In which our hero (aka Bruce) reaches the 3/4 Century mark , a couple of books shed light on the most interesting phase of his career (with an upcoming movie to boot starring the bloke from "The Bear" as our guy) . Meanwhile a new tour documentary carefully curates his image (unnecessarily) in 2024 - Phew! - it's "Boss Time", Springsteen at 75.
"Deliver Me From Nowhere - The Making of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska" - Warren Zanes
WZ: "After you finished Nebraska you felt it was your best work?"
BS: "Yeah I felt it was . Still may be"
At age fifteen my only request for Xmas 1982 was a cassette of Nebraska. Released with little publicity, you only knew that it was a solo Bruce with no E Street Band, he played all the instruments and that was it.
If Bruce had opened up the door to all things USA via the double album The River, over the first few listens of Nebraska you had a sense that underneath there lurked menace, disgruntlement and downright violence once the surface was scratched over the course of ten downbeat but very vivid tales (this was the first cassette I can recall with a fold out lyric sheet).
And it was appropriate it was a cassette as that is how this whole project morphed to completion. The "eight x lane grandeur" of the E Street band ( A Time Magazine description from The River review) was replaced by acoustic guitar, mandolin, harmonica and a troubled vocal delivery that addressed the listener as "sir" and had occasional falsetto "yelps" that were startling ("State Trooper" is still disturbing to this day) .
Indeed the mastering process of the demo cassette Bruce recorded in his Colts Neck bedroom takes up a chapter - remember Bruce was a perfectionist yet Nebraska by it's very definition of the source (A Teac 144 4 x track cassette machine mixed down to a faulty(!) boombox with echo baked into mix) was sonically (very) rough.
The overarching narrative of this time has been documented before, not least in Springsteen's own memoir . Basically he experienced much success and a hit single following The River, but he wasn't happy. In fact he was depressed and lonely as "Deliver Me From Nowhere" outlines. A split from his long time, but little known girlfriend and an end to a long term rental on a farmhouse in Holmdel New Jersey all added to his sense of general unease.
Warren Zanes has credibility as a member of the shambolic Del Fuegos from Boston (think The Replacements but nowhere near as interesting) who crossed paths in a fleeting way with Bruce in the mid 80's. Perhaps more significantly he had serious author chops in Team Springsteen by writing an excellent Tom Petty biography published in 2014 in which the subject was on board and part of the writing process (if you a real music nerd you may recall there already was a Petty association via Tom singing backing vocals on a track of the Del Fuego's second album Stand Up ). So we not only have Manager Jon Landau as part of the narrative but the Boss himself with the author & Bruce even making a pilgrimage back to the very house & bedroom where Nebraska was recorded.
Zane's lifts from secondary sources like Peter Ames Carlin and Dave Marsh over the nearly 300 pages but it merely assists with his well paced and structured narrative. In addition he helpfully lists further reference material , one senses for the casual fan who wonders what all the fuss is about.
There is an element here of "you couldn't make this sh*t up" and it is so much the stuff of legend and as relevant today as it was during Reagan's era of the 1980's.
"Nebraska had something of a time release quality . It revealed it's strange power over the years , a thing people found in their own way and on their own time"
Whatever your perspective of where Nebraska sits in the Bruce Springsteen body of work it remains the most interesting of circumstances how it came together and what the legacy remans. Over 40 years later it was timely to have this period documented by a writer who knew how to approach the subject .
"There Was Nothing You Could Do , Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA and the End of The Heartland" - Steven Hyden
A long and rambling title matches the style of this book which coincides with the 40th Anniversary of the Born in the USA (BITUSA) album release. There are no primary source interviews (or even pictures) just a long stream of consciousness, like an extended 33 1/3 essay - a bit like Bruce's first couple of albums.
Hyden is an experienced author penning volumes about Radiohead, Black Crowes and Pearl Jam , he also pops up on various fan boy podcasts and sites (including the now defunct Backstreets website).
A crucial point, mentioned often by Hyden (in a particularly long premise where he does the track by track run down of the album) is that he was six years old when this album came out with a vivid memory being in his family's car with his Dad driving per the last track "My Hometown."
