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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show

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Speaker 1: that brings you the secret histories and little known fascinating

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Speaker 1: facts and figures behind your favorite TV shows, movies, music,

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Speaker 1: and more. Where are your two troubadours of trivia? I'm

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Speaker 1: Alex Tagle and I'm Jordan Run Talk and Jordan's Today

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Speaker 1: we're talking about one of the most famous left turns

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Speaker 1: in American music, the record that proved that Bruce Springsteen

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Speaker 1: is more than the hyper verbal head of a stadium

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Speaker 1: filling rock band, and it also sent music journalists scrambling

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Speaker 1: for synonyms for stark decades. That's right, we are talking

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Speaker 1: about Nebraska. The record turned forty this year, and its

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Speaker 1: legacy as the r text for dozens of home recorded

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Speaker 1: d I Y projects and hipster approved springs seen record

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Speaker 1: has only grown. As I love this record so much.

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Speaker 1: It's my favorite Springsteen barn On, you know, obviously Born

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Speaker 1: to Run, it's the maybe the most realized and and

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Speaker 1: there's a lot to love on Darkness, I think as well, Um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is the record is just so it's just got that.

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Speaker 1: It's not he's not doing his chesty bleat thing. He's

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Speaker 1: not doing his yarrowing. He doesn't have you know, God

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Speaker 1: rest his soul. But Clarence Clenmon's Isn't isn't in here

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Speaker 1: honking away and every single nook and cranny possible, it

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Speaker 1: doesn't have the stunning competence of Max Weinberg on the Skins.

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Speaker 1: This is my favorite Bruce Springstein record. I mean I've

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Speaker 1: grown up in Pennsylvania, you know, I, and being a

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Speaker 1: punk kid, I had the inherited scorn that you're supposed

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Speaker 1: to have towards Bruce. Uh. And then in like my twenties,

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Speaker 1: I started going back and listening to these records and

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Speaker 1: I was like, oh no, the man is a phenomenal songwriter.

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Speaker 1: The bands are great, Um, the the the Street Band

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Speaker 1: is great. Although you know he kicked out Vinnie. Well, Vinnie,

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Speaker 1: I'm not gonna get into the personnel over the Street band.

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Speaker 1: Um yeah yeah not yet. But yeah, I mean this

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Speaker 1: is called the Springsteen record that you give to people

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Speaker 1: who don't like Springsteen, right, yeah. I may think that's

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Speaker 1: a fair assessment. And I can definitely understand all the

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Speaker 1: reasons why you like it, Like intellectually, I completely get it.

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Speaker 1: The intimacy, the trust that Bruce almost seems to be

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Speaker 1: placing and listeners to hear what he has to tell

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Speaker 1: you in this very stripped down way. But I need

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Speaker 1: to be in a really specific mindset to enjoy that

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Speaker 1: kind of music. So I tend to live over on

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Speaker 1: East Street, where my house is fenced off with the

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Speaker 1: wall of sounds um. Nebraska was described by author David

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Speaker 1: Burke as Bruce's heart of Darkness, which right away, I

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Speaker 1: can understand why that would be your favorite Bruce Springsteen album.

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Speaker 1: I just love the over own repsodic born to Run

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Speaker 1: type stuff. I mean, for me, it's Nebraska's a film

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Speaker 1: noir and Born to Run as a Busby Berkeley musical number.

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Speaker 1: It's just more of my vibe, you know. I mean

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Speaker 1: it's funny talking about Bruce because I just feel woefully unqualified.

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Speaker 1: And that's one of the weird things about talking about Bruce.

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Speaker 1: It's like being a Dylan fan or a Dead fan

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Speaker 1: or a Fish fan. I own maybe ten Bruce Springsteen

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Speaker 1: albums plus a couple of Greatest Hits compilations. If there

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Speaker 1: were any other artist, that would be enough for me

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Speaker 1: to say, oh yeah, I'm I'm a really big fan.

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Speaker 1: But in the case of Bruce Springsteen, that's not true

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Speaker 1: at all. Like real Bruce Springsteen fans are a breed apart.

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Speaker 1: They see his shows more often than most people get haircuts.

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Speaker 1: They have a special shelving unit for all their Bruce tapes.

