stevans (11/07/82)
This is now the number 1 album in the US. It deserves this position.
Bruce had this entire album recorded at his home on a cassette recorder,
consisting almost entirely of his voice, harmonica, and guitar. The
recording is of good quality, though not up to industry standards.
Bruce Springsteen has been accused of owing a slice of royalties
to Bob Dylan, and here he's completed (co-produced by Dylan's recent
co-producer, Chuck Plotkin) his counterpart to Bob's 1967 masterwork
"John Wesley Harding" -- a return to simple, basic musical values
after the flood of brilliant excess that culminated in a double album
for each man: "Blonde on Blonde" for Bob, "The River" for Bruce.
Bruce has long had an obsession with death and cars, and here he
further explores these and other relevant topics from the bleak out-of-work
middle-American perspective introduced on "The River", calling the
listener "sir" about once per song, and beginning many lines with "Well,".
Highlights include "Open All Night", the only electric guitar song,
a trek along the lonely New Jersey Turnpike; the titular song, a gripping
and unavoidably depressing first person narrative of a shooting rampage;
and "Highway Patrolman", a homespun tale of the American family values
exemplified by the saying "blood is thicker than water".
The album does have a few weak spots. "My Father's House" is a
somewhat verbose follow-up to "The River"'s "Independence Day", saved only
by the fascinating internal rhyming pattern used in the first verse
(reminiscent of Dylan's "I dreamed I saw Saint Augustine" on "Harding"),
a pattern which is not upheld during the rest of the song. I'm sure this
stuff is cathartic for Bruce, but I must admit that I don't care quite two
songs worth how Bruce feels about his father. The last song on the album,
"Reason to Believe," contains somewhat contrived references to "The River,"
as though Bruce felt he must, as on that album, continue to make backwards
references to his earlier material.
This is the first cassette I have ever seen with lyrics inside -- no
doubt so that, well, you can play this on your car stereo and read along
while outrunning the State Police without a license, with a sawed-off
shotgun, sir, and my pretty baby right by my side.
All things considered, "Nebraska" is an tuneful and moving chunk
of lower-middle-class America -- one that every red-blooded American
rock-and-roller will love.notes@zeppo.UUCP (10/17/83)
#R:rocheste:-18500:zeppo:11400001:000:1219
zeppo!mes Nov 8 10:03:00 1982
"Bruce has always had an obsession for death and cars".....
Well, I can't understand where the death part came in, but it is clear
where the cars part began. BS grew up in Freehold, NJ in the late 60's
early 70's timeframe, and then (in fact, up to about 77 or so), the
only thing for a bored high school kid in Freehold to do was to go to
Asbury Park and raise hell on the "Circuit". The "Circuit" was a 2 mile
long oval that *everyone* went around and around on... that is, you drove
north on Ocean Ave to 6th and then west on 6th (which is where everyone parked
to watch those that were still moving) then south on Kingsly to 2nd, east on
2nd to Ocean again, and around and around ad nauseum. But you know - it was
fun! So you blew away a tank of gas in your 66 Dynamic 88 (as we had).. it
didn't matter.
Point is, this was "the corner hangout" for kids growing up in the central
Jersey area, and BS was (is?) really no different from any of us. It is
unsurprising that much of his music shows the love of cars and the circuit
atmosphere...
I, for one, miss that whole scene very much...and
I'm willing to bet that BS does too.
Michael Sajor, zeppo!mes, BTL-Whippany NJ