From the Archive: A Few More Words About Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska

From Tidal Magazine, written a few years back for the 40th anniversary

On the off chance your requirement of critical essays about Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska has not yet been met, here’s a shortish one I did for Tidal Magazine in 2022.

The prompt for all the current Nebraska hosanna-ing is a long-awaited feature film, Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, which stars Jeremy Allen White (The Bear) as the Boss at an artistic crossroads. I’ve yet to see it; according to reviews, it offers a slightly Hollywoodized account of the fitful creative gestation of what remains Springsteen’s most intense, atmospherically supercharged album.

And beyond the film soundtrack (which features White’s vocals), there’s Nebraska 82: Expanded Edition, which contains a sensitive remastering of the original, some unreleased solo outtakes, as well as a live performance of the album recorded earlier this year and, at long last, the first official release of the “Electric Nebraska” demos with the E Street Band. These treatments don’t overshadow the original work. Rather, they underscore Springsteen’s restlessness at the time, his sustained quest for new frameworks and atmospheres. The rock-band versions also remind just how sturdy and durable (and malleable) Springsteen’s songwriting is: These tunes can work any which way.