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Speaker 1: I know several people who have gone on Bruce Springsteen

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Speaker 1: pilgrimages to Asbury Park, and I have a very dear

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Speaker 1: friend who had a Bruce Springsteen themed wedding and their

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Speaker 1: marriage photos are recreating the cover of Born to Run.

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Speaker 1: So I am not at this level, nor do I

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Speaker 1: claim to be. I feel it's a very important disclaimer

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Speaker 1: at the top of this episode. You don't have to

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Speaker 1: be for Nebraska, I mean, and that's what like, you know,

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Speaker 1: I was talking about this with Low in the car

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Speaker 1: because we had on Born to Run. She was like,

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Speaker 1: I don't think this is for me, and I was like,

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Speaker 1: this is what being a teenager she was. She not

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Speaker 1: familiar with it. No, I mean, she'd heard it, but

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Speaker 1: she was just like, I just don't get this in

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Speaker 1: the same way that like you glom onto it, and

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Speaker 1: it's like for me, like the street band, Bruce is

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Speaker 1: like being a teenager, like all of your exactly all

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Speaker 1: of your feelings are these big, wide screen, blown out

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Speaker 1: chest beating sentiments. It's us against them. We're getting out

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Speaker 1: of town, Like it's that's would be a teenagers Like

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Speaker 1: Nebraska is the cold hard come down of being an adult,

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Speaker 1: where it's the world, everything, everything, your high school girlfriend

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Speaker 1: left you. And that's what that's what I love about

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Speaker 1: what where this record sits in his career because it

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Speaker 1: is very much him as a person coming to grips

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Speaker 1: with the two big things of adulthood char no money

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Speaker 1: and failing to your career, failing to live up to

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Speaker 1: its expectations and depression. Those are like that's where he

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Speaker 1: was in his life at this point. He was like,

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Speaker 1: we'll talk about what had gotten to therapy. We'll talk

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Speaker 1: about he was reading Howard's in and realizing that capitalism

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Speaker 1: is disgusting lie and like that's this is the record

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Speaker 1: that came out of it, and I couldn't love it anymore.

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Speaker 1: I get that. I mean, I guess it's the whole

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Speaker 1: sense of escapism versus a reflection of wherever you are

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Speaker 1: at at that moment. Like I love the optimism of

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Speaker 1: Born to Run. I just think, like he said, it's

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Speaker 1: it's repsodic teenage poetry. It's the oral equivalent of falling

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Speaker 1: in love for the first time. And the sounds are

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Speaker 1: just all encompassing and energetic, and the lyrics are just

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Speaker 1: painfully earnest yet totally firm, and their convictions. I remember

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Speaker 1: I an English teacher who once told me, you know,

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Speaker 1: you write about emotions as if you're the first person

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Speaker 1: to ever feel them. And I think he meant it

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Speaker 1: as an insult. In fact, I know he meant it

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Speaker 1: as an insult, but I wore that as a badge

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Speaker 1: of honor. Yeah, I have a funny feeling that Bruce

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Speaker 1: would too. Um sure, some of us born to run

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Speaker 1: Arrow lyrics are melodramatic and a little embarrassing. There's nothing

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Speaker 1: compared to the dude we were. I mean, because we

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Speaker 1: had the greatest hits on and um, you know how

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Speaker 1: it starts with Asbury Park and you forget how some

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Speaker 1: of those early Dylanism wet leg Willie and Jimmy John

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Speaker 1: Janey and rat trap Cadillac zip zap zoop like shut

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Speaker 1: that even wrap your legs around these velvet rooms and

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Speaker 1: strap your hands cross my engines. That that's pretty cringey.

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Speaker 1: But you know, it's all about being crater and being bigger,

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Speaker 1: and I just I love that about him, and I

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Speaker 1: missed that spirit on Nebraska. I mean even just using

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Speaker 1: the car as a metaphor. On Born to Run, it

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Speaker 1: represents escape, you know, pull out of here to win.

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Speaker 1: On Nebraska, cars are all about isolation and class restriction.

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Speaker 1: And even just look at the covers on Board to Run,

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Speaker 1: it's a black and white portrait of camaraderie with Bruce

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Speaker 1: draped over Clarence as shoulders. And on Nebraska it's just

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Speaker 1: the frigid open road with a soul in sight. I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna quote one of my favorite Brooklyn Jersey punk bands,

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Speaker 1: the Board and Furn of Friendship Society. Um, they have

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Speaker 1: a song about Paul Robeson and the line is joy

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Speaker 1: beats oppression, but oppression will make you pay because our

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Speaker 1: joy is fleeting, but oppression is here to stay. And

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Speaker 1: that is to me the brust dichotomy, Like, yeah, you

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Speaker 1: get all this hope and you can get all this

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Speaker 1: joy out of it, and you can go to the

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Speaker 1: four Hour concert and feel like you can punch through steel.

