November 26, 1998
Springsteen conjures up images of bombast and drama, belting out "Born in the U.S.A." in front of the American flag like rock and roll's own Patton. But underneath the blustery anthem of that tune is a vicious indictment of our treatment of Vietnam vets - it's not his fault if everyone saw his cynicism as jingoism.
There's no mistaking that tone on Nebraska. Gone are the big choruses, hooks and horns; instead, just a set of spare demos with a man, his guitar and harmonica that Columbia decided to release as a proper album. Good move - the stripped-down, lo-fi nature of this recording throws a klieg light on Springsteen's finest gifts, his passionate vocals and pitch-perfect narrative songwriting. Bob Dylan is often said to be Woodie Guthrie's inheritor, but Springsteen makes a better fit. Dylan turned his poetry inward to explore the human condition; Springsteen forever celebrated the working-class with plainspoken language that evokes far more than it explains.
Nebraska is populated by murderers, losers, crooked cops and broken men who put their faith in gambling, sawed-off shotguns and violence if they have any faith at all. The primal scream of the hunted in "State Trooper" says it all - these are men with nothing left to lose, the most dangerous kind. The graveyard shift worker in "Open All Night" cries "rock and roll deliver me from nowhere," and that's Springsteen's philosophy too, but where most of his work focuses on rock and roll, Nebraska makes "nowhere" clear.
There is little hope here, and even the uptempo blues boogie of "Johnny 99" ends on an execution line. But the characters are sketched with such bleak honesty and empathy that Nebraska has an irresistible power and pathos. If truth is beauty, then Nebraska is beautiful because it refuses to lie about pain, heartache and loss.
- Jared O'Connor
stripped down pathos