This album is basically a solo effort by Springsteen – apparently these cuts are pretty much demos that he wrote and recorded alone, with the expectation of giving them the full E-Street band treatment, but in the end felt that they worked better as they were.
What we get is Springsteen on his acoustic guitar, with the occasional bit of harmonica, in a largely bleak and stripped-down exploration of his themes of alienation and the struggles of the American working class. Some tracks are country-ish ballads, some a bit more upbeat with a rockabilly feel, but they all paint a bleak picture of lost dreams and eternal hope. Nebraska and Johnny 99 are narrated by criminals – Nebraska based on the true story of serial killer Charles Starkweather, the narrator unrepentant and blaming society for his actions. Johnny 99, on the other hand, is a fictional character sentenced to 99 years in prison and pleading for the death sentence instead.
Like Tracy Chapman in Fast Car, people find escape where they can – the mysterious Mansion On The Hill, or the joy of even a second-hand car in Used Cars, even using music to escape in Open All Night, much of this semi-autobiographical for Springsteen.
There’s a feel of a throwback to the likes of the Louvin Brothers, Jack Elliott, or Bob Dylan, in the folkish exploration of the dark side of the USA, but bought up to the early Eighties – Springsteen speaks for those left behind by Reagan’s America as what little they have is stripped away thanks to monetarism, and poverty becomes a sign of stigma rather than misfortune. It’s grim, the musical equivalent of a Steinbeck novel combined with a Jim Jarmusch film, Grapes of Wrath meets Paris, Texas, but Springsteen manages to make each track feel different (mostly) so it isn’t just one long litany of misery.
Although I wasn’t in the mood for low-fi realism when I put this on, and it’s unlikely to ever top my list of favourite albums, the purity of purpose really helps, and I can agree with Springsteen that the songs work better as they are rather than had the E-Street band joined in.
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