"In the first verse the narrator is a kid in his dad's car. In the last verse he's the dad taking his own son for a drive"
For those of us wandering planet earth at the time the memory of BITUSA being released was nothing earth shattering, the single "Dancing in the Dark" had some radio play but both album and single were disappearing down the charts UNTIL THAT VIDEO which changed everything and sent both the chart & career trajectory upwards.
The book veers dangerously close to a Bruce "bromance" on many occasions, and the scene is set early on page one:
"He does not look like a man who wants to change his clothes, his hair or his face, his mane is thick, supple, immaculately tousled. His boyish mug is framed by mathematically precise square jaw that is as chiseled as his cut arms & six pack abs. The clothes actually he should change those "
The fact is he is talking about Shawn Mendes as part of a Tommy Hilfilger campaign, involving the use of "Dancing in the Dark," but you get the drift....
Hyden veers off into theory and opinion on many occasions :
"Which songs would Elvis have recorded, how would Bruce and Elvis got on?" (who cares?)
"There is no getting around it, Bob (Dylan) in the mid -80's looked a lot like Bruce Springsteen .I suspect it derived from an unconscious compulsion to compete with America's biggest rock star a man who learned from him & then surpassed him" (how many male US rock musicians in the 80's had "poodle hair" & sleeveless T shirts? - did they all copy Bruce?)
The sound of the album is addressed in particular keyboardist Roy Bittan's use of the Yamaha CS 80 , the "musical equivalent of scene setting dry ice" pointing out it its "unifying strength" or "biggest weakness" in dating the sound to a specific time. This is particularly apparent when considering the sparse but non time stamped Nebraska or the classic E Street sound of The River that were the two previous releases.
The best chapter is plotting Springsteen movements immediately post Nebraska , the genesis of further synth & acoustic based songs including "Shut Out the Light", "Johnny Bye Bye" , "County Fair" and one of the most interesting, the unreleased "Klansmen". Springsteen himself has said that essentially the Nebraska meets BITUSA was one long session that stretched out over a couple of years. Hyden is meticulous documenting this era with the "Electric Nebraska", New York Power Station Sessions April /May 1982, a shift to LA and more sessions summer & autumn 1983 with even more more sessions in early 1984. Indecision seemed to be his MO until the final decision where the end product was not perfect but "the best possible version of what was considered by Bruce & his advisers."
At times thought provoking but many other times verbose and rambling it is a topic worth while documenting forty years later but it could have been so much better and for repeated reference I will be going back to Warren Zanes' book .
Road Diary - Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
In a repeat of the media blitz coinciding with the last album release Letter To You (documented here in 2020) Bruce Springsteen was everywhere recently promoting this documentary by his long time film maker/staff member Thom Zimny.
Shot over rehearsals for the ginormous world tour commencing early 2023 , Zimny documents the tour rehearsal process, subsequent live dates and fan reactions to seeing our hero out doing his thing again.
What is overlooked is the incredible backlash to ticket pricing in the lead up to the tour commencement ( including the ending of the long time fanboy website Backstreets website due to this very issue) ,the chronic stomach illness Springsteen was experiencing during the course of this phase of the tour causing many dates to be cancelled, and the small matter of selling his song catalogue to Sony for an estimated half billion dollars (!).
What is unnecessary is the fan reactions to our hero from around the world as the tour juggernaut arrives in certain cities . An entire movie has done this already and couldn't have been better - Springsteen and I .
Zimny has related in interviews that he did not know what he was shooting or what the narrative would be but this all seems disingenuous. This is a very controlled depiction of Bruce complete with his inseparable manager Jon Landau providing a narration that gives new meaning to the term Hagiography (dictionary meaning "a biography that treats its subject with undue reverence") .
A better title may have been "Brucemance".....
Misc
If it can be found anywhere , well worth seeking out is the mid 90's real fly on the wall documentary "Blood Brothers" (alluded to here but seemingly unavailable online) where Bruce reconvenes the E Street band for the purposes of his greatest hits album.
More interesting will be the upcoming biopic based on the Zanes book "Deliver Me From Nowhere" . As the man picked to play Bruce, Jeremy Allen White may not have the physique of skinny Nebraska era Springsteen but he has serious acting chops & an intensity that could just work. Jeremy Strong as Jon Landau could be a serious case of miscasting (Landau always seems to have as much personality as a wooden plan) but let's park judgement - stay tuned !
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