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Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, Nebraska is real life.

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Speaker 1: Everything Nebraska is not a vacation. Nebraska is real life.

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Speaker 1: Born to Run is the vacation, you know. So that's

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Speaker 1: why I love it, and that's why I love that.

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Speaker 1: We're we're getting into it. We're chopping it up well

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Speaker 1: from the records deep and dark list of inspirations, drawing

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Speaker 1: from Southern Gothic to Howard's Inn to Springsteen's perverse insistence

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Speaker 1: on putting out what was essentially is demo tape on

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Speaker 1: altered as the record, to the obsessive hunt by fans

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Speaker 1: for the full band version of this record that supposedly

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Speaker 1: exists somewhere. Here's everything you didn't know about Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska.

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Speaker 1: In the early Bruce Springsteen was had a crossroads there.

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Speaker 1: It is uh. The header for this one is so

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Speaker 1: I understanding on her from Porch's like southern accent he

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Speaker 1: puts on for this is so good to Run had

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Speaker 1: launched him to worldwide fame. Record that merges the rambling

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Speaker 1: dylanisms of the first records with the E Street Band

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Speaker 1: with a maximalist vision of stadium rock by way of

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Speaker 1: Phil Spector. How you like that for some good music critic? Overdrive?

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Speaker 1: Everything I love A protracted battle with his manager Mike

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Speaker 1: Apple kept him out of the studio for a year,

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Speaker 1: during which time he kept the band on the road

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Speaker 1: and it was writing gathering material for his next two records,

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Speaker 1: Darkness on the Edge of Town and The River. Both

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Speaker 1: of those records edged towards a slightly darker vision of

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Speaker 1: American life than the wide eyed teenage romanticism was Born

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Speaker 1: to run. Darkness takes that quite literally. Uh. And the

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Speaker 1: River has pound for pound more than Nebraska. For my money,

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Speaker 1: the saddest Bruce Springsteen song that title cut my God.

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Speaker 1: That is like half the dudes my dad went to

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Speaker 1: high school with in Pittsburgh. That is a sad That

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Speaker 1: line in that song. I mean, we could talk about

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Speaker 1: some of the best lyrics on the Nebraska, but the

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Speaker 1: line in the River when he says, is a dream

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Speaker 1: a lie if it don't come true? Or is it

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Speaker 1: something worse? People? Right, Bruce off is a lightweight man,

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Speaker 1: but he will cut you. Bruce was talking to Rolling Stone.

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Speaker 1: I think that's the cover where he's on like a

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Speaker 1: frigid lake ice skating, which really just fits aesthetic. So

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Speaker 1: he told Kurt Loader, I want you to picture that.

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Speaker 1: He's telling Mr Kurt Loader, that's very important for this anecdote.

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Speaker 1: Can can you do with Bruce Springstein accent? Okay, I'll

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Speaker 1: just read this. Then he said, I guess I'm born

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Speaker 1: to run. There's that searching thing. That record to me

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Speaker 1: is like religiously based in a funny kind of way,

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Speaker 1: that searching and faith and the idea of hope. And

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Speaker 1: then on Darkness on the edge of Town, it was

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Speaker 1: kind of like a collision that happens between this guy

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Speaker 1: in the real world. He ends up very alone and

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Speaker 1: real stripped down. Then on the River there was always

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Speaker 1: that thing of the guy attempting to come back to

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Speaker 1: find some sort of community. Have more songs about relationships,

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Speaker 1: people trying to find some sort of consolation, some sort

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Speaker 1: of comfort in each other. Before the River, there's almost

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Speaker 1: no songs about relationships, very few. Then on Nebraska, I

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Speaker 1: don't know what happened on that one, that kind of

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Speaker 1: came out of the blue. Uh. Darkness is obviously quite

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Speaker 1: literal in its material, and the River, as you mentioned,

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Speaker 1: has one of the saddest Bruce Springsteen songs ever the

