Editor’s Note
Bruce Springsteen’s stark 1982 album ‘Nebraska’ is a landmark of American songwriting. This October, an expansive new box set will unveil a trove of unreleased material from its legendary sessions, offering fans a profound new look into the creation of this tortured masterpiece.
Bruce Springsteen opens the vault of ‘Nebraska’: unreleased gems from the tortured masterpiece with which he confronted the industry. The ‘Nebraska ’82: expanded edition’ box set, to be released on October 24, exhumes the tumultuous sessions of the album, featuring songs unknown even to bootleg hunters and electric versions that until now were pure legend.
The attention of ‘Bruceologists’ first focuses on those acoustic outtakes, and here the unreleased compositions must be highlighted, among which stand out ‘On the prowl’ and ‘Gun in every home’, both unknown even to bootleg collectors and of a level comparable to the songs on ‘Nebraska’.
A deceptive placidity also covers ‘Child bride’, another of the four songs never officially released until now, where the protagonist’s story with a minor leads him to ruin for violating the Mann Act (a lyric that, in part, will reappear reconstructed in ‘Working on the highway’).
Springsteen worked at that time on the set of songs that would be divided between the albums ‘Nebraska’ and its successor, ‘Born in the USA’ (1984). And ‘Electric Nebraska’ appears as the album that could have been, bringing together six pieces that would end up on the first and two on the second, all with the support of the E Street Band and recorded in 1982. It was a time of trials and dilemmas. He ended up discarding them at the time because he prioritized the spectral interiority of his solitary recordings in the rented house in Colts Neck, but we can now delight in that ‘Mansion on the hill’ with faint layers of keyboards and the vibrant, full-band assaults on ‘Johnny 99’ and ‘Open all night’.
The spectacular production, with a radio-friendly spirit, that would envelop the album ‘Born in the USA’ is not glimpsed here: both the title track and the revamped ‘Downbound train’ appear much more guitar-driven and rough. That was the choice of a Bruce Springsteen heavily conditioned by his ghosts, who seemed to want to keep massive projection at bay. For a short time (to the relief of Columbia Records). But, 43 years later, the ‘Nebraska’ box set speaks to us of a creator in a time of great fertility, tireless in the work of pursuing his ideals against all odds.
