Bruce Springsteen
Nebraska

It was a Tuesday evening in 1982. I turned on the TV. It was a bit late, almost 11.00 PM. The next day, of course, I had school, I was attending the fourth year of high school, but on Tuesdays, I stayed up late so I wouldn't miss the appointment with Carlo Massarini and Mister Fantasy, the program on RAI 1 that I waited for all week. “Musica da vedere” (Music to watch), Massarini called it. The videos of “Rock the Casbah” by the Clash or “Hungry Like the Wolf” by Duran Duran, ABC, Pino Daniele, “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me” by Culture Club, “Leave in Silence” by Depeche Mode, Kid Creole, Dire Straits, Flavio Giurato, Mimmo Cavallo, Beppe Starnazza e i Vortici and many more. Then there was the inevitable video hit and the final theme which was usually a live footage of the Stones, the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, or some other sacred monster from the past (still quite recent at that time).

Massarini, dressed in white, enters the studio to the notes of the Traffic song that gives the show its title and, after welcoming you to hyperspace, announces the opening video. “Atlantic City” by a certain Bruce Springsteen.

I was mesmerized by those black and white scenes that flowed with the simple chords of an acoustic guitar, a harmonica that tore your soul, an earnest voice, and a few notes of mandolin.

The cover of Nebraska is as sparse and essential as the content of its vinyl grooves. It's black with red block letters and a black and white photo of a road seen through the windshield of a car racing solitary towards a cloudy horizon. Nebraska is a disarming, timeless record with something magical about it. Alongside Born To Run and Darkness On the Edge of Town, it is one of Springsteen’s three masterpieces. Yes, of course, there was the great success of The River before it, and soon there would be Born in the USA which would definitively consecrate the Boss and bless him with millions of copies sold worldwide. Both excellent albums, but a step below.

Nebraska is the album that in that first glimpse of the '80s you didn't expect from someone who had broken all records, first with Born to Run and then with The River. An album without frills, sincere and courageous, especially because it represents a sudden change of direction from the electric stadium rock Springsteen was heading towards, now risking throwing his success to the winds.

Nebraska is the album where Bruce shows his most intimate and singer-songwriter side, where he bares his fears, his unanswered questions, his moral line more than in any other of his albums past or future. And he does it through stories of difficult daily life, outcasts, and criminals, breathing an atmosphere of escape from wrong lives and mistakes that can't be remedied. You flee from the promised land because the American dream has vanished - evaporated like frost on the asphalt of America's cynical and arrogant Interstates - and has turned into disillusionment, even greater than what's felt in Darkness. The car races of Born To Run have reached their end.

Springsteen goes to the roots of American folk, applying the lessons of Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, and Bob Dylan. The music is sparse - skeletal even - and mysterious, recorded on a cassette with a four-track Tascam, in a bedroom where Bruce abuses the acoustic guitar, blows his discomfort into a harmonica, and sings a song so dark and intense that it gives you goosebumps. Ten songs. Ten chilling snapshots of American provinces. The Title track and “Atlantic City” are raw and dark gems. “Johnny 99” - a splendid anthem to the losers – “State Trooper” and “Open All Night” are primordial Rock’n’Roll. “Highway Patrolman” is the story of two brothers, Joe the policeman, and Frankie the murderer. And Joe lets Frankie escape to Canada, breaking the limits imposed by his duty. “Mansion on the Hill”, “Used Cars”, and “My Father’s House” are sketches of a simple and dreamy childhood. The album closes with “Reason to Believe”, where Springsteen searches for an answer, leaves a way open to hope and salvation, gives the listener a reason to believe.

After 41 years, Nebraska remains simply the pinnacle of Springsteen's poetry. And for me, it will always be linked to those black and white frames that stayed in my eyes one Tuesday evening many years ago, just after 11.00 PM.