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Drunk and intoxicated by success, Bruce Springsteen decides to take a moment to reflect, to think, perhaps to temper his joys and disappointments.
"Born to Run" was already legend, and rock seemed destined to change, to undergo structural modifications both from a musical and conceptual point of view. These are years of enormous changes: the crisis of the Rolling Stones, the success of Queen and U2, the assertive dance of Michael Jackson and the romantic and youthful language of Duran Duran. Useless, Bruce must have thought, to remake a second "Born to Run."
And so, harmonica and guitar, he decides to retreat for a while, to think and reflect on his own mistakes, on the future of men and Nations, on war, peace, tranquility, and defeatism made in the USA. He waves goodbye to the E-Street Band (but it won't be a farewell, more simply a see you later), and he tries, but always without getting a big head, to retrace the steps of old idols and great legends: Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie.
From this almost metaphysical introspection, an album destined for great praise and few (often irritating) criticisms is born: "Nebraska." The Boss sets rock aside, but doesn't abandon poetry. This time, however, the words are harsher and edgier: there is no vibrant and hammering backdrop of electric guitars and drums, there's just a guitar and a harmonica. But every song possesses its own indelible authenticity: simple stories, often tragic, but true stories of an America that is not only New York and The Big Dream.
Everything recorded alone, at home, with a modest four-track almost pioneering. There's someone who has to go to the electric chair and reflects on their own life ("Nebraska"), all told in the first person, in a sort of participatory pathos; there's hope ("Atlantic City") for a perhaps better future, an image very Chaplinesque in its simplicity and rigor; there's the despair of unemployment ("Johnny 99") and the tragedy you can never dodge; there's friendship and brotherhood ("Highway Patrolman") between a policeman and the delinquent brother; there's someone hoping to win the lottery and fix a few things ("Used Cars") and someone who realizes, too late, that they never loved the person they most had to protect, the father ("My Father's House"); and there's the most disturbing song ("Reason to Believe"), because, Springsteen asks, despite the world's wickedness, why do so many people today continue to believe?
Perhaps faith is just a way to veer away from reality and hope for something impossible, or it's just an old tradition to cultivate in silence and without dissent. But that's not all: even "Open All Night" and "Mansion on the Hill" would deserve praise.
It is definitely the most atypical album by Bruce Springsteen: no sweet words, few certainties, almost never does a glimmer of security emerge. There's hope, but it is often tinged with black. It is, after all, a veiled, yet sharp, critique of the American political and economic system: unemployment and the misery of lives burnt between pain and the ability to hope for a better future, are the faithful mirror of a State that, in addition to proclaiming itself strong and bold, should also start caring more about its (perhaps) proud stars and stripes children.
Plagiarism of the earliest Bob Dylan? No, absolutely not. I would say more of a homage, a certain way of presenting oneself while singing. Maybe a bit boring in the long run (after all, the music is quite monotonous), but so cold and so lucid that it appears, at some points, even mythological.
But reality often wonderfully surpasses imagination.
Tracklist and Lyrics
02 Nebraska (05:46)
I saw her standin' on her front lawn just twirlin' her baton
Me and her went for a ride sir and ten innocent people died
From the town of Lincoln Nebraska with a sawed off .410 on my lap
Through to the badlands of Wyoming I killed everything in my path
I can't say that I'm sorry for the things that we done
At least for a little while sir me and her we had us some fun
The jury brought in a guilty verdict and the judge he sentenced me to death
Midnight in a prison storeroom with leather straps across my chest
Sheriff when the man pulls that switch sir and snaps my poor head back
You make sure my pretty baby is sittin' right there on my lap
They declared me unfit to live said into that great void my soul'd be hurled
They wanted to know why I did what I did
Well sir I guess there's just a meanness in this world
03 Atlantic City (05:13)
Well they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night
Now they blew up his house too
Down on the boardwalk they're getting ready for a fight
Gonna see what them racket boys can do
Now there's trouble busin' in from outta state
And the D.A. can't get no relief
Gonna be a rumble out on the promenade
And the gambling commission's hangin' on by the skin of its teeth
Everything dies baby that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Put your makeup on fix your hair up pretty
And meet me tonight in Atlantic City
Well I got a job and tried to put my money away
But I got debts that no honest man can pay
So I drew what I had from the Central Trust
And I bought us two tickets on that Coast City bus
Everything dies baby that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Put your makeup on fix your hair up pretty
and meet me tonight in Atlantic City
Now our luck may have died and our love may be cold
but with you forever I'll stay
We're going out where the sand's turning to gold
so put on your stockings 'cause the night's getting cold
and everything dies Baby that's a fact,
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Now I been looking for a job but it's hard to find
