Bruce Springsteen on the poetry of his album “Nebraska”

Bruce Springsteen on the poetry of his album “Nebraska”

An album of dark music recorded in a bedroom of the farmhouse he rented in 1982, which reflected the changes throughout his life between “The River” and “Born in the U.S.A.,” was instrumental in establishing Springsteen’s reputation as one of the music’s most soulful voice.

By Jim Axelrod

 

“I lived in this house exactly half a lifetime ago,” said Bruce Springsteen. It may not look like much, but this small bedroom in Colts Neck, New Jersey, which still sports the original orange shag rug, is where Springsteen made what he considers his masterpiece: his 1982 album “Nebraska,” ten songs dark and mournful. “This is the room where it happened,” he said.

I saw her on her front lawn, playing with her baton
Me and her rode for an excursion, sir, and ten innocents perished.
The town is Lincoln, Nebraska, with a cut-off .410 in my lap
Through the wilderness of Wyoming I slayed everything that crossed my way

“If I had to pick one album out and say, ‘This is going to represent you 50 years from now,’ I’d pick ‘Nebraska,” he stated.

It was written 42-years ago during a time that was a time of tremendous turmoil within Springsteen’s life “I just hit some sort of personal wall that I didn’t even know was there,” Springsteen said. “It was my first real major depression where I realized, ‘Oh, I’ve got to do something about it.'”

Bruce Springsteen, in the Colts Neck, N.J., farmhouse where, in 1982, he recorded the songs for his album “Nebraska.” CBS News

Following a massively successful tour to promote “The River” album, He had his debut Top 10 hit, “Hungry Heart.” He was just 32 years old, a true rock star who was with a lot of success and discovering its limits.

Axelrod declared, “Your rock ‘n’ roll meds, singing in front of 40,000 people, all that is, is anesthesia.”

“Yeah, and it worked for me,” Springsteen stated. “I believe that in your 20s, lots of things go your way. The 30s are when you begin to transition into an adult. Then I looked around and thought”Where’s everything? Where’s my house? Where is my wife and children or daughters I thought I’d be blessed with?’ I realized that none of those things exist.

“So, I said, ‘OK, the first thing I’ve gotta do as soon as I get home is remind myself of who I am and where I came from.”

In the spick-and-span house he was living in at the time, he was trying to understand the reason his accomplishments made him feel feeling so secluded. “This is all inside of me,” he told me. “You can either take it and transform it into something positive, or it can destroy you.”

The author Warren Zanes said, “There are films, recordings, books, and other publications that don’t only appear at the front of the door. They enter through the back, they are able to enter through a trap door and they stay with you throughout your the course of your life.”

Zanes The author’s most recently published novel, “Deliver Me from Nowhere,” is a deeply and insightful look at the creation of “Nebraska.”

Crown

Springsteen’s struggles were rooted in an unhappy childhood. “Here’s Bruce Springsteen making a record from a kind of bottom in his own life,” Zanes said. Zanes. “They were very poor. And then he becomes Bruce Springsteen. He felt that his past was making his present complicated. And he wanted to be freed of it.”

For Springsteen his liberation has always been achieved by writing. He had notebooks and notebooks (“It’s funny because I’m not even sure I’ve ever done the work!” He thought as he perused his notebooks) The album was not completed until late at night, when he was surfing the internet and came across “Badlands,” Terrence Malick’s film about Charles Starkweather, whose murder incident in 1957 and 1958 was centered around Nebraska. He told me, “I actually called the reporter who had reported on that story in Nebraska. And amazingly enough she was still at the newspaper. And she was a lovely woman, and we talked for a half-hour or so. And it just sort of focused me on the feeling of what I wanted to write about.”

As a serial killer Springsteen discovered the muse of his dreams:

I’m not sure if I’m sorry about the things that we’ve done.
For a short while, me, sir as well as her enjoyed our fun …
People wanted to find out the reason I did the things I did.
Yes, sir I suppose there’s an unforgivingness that exists in the world.

“‘There’s an unforgivingness in the world.’ This explains everything that Starkweather has done,” said Axelrod.

“Yeah, I tried to locate where their humanity was, as best as I could,” Springsteen declared.