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Speaker 1: title track. But that would all come to the four

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Speaker 1: on Nebraska, which takes its own title track from one

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Speaker 1: of those infamous road trips in American history and iconic

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Speaker 1: film directors take on it. Yeah, for those of you

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Speaker 1: who aren't true crime dorks. In nineteen fifty eight, Charles

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Speaker 1: Starkweather and his fourteen year old girlfriend Carol and Fugate

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Speaker 1: fled across Nebraska and into Wyoming on a murder spree

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Speaker 1: that claimed six lives. This was after Starkweather killed fugates

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Speaker 1: stepfather Maryan Bartlett, her mother Velda, her younger half sister

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Speaker 1: Betty Jean, and a family friend. Fugate became the youngest

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Speaker 1: female in the United States history to have been tried

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Speaker 1: and convicted of first degree murder, and stark Weather were

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Speaker 1: sentenced to death and executed in the electric chair in

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Speaker 1: June ninety nine. So In Terence Malek, in his directorial debut,

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Speaker 1: Gives Us bad Lands, which is loosely based on that spree,

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Speaker 1: starring Martin Sheen is stark Weather and Sissy Space as

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Speaker 1: Carol Anne, released two widespread critical Posanna's and Um, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. Do you are you a malet guy?

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Speaker 1: Have you seen this? No? I've never seen this. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean it's beautiful. It's it's um widescreen panoramic visions

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Speaker 1: of of the middle of the country and then you know,

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Speaker 1: punctuated by bursts of violence, so picturing like more violent

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Speaker 1: Last Picture Show basically kind of yeah. I was living

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Speaker 1: in a place called Colt's Neck, New Jersey, and I

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Speaker 1: remember I saw bad Lands and I read this book

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Speaker 1: about them, Carol, and it just seemed to be a

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Speaker 1: mood that I was in at the time. I was

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Speaker 1: renting a house on this reservoir, and I didn't go

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Speaker 1: out much, and for some reason I just started to write.

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Speaker 1: This is in that Rolling Stone interview. I wrote Nebraska

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Speaker 1: all those songs in a couple of months. I was

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Speaker 1: interested in writing kind of smaller than I had been

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Speaker 1: writing with just detail, which I kind of began to

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Speaker 1: do on the River. I guess my influences at the

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Speaker 1: time of the movie and these stories I was reading

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Speaker 1: by Flannery O'Connor. She's just incredible, are you Flannery O'Connor, Guy, No,

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm striking out. This episode is very much your stuff.

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Speaker 1: Something gothic, baby, give it to me. More than a

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Speaker 1: few critics have cited the closing lines of Nebraska the

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Speaker 1: title track. They wanted to know why I did what

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Speaker 1: I did well, sir, I guess there's just a meanness

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Speaker 1: in this world. Uh. They cited at similarity of the

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Speaker 1: closing line of Flannery O'Connor's widely anthologize short story A

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Speaker 1: Good Man Is Hard to Find, in which a murderer says,

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Speaker 1: it's nothing for you to do but enjoy the last

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Speaker 1: few minutes you got left at the best way you can,

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Speaker 1: by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing

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Speaker 1: some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness. Yeah. Yeah, see,

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Speaker 1: I don't like living in this world. That's that's part

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Speaker 1: of the American graffiti of Born to Run. Yeah, this

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Speaker 1: is the real world, this is life. Um. The line

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Speaker 1: in that song, I can't say I'm sorry for the

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Speaker 1: things that we've done, at least for a little while, sir,

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Speaker 1: me and her we had us some fun echoes a

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Speaker 1: letter from prison that Starkweather wrote to his parents, which reads, Actually,

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Speaker 1: but Dad, I'm not real sorry for what I did

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Speaker 1: because for the first time, me and Carol have had

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Speaker 1: more fun. So that's track one. Jesus Christ, I love it. Um.

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Speaker 1: Part of the reason that we got Nebraska was that

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Speaker 1: Springsteen had decided that spending time in the studio writing

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Speaker 1: was a waste of money. He would go in without Yeah, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: but that's what a lot of these guys used to do.

