Review: Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Nebraska ’82: Expanded Edition’ – The Mythical ‘Electric Nebraska’ Finally Sees The Light Of Day

During what has already been a fantastic year for Bruce Springsteen fans – we finally got Tracks 2 after waiting literally decades (featuring 7 unreleased albums!) and then Bruce dropped a wonderful Born To Run outtake “Lonely Night In The Park” to celebrate that storied 1975 LP’s 50th anniversary – he has now once again opened the vaults and released Nebraska ’82: Expanded Edition which includes the mythical Electric Nebraska, that fans have been clamoring for since the 80s. Springsteen famously recorded Nebraska all alone in his bedroom with a portable tape recorder. He carried the cassette of those early recordings around in his back pocket for a while. Eventually he reconvened the mighty E Street Band and he took a shot at recording the songs with them but Bruce quickly realized he wasn’t capturing the haunted nature of the versions on the cassette tape and decided to just release that raw recording instead. For years his fans have speculated about what the intense songs on Nebraska would sound like with the E Street Band contributing. At last we know… good things, it appears, do come to those who wait.

Nebraska is an undisputed masterpiece. The characters that we discovered on Darkness On The Edge Of Town and The River finally meet their desperate rather grim fate on Nebraska. Many of them still have a chance but it’s clear life was never going to be fair for these folks and so they turn to lawlessness and crime…or at least they veer to the wrong side of conventional morality… “I’ve got debts no honest man can pay…” Despite it’s vaunted position in Springsteen’s catalog, I’ve had a bit of a mixed history with it. I love it now. But I was 18 years old when it came out. I bought it on Thanksgiving break of my disastrous freshman year in college (who’s freshman year wasn’t difficult?). I wasn’t in a good place mentally. At that point my Springsteen fandom was big but was still fairly nascent. I got on his bandwagon on The River – it came out when I had first start listening to music and you buy what you hear on the radio when you first start collecting. When I dropped the needle on that double album masterpiece, I was unsure what I was going to hear. I remember thinking I’d taken a real chance on a double album (big price tag back when you’re in high school… a lot of lawns had to be mowed for a double album), not really knowing much about Springsteen. KC was never a big Bruce town. But then the opening song, “The Ties That Bind,” burst out of my speakers and it hit my lower brain stem. I knew I’d be a fan for life. Alas, I didn’t see Bruce on that tour… due to circumstances beyond my control.

Strangely, the only album I bought from his back catalog at that point was The Wild, The Innocent And the E Street Shuffle because it had “Rosalita” on it. It’s now my favorite of his records but at 18 I wanted more guitar. I was a Van Halen fan after all. It wasn’t until I was a junior in high school when I attended the Senior Skip Day – when the entire class above me skipped school and had a party – at the invitation of two beautiful senior girls in my study hall that I was hoping for a “make out miracle” with, that I even heard Born To Run in it’s entirety. While the beautiful seniors were enticing, my mind drifted to the speakers as I was hearing “Thunder Road” and “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” for the first time. I may not have kissed a pretty senior girl that day but I went to the record store and bought that album which cemented my then nascent fandom.

When I came back from that dreadful first freshman semester at Thanksgiving break I was walking through the mall and saw “Springsteen” and “Nebraska” on a huge poster. I left the girl I was walking next to and wandered, as if in a trance, into the records store. “Springsteen has a new record out? How come I haven’t heard of this?” I grabbed my vinyl copy (that I still have) and purchased the album without having heard a note. I expected that same endorphin high I got when “The Ties That Bind” or “Thunder Road” exploded from the speakers. What I got was… A plaintive harmonica, lightly strummed guitar and “I saw her her standin’, on her front lawn…just a twirling her baton.” At 18, wildly depressed and overwhelmed by my transition from high school senior to college freshman, that was not what I wanted to hear. Where was Clarence Clemons? I kept thinking the album would perk up. It didn’t. Sure, there was some hopefulness there in songs like “Atlantic City” and “Reason To Believe” but I was so hopeless it didn’t connect. No wonder I named it as one of the most Grim And Sad Albums ever. Luckily I survived freshman year (and the girl I was in the mall with) and I ended up with a great roommate Drew whose favorite Springsteen album is Nebraska. He turned me around on this masterpiece. I texted him after hearing the whole thing yesterday and his response was simply, “I’m on it.” Some connections never die.

I don’t think Springsteen could have done a better job on this new box set. It’s 4 CDs, and one BluRay. I haven’t seen the BluRay as I’m waiting on the post office to deliver my copy. I went with the CD version because vinyl costs so damn much anymore. But I will tell you this box set was meant for vinyl. Each disc is short enough to fit on one vinyl album – each one is 9 or 10 songs long. Disc 4 of the set is the original album remastered. It sounds fabulous. I don’t think Springsteen gets enough credit for how fabulous his vocals were during this era of his career. The emotional range of his singing is staggering to hear all these years later. The songwriting on that original album remains some of the most amazing character studies I’ve heard committed to tape. It’s really a stunning album and if you don’t have it, you should. Granted, you’ll likely never play this at a New Year’s Eve Party. Songs like “Atlantic City,” “Highway Patrolman,” and “Open All Night” still resonate. “Reason To Believe” should be a bigger song with today’s Resistance. The original LP alone is worth the price of admission on this box for any newbies to Nebraska. 