Down here it's just winners and losers
and don't get caught on the wrong side of that line
Well I'm tired of coming out on the losin' end
So honey last night I met this guy
and I'm gonna do a little favour for him
Well I guess everything dies baby that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Put your hair up nice fix yourself up pretty
and meet me tonight in Atlantic City
04 Mansion on the Hill (03:52)
There's a place out on the edge of town sir
Risin' above the factories and the fields
Now ever since I was a child I can remember that mansion on the hill
In the day you can see the children playing
On the road that leads to those gates of hardened steel
Steel gates that completely surround sir the mansion on the hill
At night my daddy'd take me and we'd ride through the streets of a town so silent and still
Park on a back road along the highway side
Look up at that mansion on the hill
In the summer all the lights would shine there'd be music playin' people laughin' all the time
Me and my sister we'd hide out in the tall corn fields
Sit and listen to the mansion on the hill
Tonight down here in Linden Town I watch the cars rushin' by home from the mill
There's a beautiful full moon rising above the mansion on the hill
05 Johnny 99 (04:43)
Well they closed down the auto plant in mahwah late that month
Ralph went out lookin' for a job but he couldn't find none
He came home too drunk from mixin' tanqueray and wine
He got a gun shot a night clerk now they call'm johnny 99
Down in the part of town where when you hit a red light you don't stop
Johnny's wavin' his gun around and threatenin' to blow his top
When an off-duty cop snuck up on him from behind
Out in front of the club tip top they slapped the cuffs on johnny 99
Well the city supplied a public defender but the judge was mean john brown
He came into the courtroom and stared poor johnny down
Well the evidence is clear gonna let the sentence son fit the crime
Prison for 98 and a year and we'll call it even johnny 99
(Harmonica Instrumental)
A fist fight broke out in the courtroom they had to drag johnny's girl away
His mama stood up and shouted "judge don't take my boy this way"
Well son you got a statement that you'd like to make
Before the bailiff comes to forever take you away
Now judge, judge, i had debts no honest man could pay
The bank was holdin' my mortgage and they were gonna take my house away
Now i ain't sayin' that makes me an innocent man
But it was more `n all this that put that gun in my hand
Well your honor i do believe i'd be better off dead
And if you can take a man's life for the thoughts that's in his head
Then won't you sit back in that chair and think it over judge one more time
And let `em shave off my hair and put me on that killn' line
(Harmonica Instrumental)
07 State Trooper (04:08)
New Jersey Turnpike ridin' on a wet night 'neath the refinery's glow, out where the great black rivers flow
License, registration, I ain't got none but I got a clear conscience
'Bout the things that I done
Mister state trooper, please don't stop me
Please don't stop me, please don't stop me
Maybe you got a kid, maybe you got a pretty wife the only thing that I got's been both'rin' me my whole life
Mister state trooper, please don't stop me
Please don't stop me, please don't stop me
In the wee wee hours your mind gets hazy, radio relay towers lead me to my baby
Radio's jammed up with talk show stations
It's just talk, talk, talk, talk, till you lose your patience
Mister state trooper, please don't stop me
Hey, somebody out there, listen to my last prayer
Hiho silver-o, deliver me from nowhere
10 My Father's House (06:49)
Last night I dreamed that I was a child out where the pines grow wild and tall
I was trying to make it home through the forest before the darkness falls
I heard the wind rustling through the trees and ghostly voices rose from the fields
I ran with my heart pounding down that broken path
With the devil snappin' at my heels
I broke through the trees, and there in the night
My father's house stood shining hard and bright the branches and brambles tore my clothes and scratched my arms
But I ran till I fell, shaking in his arms
I awoke and I imagined the hard things that pulled us apart
Will never again, sir, tear us from each other's hearts
I got dressed, and to that house I did ride from out on the road, I could see its windows shining in light
I walked up the steps and stood on the porch a woman I didn't recognize came and spoke to me through a chained door
I told her my story, and who I'd come for
She said "I'm sorry, son, but no one by that name lives here anymore"
My father's house shines hard and bright it stands like a beacon calling me in the night
Calling and calling, so cold and alone
Shining 'cross this dark highway where our sins lie unatoned
13 Sugarland (03:32)
They're grazin' the field
Covered with tar
Can't get a price
To see my way clear
I'm sitting down
At the Sugarland Bar
It might as well bury
My body right here
Tractors and combines
Out in the cold
Sheds piled high
With the wheat we ain't sold
silos filled with
Last year's crops
If something don't break me
We'll gonna drop
Well my wife got another
Coming in july
She's just laid up in bed
All she does is cries, cries, cries
Tommy, oh Tommy
I'm so alone
Tommy, oh Tommy
Oh! Won't you stay home
Pa' don't say nothing
except when it rains
He sits by the window
Listening to the sound of passing trains
Roaring out of the night
Carrying an empty load
We got a whole lot of grain
That ain't got nowhere to go
Well, if prices
Don't get no higher
I'll fill this dustbin with gasAnd set these fields on fire
Sit out on a ridge
Where the bluebirds fly
And watch the flame rise up
Against this sugarland sky
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