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Speaker 1: Paul Simon would famously go in just unprepared. Um. So

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Speaker 1: this time he was like going to write a bunch

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Speaker 1: of ahead of time. He sent his guitar tech Mike

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Speaker 1: Batlan out and was like, get me some stuff I

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Speaker 1: can used to record at home. And so he told

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Speaker 1: Rolling Stone. I got a four track cassette machine, and

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Speaker 1: I said, I'm going to record these songs and if

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Speaker 1: they sound good with just me doing him, then I'll

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Speaker 1: teach him to the band. I could sing and play

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Speaker 1: the guitar, and then I had two tracks to do

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Speaker 1: something else, like over to up a guitar or at

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Speaker 1: a harmony. Was just gonna be a demo. Then I

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Speaker 1: had a little echo plex that I mixed through and

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Speaker 1: that was it, And that was the tape that became

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Speaker 1: the record. It's amazing that it got there because I

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Speaker 1: was carrying that cassette around with me in my pocket

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Speaker 1: without a case for a couple of weeks, just dragging

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Speaker 1: it around. But he said, you know, when they started

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Speaker 1: taking them to the band, the chemistry wasn't there, he

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Speaker 1: told this Irish magazine um hot Press. The songs had

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Speaker 1: a lot of detail, so that when the band started

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Speaker 1: to wail away into it, the characters got lost. Like Johnny,

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Speaker 1: I thought, oh, that would be great if we could

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Speaker 1: do a rock version. But when you did that, the

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Speaker 1: song disappeared a lot of its content and style. In

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Speaker 1: the treatment of it. It needed that kind of really

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Speaker 1: austere echoy sound. Just one guitar, one guy telling his

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Speaker 1: story ironically that he's one of the Nebraska songs that

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Speaker 1: he's played most live, and he plays it as a full,

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Speaker 1: full band rock and roll song. I mean, Nebraska is like,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's a stupid analogy, but like a pen

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Speaker 1: and drawing, you know, Yeah, it's like a Thurber J. M. W.

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Speaker 1: Turner point is how many art references gonna be cram

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Speaker 1: into this guy? Just a point to is um in

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Speaker 1: an episode about Nebraska a U. The demo recording sessions

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Speaker 1: that produced this album covered several days, but Springsteen fans

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Speaker 1: have identified January third Night two as the quote unquote

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Speaker 1: legendary night, when fifteen tracks were demoed by the aforementioned

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Speaker 1: guitar tech Mike Batlan um one influence This is one

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Speaker 1: of the things I love by Bruce is that he

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Speaker 1: he has his weird little fixations that he loves, and

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Speaker 1: he is he will find them out of nowhere. A

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Speaker 1: big influence on at least one track on this record

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Speaker 1: is Suicide, who are very early days New York City

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Speaker 1: punk to the point where they were all older than

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Speaker 1: that initial generation of punk bands, and there, uh just

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Speaker 1: like drum machines and keyboards and these kind of sparse, stark,

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Speaker 1: unrelenting songs punctuated by Alan Vague out who is UM

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Speaker 1: sort of doing if Elvis was starring in The Exorcist.

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Speaker 1: Um and Springsteen loved them. Um. He loved this track

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Speaker 1: in particular Frankie Teardrop, and apparently he said at one point,

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Speaker 1: if Elvis came back from the dead, I think he

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Speaker 1: would sound like Alan Vega. So on on the track

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Speaker 1: State Trooper, you know, he's it's like it's a ch

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Speaker 1: ch ching ching ching ching, just a real quiet riff,

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Speaker 1: and then you just hear him scream out of nowhere

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Speaker 1: towards the end of it. That's a Suicide rip. But

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Speaker 1: it's just so funny. I just love the fact that he,

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Speaker 1: you know, he was like, oh, these guys who played

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Speaker 1: like CBGB like I'm into that. I'm into that band.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to take that as a reference. I just

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Speaker 1: loves music. I respect that. Bruce sent a version of

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Speaker 1: this demo tape to his manager John Landau, with a

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Speaker 1: note that read, in part, I got a lot of ideas,

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Speaker 1: but I'm not exactly sure where I'm going, which I love. Uh,

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Speaker 1: And he elaborated on the sentiment in his two thousand

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Speaker 1: and sixteen memoir Born the Runs, saying I had no

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Speaker 1: conscious political agenda or social theme. I was after a feeling,

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Speaker 1: a tone that felt like the world I had known

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Speaker 1: and still carried inside me. That's um, I go on.

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Speaker 1: He clearly had an agenda. He clearly had a theme.

