkpatrick 2007, p. 84.
  22. ^ a b Springsteen 2003, p. 138.
  23. ^ Kirkpatrick 2007, p. 83.
  24. ^ Carlin 2012, pp. 291–293.
  25. ^ Himes 2005, p. 11.
  26. ^ Dolan 2012, p. 190.
  27. ^ Springsteen 2016, p. 299.
  28. ^ a b c d e f g "Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen". Classic Rock Review. April 15, 2012. Archived from the original on September 21, 2024. Retrieved May 13, 2024.
  29. ^ a b c d e f g h Chilton, Martin (January 5, 2012). "Heart Of Darkness: Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska by David Burke, review". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on May 13, 2024. Retrieved May 13, 2024.
  30. ^ Zanes 2023, p. 150.
  31. ^ a b Zanes 2023, p. 19.
  32. ^ a b Dolan 2012, pp. 190–191.
  33. ^ Margotin & Guesdon 2020, p. 192.
  34. ^ Kirkpatrick 2007, pp. 81–82.
  35. ^ a b Carlin 2012, p. 293.
  36. ^ Zanes 2023, p. 145.
  37. ^ a b c d e f g h Margotin & Guesdon 2020, p. 194.
  38. ^ a b Zanes 2023, p. 151.
  39. ^ Zanes 2023, p. 156.
  40. ^ a b Margotin & Guesdon 2020, pp. 198–217.
  41. ^ a b c d Carlin 2012, p. 294.
  42. ^ a b c d e Lifton, Dave (January 3, 2016). "How One Amazing Night Led to Bruce Springsteen's 'Nebraska'". Ultimate Classic Rock. Archived from the original on June 4, 2024. Retrieved September 22, 2024.
  43. ^ a b c d e Margotin & Guesdon 2020, p. 195.
  44. ^ a b Heylin 2012, p. 309.
  45. ^ Himes 2005, p. 26.
  46. ^ a b Dolan 2012, p. 191.
  47. ^ Zanes 2023, pp. 155–158.
  48. ^ Springsteen 2003, p. 135.
  49. ^ a b Kirkpatrick 2007, pp. 102, 104.
  50. ^ Zanes 2023, pp. 164–166.
  51. ^ a b c d Himes 2005, p. 27.
  52. ^ Kirkpatrick 2007, p. 82.
  53. ^ Heylin 2012, p. 484.
  54. ^ a b Margotin & Guesdon 2020, pp. 218–219.
  55. ^ a b c d e Margotin & Guesdon 2020, p. 216.
  56. ^ Heylin 2012, p. 490.
  57. ^ Gaar 2016, pp. 74–80.
  58. ^ Zanes 2023, p. 168.
  59. ^ a b Himes 2005, p. 31.
  60. ^ Marsh 1987, pp. 113–115.
  61. ^ Dolan 2012, p. 196.
  62. ^ Zanes 2023, pp. 173–174.
  63. ^ Carlin 2012, p. 295.
  64. ^ Zanes 2023, pp. 169–171.
  65. ^ Himes 2005, p. 49.
  66. ^ Marsh 1987, pp. 115–118.
  67. ^ a b Margotin & Guesdon 2020, p. 196.
  68. ^ Zanes 2023, pp. 176–179.
  69. ^ Himes 2005, pp. 83–84.
  70. ^ Gaar 2016, p. 82.
  71. ^ a b c d e Margotin & Guesdon 2020, pp. 192–193.
  72. ^ a b c d e Hauser, Henry; Kitching, Bryan (July 20, 2013). "Dusting 'Em Off: Bruce Springsteen – Nebraska". Consequence of Sound. Archived from the original on April 26, 2017. Retrieved April 25, 2017.
  73. ^ a b Zanes 2023, p. 185.
  74. ^ Loder, Kurt (December 6, 1984). "The Rolling Stone Interview: Bruce Springsteen". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on May 5, 2024. Retrieved May 13, 2024.
  75. ^ "The Rock Radio: Springsteen looking at archival releases". The Rock Radio. July 31, 2006. Archived from the original on March 12, 2007.
  76. ^ Greene, Andy (June 10, 2010). "Max Weinberg on His Future With Conan and Bruce". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on June 13, 2010. Retrieved February 12, 2014.
  77. ^ a b c Carlin 2012, p. 296.
  78. ^ Zanes 2023, pp. 192–194.
  79. ^ Keller, Daniel (July 25, 2007). "Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska" – A PortaStudio, two SM57's, and Inspiration". Tascam. Archived from the original on May 1, 2024. Retrieved August 14, 2024.
  80. ^ Springsteen 2003, pp. 138–139.
  81. ^ a b Young, Jon (January 1983). "Bruce Springsteen: Nebraska (Columbia)". Trouser Press. Archived from the original on September 21, 2024. Retrieved April 30, 2023 – via Rock's Backpages.
  82. ^ Margotin & Guesdon 2020, pp. 142–144.
  83. ^ a b c d e f g h Palmer, Robert (September 26, 1982). "Bruce Springsteen Fashions a Compelling, Austere Message". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 30, 2023. Retrieved April 30, 2023.
  84. ^ a b c d e McCormick, Neil (October 24, 2020). "Bruce Springsteen: all his albums ranked, from worst to best". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on August 23, 2023. Retrieved November 14, 2022.
  85. ^ a b c d e f Pelone, Joe (April 3, 2012). "Bruce Springsteen – Nebraska". Punk News. Archived from the original on May 13, 2024. Retrieved September 22, 2024.
  86. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Pond, Steve (October 28, 1982). "Nebraska". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on July 26, 2013. Retrieved May 12, 2013.
  87. ^ a b c "Top Album Picks" (PDF). Billboard. October 2, 1982. p. 62. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 21, 2024. Retrieved April 11, 2024 – via worldradiohistory.com.
  88. ^ Pareles, Jon (August 30, 1987). "Heartland Rock: Bruce's Children". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 22, 2016. Retrieved December 22, 2016.
  89. ^ a b Pitchfork Staff (September 10, 2018). "The 200 Best Albums of the 1980s". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on February 22, 2024. Retrieved April 25, 2023.
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  91. ^ a b c "Album Reviews: Out of the Box" (PDF). Cash Box. October 2, 1982. p. 6. Archived (PDF) from the original on April 13, 2024. Retrieved April 11, 2024 – via worldradiohistory.com.
  92. ^ a b c Sheeler, Ryan (2007). "A Meanness in This World: The American Outlaw as Storyteller in Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska". American Studies Journal (50). doi:10.18422/50-8. Archived from the original on August 17, 2024. Retrieved August 17, 2024.
  93. ^ a b c Lifton, Dave (July 29, 2015). "Bruce Springsteen Albums Ranked Worst to Best". Ultimate Classic Rock. Archived from the original on February 4, 2023. Retrieved January 31, 2023.
  94. ^ a b c d Shipley, Al (November 11, 2022). "Every Bruce Springsteen Album, Ranked". Spin. Archived from the original on February 4, 2023. Retrieved January 31, 2023.
  95. ^ a b c d Hepworth, David (September 30 – October 13, 1982). "Bruce Springsteen: Nebraska". Smash Hits. 2 (21): 25.
  96. ^ a b c Nelson, Elizabeth (December 14, 2022). "Please Don't Stop Me: 40 Years of Bruce Springsteen's 'Nebraska'". The Ringer. Archived from the original on May 13, 2024. Retrieved May 13, 2024.
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