The gold for the rest of us, who have been in on Nebraska since ’82, are discs 1 and 2 of the box. Disc 1 is all outtakes from the Nebraska sessions. I know many of these songs have been bootlegged over the years but I have never heard any of this before and ergo I was stunned at the quality of this material. I can’t believe he never went back and fleshed this stuff out. They’re all fully realized and sound like they’ve been begging for a release. Again, I suppose I could get on YouTube and explore all of his unreleased stuff but I’d end up lost in there… my wife would have to have paramedics pull me away from the screen looking like the Unabomber. The opening outtake is an acoustic “Born In The U.S.A.,” that’s similar to the one released on 18 Tracks. I love the stripped down version. Bruce punctures the song with howls and it works. Reagan probably wouldn’t have quoted this track if he’d heard this version. The next song is one of the most stunning songs I’ve ever heard from Bruce, “Losin’ Kind.” Oh my god this is a fantastic song. The narrator meets a girl and goes on a bad crime spree. The last line is seared into my brain. “Downbound Train” here is a far cry from the ballad version from Born In The U.S.A. It’s rockabilly and punk combined. Much of what ended up on Born In The U.S.A. was written at the same time as Nebraska, and those albums will forever be intertwined.

“Child Bride” is an outtake that I understand has been widely bootlegged. It’s obviously the source material for what became “Working On The Highway,” but it’s a great, sad song about forbidden and yes, illegal love. “Pink Cadillac” is here in a more laid back, drumless love drone form. It sounds more desperate than horny here. “The Big Payback” was a b-side back in ’82 and a live version is on The Essential Bruce Springsteen. We get an early version of the aforementioned “Working On The Highway” and it’s very similar to the original version. “On The Prowl,” has all the vocal menace that just connects. Finally, “Gun In Every Home,” is about a guy who moves his family to the suburbs and buys a gun… awfully paranoid for a guy who has to mow the lawn. It’s another knock out song, expressing the disappointment of getting everything you want.

Disc 2, as mentioned is the legendary, mythical Electric Nebraska. I never expected the full E Street treatment for these songs and we don’t really get that. Typically Bruce is just augmented by Max Weinberg (drums) and Gary Tallant (bass) with maybe Roy Bittan adding piano and Little Steven dropping in some extra guitar and a harmony vocal. It’s great stuff and I have to applaud Springsteen’s courage to stick by his convictions and releasing the original stripped down versions instead of going with more fleshed out versions that I’m sure the record company wanted instead. I will say, slower songs like the title track and “Mansion On The Hill” aren’t dramatically different from the versions we’re familiar with. I think the “electrification” of those tracks doesn’t add much. However, other tracks really come alive with the band. The version of “Atlantic City” here is probably definitive with a great harmony vocal from Little Steven. “Johnny 99” punctuated with Bruce’s banshee wail, is now an electrified punky rockabilly tune and it’s mind blowing. It sounds like something Jerry Lee Lewis would have done. It’s fabulous.

“Downbound Train” is full on punk rock. It’s fast and hard. I still have a soft spot for the ballad on Born In The U.S.A. but I love this version. It’s amazing those two songs are the same one. “Open All Night” also sounds great in this setting. I love the original but this one really grabs me. The music is propulsive and you feel like you’re in the car, driving fast. This version of “Born In The U.S.A.” is a bridge between the acoustic demo from disc 1, and the anthem released as the title track of the next album. I really like this version. The angst of the narrator is just more palpable. Again, Springsteen’s vocals during this stage of his career were just spectacular, elastic and acrobatic. Finally, “Reason To Believe” is here and it’s another rockabilly treatment. It’s a toss up between it and the original for definitive version… I really like Springsteen’s driving harmonica on this version.

The third disc, which we hear before the original album on disc 4, is a contemporary recording of Springsteen performing the album in it’s entirety. I know it’s just the soundtrack to the BluRay but I’m glad to have the audio version… how many of us go back to the BluRays? I thought it was just padding but I actually really enjoyed Bruce’s performances. His vocal nuances for these tracks has just gotten better with age. And one should really hear Nebraska as a complete work vs piecemeal.

Over all this is a fabulous box set celebrating one of Bruce’s most important masterpieces. Like listening to the L.A. Garage Sessions ’83 in Tracks 2, you realize that Springsteen could have put out a lot more music during the early 80s. He was a veritable font of great songs. I’m surprised to hear this stuff and think that Springsteen sat on it for over 40 years. Everyone who digs this album should hear this box set. If you’ve heard Nebraska and perhaps misunderstood it or not liked it, you need to hear these demos and Electric Nebraska not just for the glimpse into Bruce’s creative process at the time but to give the original album a deeper context. This is absolute musical gold.

Enjoy this one, it’s very special. These tracks, about folks who were struggling during the Reagan economy, will resonate for those of us who are struggling with the current economy. It’s the natural conclusion…

Cheers! “…at the end of every hard earned day, people find some reason to believe.”