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Speaker 1: And I'll tell you why. That's he geography. If he

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Speaker 1: wants to rewrite history, that's his. That's that's up to Bruce.

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Speaker 1: But I'll explain why I don't agree with him later. Uh.

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Speaker 1: He brought this all these songs to the studio and

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Speaker 1: worked with the Street Band in April of eighty two

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Speaker 1: on full band versions. These are commonly referred to as

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Speaker 1: the Electric Nebraska sessions, which is that's pretty good. Electric

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00:18:45,640 --> 00:18:51,680
Speaker 1: Nebraska sounds like a sex position. Ah. He manager John

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Speaker 1: Lando actually had veto power over which songs would make

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Speaker 1: the cut as rightly they those two guys would, And

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Speaker 1: so everything that stayed on Nebraska they felt was too

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Speaker 1: personal and raw to give the full E Street Band treatment.

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Speaker 1: And they were the only people they had full power

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Speaker 1: over this. So I think Max has been like, Max

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Speaker 1: has taught you mentioned this in a second, But Max

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00:19:11,680 --> 00:19:13,760
Speaker 1: has been like, oh, we had great versions of those songs,

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Speaker 1: but they just didn't come out. This is what's wild.

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Speaker 1: I talked about this earlier. Born in the USA comes

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00:19:18,640 --> 00:19:23,280
Speaker 1: out in That record has twelve tracks on it. Eight

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Speaker 1: of those came out of the Nebraska writing sessions. Title

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Speaker 1: track Downbound Train cover Me, I'm on Fire, Dark Horse

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Speaker 1: candidate for top five Springsteen song Glory Days, also Darlington

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Speaker 1: County working on the Highway, I'm Going Down. I love

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Speaker 1: them going Down. Um yeah, I have an unpopular opinion,

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Speaker 1: go ahead, I'm on Fire. To me, it sounds like

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Speaker 1: a Chris Isaac song. Yeah, but ten years before Chris

356
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Speaker 1: Isaac was doing it. A couple of years before still

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Speaker 1: Chris Isaac that puts couldn't dream of this, this level

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Speaker 1: of gravitas. Uh, It is unlikely that we will ever hear. Well, actually,

359
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Speaker 1: I don't know if he's getting up to sell all

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Speaker 1: of his masters that will come out someday. Isn't that

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00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:12,800
Speaker 1: the isn't that the scuttle butt? Yeah? Oh, man, I

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Speaker 1: talked to Uh. I interviewed Stephen van Zande the day

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Speaker 1: that it was announced that he was selling his masters, like,

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00:20:19,560 --> 00:20:21,879
Speaker 1: but I mean the announcement came like the afternoon. I

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Speaker 1: talked to him in the morning and he seemed like

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Speaker 1: kind of down and weird and uh, and I couldn't

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Speaker 1: figure out why. It seemed like it seems like a

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Speaker 1: man questioning his life choices. And then later that afternoon

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Speaker 1: after the calls like, oh yeah, Bruce Springsteen gets what

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Speaker 1: like a billion dollars half a billion something like that.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, I guess whoever owns them may put this out.

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Speaker 1: But John Landau as of two thousand and six, was

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Speaker 1: saying that the releases unlikely. He said, the right version

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Speaker 1: of Nebraska came out, well, he would say that because

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Speaker 1: it was his decision. Yeah, fans have been dying to

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Speaker 1: hear the so called like the Nebraska. Uh. And it's

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Speaker 1: unclear exact really how much has been finished of it,

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Speaker 1: but Max Weinberg has said that the album does exist,

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Speaker 1: and he's quoted as saying, I think he's talking to

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Speaker 1: Rolling Stone. The Eastern Band actually did record all of Nebraska,

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Speaker 1: and it was killing. It was all very hard edged.

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Speaker 1: As great as it was, it wasn't what Bruce wanted

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Speaker 1: to release. All those songs are in the cans somewhere,

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Speaker 1: and I think most of the tracks from those sessions

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Speaker 1: have been released either on the Nebraska album Born in

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Speaker 1: the USA or a standalone singles are part of a

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Speaker 1: compilation album. But I think there are nine titles from

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Speaker 1: that marathon session that are still unreleased to this day.