In a burst of inspiration He wrote fifteen songs in a couple of weeks. Then, on a January night, 1982 was the the time to record the songs using a four-track cassette. One of the most famous rock superstars sat in a bedroom in a quiet room, singing with the exact sound the singer was seeking.

The audio? “Not bad,” Springsteen stated. “The orange shag carpet makes it really dead. There’s not a lot of echo. Not only was it beautiful, it came in handy!”

The bedroom where Springsteen recorded “Nebraska,” still with the original orange shag carpet. CBS News

Certain songs dealt with the chaos that a child’s mind can leave, such as “My Father’s House”:

I went up the steps and sat on the porch
A woman I couldn’t identify approached me and began to speak to me
Through a door that is chained
I shared my story with her and the reason I’d made my way there
She replied “I’m sorry, my son I’m sorry, but there’s nobody with the same name.”
No longer here”

Springsteen stated, “‘Mansion on the Hill,’ ‘My Father’s House,’ ‘Used Cars,’ they’re all written from kids’ perspectives, children trying to make sense of the world that they were born into.”

Other profiles focused on adults who were that had been left out or to their own devices. Its songs, Springsteen claimed, had an “very stark, dark, lonely sound. Very austere, very bare bones.”

In a damaged boom box Springsteen recorded the songs on an audio cassette that to carry around inside his pocket for a couple of weeks. “I hope you had a plastic case on it, at least,” said Axelrod.

“I don’t think I had a case,” said he responded. “I’m lucky I didn’t lose it!”

The Teac 144 4-track cassette deck on which Springsteen recorded the songs. He was the sole musician. CBS News

The band of Springsteen would record what it had recorded on his cassette however bigger and bolder was not the kind of thing he wanted: “It was a happy accident,” Springsteen said. “I had planned to just write some good songs, teach ’em to the band, go into the studio and record them. But every time I tried to improve on that tape that I had made in that little room? It’s that old story: if this gets any better, it’s gonna get worse.”

Bruce Springsteen wasn’t working E Street however, he was on another route completely. In the words of Zanes, “‘Nebraska’ was muddy. It was imperfect. It wasn’t finished. All the things that you shouldn’t put out, he put out.”

Every thing dies in the end, it’s a fact.
Maybe everything that goes to waste one day will come back
Apply your makeup Make your hair look elegantly
Meet me tonight in Atlantic City

Axelrod said, “Did any part of you worry, ‘Oh my goodness, what am I putting out there?'”

“I knew what the ‘Nebraska’ record was,” Springsteen declared. “It was also a signal that I was sending that, ‘I’ve had some success, but I do what I want to do. I make the records I wanna make. I’m trying to tell a bigger story, and that’s the job that I’m trying to do for you.'”

A few other tracks which didn’t make it to the final cut? They probably came out later, such as “Born in the U.S.A.,” “Pink Cadillac,” and “Downbound Train” – songs that the man in the leather jacket who had written of the chrome-wheeled fuel-injected suicide machine stored in an album that featured Snoopy as the front cover.

Yes, notes for the Boss’ songs were kept in a Peanuts binder. CBS News

In that tiny bedroom, Springsteen the rocker made an album that encapsulated Springsteen as a poet. Imagine for a second if Springsteen had not. Axelrod thought, “And then people might be evaluating a career and say, ‘Oh it was awesome to see 70,000 people sang “Rosalita” at the arena.’ But it could have been more in line with what it was about in evaluating what you’ve accomplished.”

“Yeah. I was just curious about more, beyond that,” Springsteen said. “I am a fan of it. I’m still passionate about doing it even to the present day. But I was looking for more than this.”

“If they want to enjoy your work, try anything; if they want to understand your work, try ‘Nebraska’?” Axelrod asked. Axelrod.

“Yeah, I’d agree with that,” he said. “I’d definitely agree with that.”

A previous version originally broadcast on April 30 2023.

READ A TEXT “Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Nebraska'”

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Story was written by Jason Sacca. Editor: Ed Givnish.

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Jim Axelrod

Jim Axelrod is the chief reporter and executive editor for CBS News’ “Eye on America” franchise, which is a part of “CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell.” He also contributes to “CBS Mornings,” “CBS News Sunday Morning,” and CBS News 24/7.

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