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Speaker 1: So hopefully at least of those see the light of

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Speaker 1: day as you meditate on that. We'll be right back

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Speaker 1: with more too much information after these messages. So before

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Speaker 1: we even get in further into the songs, we have

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Speaker 1: to talk about the technical side of Nebraska, and hopefully

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Speaker 1: we'll keep this from getting a little too Rick Patto,

395
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Speaker 1: as I say every time I start talking my music

396
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Speaker 1: theory in this show, Patto um talking to Rolling Stone,

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Speaker 1: Springsteen said, technically it was difficult to get it on

398
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Speaker 1: a disc. The stuff was recorded so strangely. The needle

399
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Speaker 1: would read a lot of distortion and wouldn't track in

400
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Speaker 1: the wax. We almost had to release it as a cassette,

401
00:22:31,119 --> 00:22:33,720
Speaker 1: so that was extremely broad strokes. Let us paint to

402
00:22:33,800 --> 00:22:37,000
Speaker 1: find our picture. The boss used the t task cam

403
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Speaker 1: on Porter Studio retail price at the time, a shade

404
00:22:40,359 --> 00:22:43,600
Speaker 1: over a grand along with a pair of Sure SM

405
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Speaker 1: fifty seven's, which are the microphone that roughly of small

406
00:22:48,800 --> 00:22:52,479
Speaker 1: to midsize venues use on guitar amps. It's absolutely one

407
00:22:52,520 --> 00:22:55,240
Speaker 1: of the workhorse mics that is in every venue in

408
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Speaker 1: recording studio in the world. Uh. And he used two

409
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Speaker 1: of them and this task camp to record the demos

410
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Speaker 1: that would become Nebraska, and then they mixed them onto

411
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Speaker 1: a Panasonic boom box because you record them onto uh

412
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Speaker 1: the four track machine. And then I think what they

413
00:23:11,520 --> 00:23:15,320
Speaker 1: did was if they hadn't already put the echo plex

414
00:23:15,840 --> 00:23:18,280
Speaker 1: in the signal chain, they would have put it on

415
00:23:18,320 --> 00:23:21,400
Speaker 1: those tracks before they bound as they bounced it over

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Speaker 1: to the Panasonic. Yeah, it's worth doing at this task

417
00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:28,879
Speaker 1: and four track machine was the first commercially available piece

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00:23:28,880 --> 00:23:31,240
Speaker 1: of equipment to use a standard cassette tape that you

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00:23:31,240 --> 00:23:33,920
Speaker 1: could just buy at a drug store. Multi track recording.

420
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Speaker 1: And this was pretty revolutionary. You could make a record

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Speaker 1: in your bedroom that could be released on Columbia. You know,

422
00:23:41,200 --> 00:23:44,679
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney often gets, you know, the vast majority of

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Speaker 1: the praise for putting out his McCartney album in nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy that he did at home, but he had trucked

425
00:23:50,440 --> 00:23:54,240
Speaker 1: in like proper. Yeah, that was done to two inch

426
00:23:54,400 --> 00:23:58,840
Speaker 1: tape with like nieve consales. Yeah, come on, well it

427
00:23:58,920 --> 00:24:02,160
Speaker 1: wasn't nive but is direct into the stud for a track.

428
00:24:02,359 --> 00:24:04,520
Speaker 1: But he had like because Abbey Road, the studio where

429
00:24:04,520 --> 00:24:08,160
Speaker 1: the Beatles recorded, was like almost in sight of his house.

430
00:24:08,320 --> 00:24:10,280
Speaker 1: He lived right down the road, so he got all

431
00:24:10,320 --> 00:24:13,359
Speaker 1: this stuff just trucked in. So yeah, so this is

432
00:24:13,600 --> 00:24:17,880
Speaker 1: very different. This is like small, portable, easy to use,

433
00:24:18,600 --> 00:24:21,080
Speaker 1: very revolutionary, and as we'll talk about later, just the

434
00:24:21,119 --> 00:24:24,240
Speaker 1: fact that someone as big as Bruce Springsteen could make

435
00:24:24,280 --> 00:24:27,080
Speaker 1: an album on this really legitimized it in the eyes

436
00:24:27,119 --> 00:24:29,639
Speaker 1: of just the whole generation of people who wanted to

437
00:24:29,640 --> 00:24:32,800
Speaker 1: make albums on the cheap. Yeah, I mean the early

438
00:24:32,800 --> 00:24:35,679
Speaker 1: Mountain Goats stuff when it was just John darnil Uh.

439
00:24:35,840 --> 00:24:39,080
Speaker 1: He was recording everything the second he wrote it to

440
00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:42,240
Speaker 1: the pen Sonic r x f T five hundred boom box.

441
00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:45,199
Speaker 1: Apparently it had a condenser mike on it, but the

442
00:24:45,240 --> 00:24:48,280
Speaker 1: condenser mike didn't filter out the sound of the gear

443
00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:51,240
Speaker 1: of the tape turning. So like all of those early

444
00:24:51,280 --> 00:24:54,160
Speaker 1: Mountain Goods songs that have these incredible songs with these

445
00:24:54,320 --> 00:24:57,280
Speaker 1: heartrending lyrics and just beautiful songwriting, but you just here

446
00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:02,639
Speaker 1: in the background. Um. The other big famous one is

447
00:25:02,680 --> 00:25:06,840
Speaker 1: the Bonavarre's breakthrough Foruma Forever Ago. Um. There's the other

448
00:25:07,080 --> 00:25:10,920
Speaker 1: recorded in isolation, Magnum Opus. You made it as a

449
00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:16,600
Speaker 1: Famili's hunting cabin in the Wisconsin Wisconsin? Is that right, Jamie?

450
00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:21,760
Speaker 1: Can we pull up the location of Bonafaro's cabin? Um

451
00:25:21,920 --> 00:25:26,320
Speaker 1: spring scenes. Longtime engineer Toby Scott recalled that Bruce had

452
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:29,399
Speaker 1: enlisted Mike Batlan, go find me this little tape machine,

453
00:25:29,440 --> 00:25:31,080
Speaker 1: but I have to be able to do overdubs on it,

454
00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:34,080
Speaker 1: and so they brought also brought in the echo Plex,

455
00:25:34,119 --> 00:25:37,320
Speaker 1: which is a tape delay machine. You know, tape delay,

456
00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:42,280
Speaker 1: loosely speaking, is if you're recording one you're recording an

457
00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:46,200
Speaker 1: audio signal onto a length of tape. You get delay

458
00:25:46,240 --> 00:25:50,679
Speaker 1: by sending that signal to another tape head that you

459
00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:54,359
Speaker 1: can set to run slower and that creates an echo

460
00:25:54,400 --> 00:25:58,520
Speaker 1: effect and early rockabilly um at shorter, lower settings, you

461
00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:00,640
Speaker 1: get what's called a slap back delay, which is an

462
00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:04,359
Speaker 1: extremely quick second signal, and that is the vocal sound

463
00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:06,440
Speaker 1: that you hear in a lot of the early Sun

464
00:26:06,480 --> 00:26:11,400
Speaker 1: Records stuff. Heartbreak Hotels probably the best known example. So

465
00:26:11,800 --> 00:26:14,640
Speaker 1: with the eco plex, that is when you get I mean,

466
00:26:14,720 --> 00:26:16,760
Speaker 1: he was using it to kind of widen things out,

467
00:26:16,800 --> 00:26:19,000
Speaker 1: and you can make home demos sound a little bit

468
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:22,840
Speaker 1: more spacious with it. But for my money, it's between

469
00:26:22,880 --> 00:26:24,760
Speaker 1: that and the reverb that they add on it that

470
00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:27,400
Speaker 1: makes it sound like it harkens back to like those

471
00:26:27,440 --> 00:26:29,400
Speaker 1: really early days of rock and roll. Man. I mean

472
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:33,120
Speaker 1: that there's that creepy version of Elvis doing Blue Moon

473
00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:35,920
Speaker 1: that's like the famous one where's he's doing like he's

474
00:26:35,960 --> 00:26:39,439
Speaker 1: doing the falsetto stuff that sounds like Nebraska to me

475
00:26:39,560 --> 00:26:43,560
Speaker 1: because it's just slap back delay and like spring plate

476
00:26:43,640 --> 00:26:46,280
Speaker 1: studio reverb. I just love that because, I mean, I

477
00:26:46,320 --> 00:26:49,240
Speaker 1: know it creates such a vibe and an atmosphere, but

478
00:26:49,320 --> 00:26:52,080
Speaker 1: that's also just like the classic trick that everyone does

479
00:26:52,160 --> 00:26:55,919
Speaker 1: to make poorly recorded songs sound good, just throw some

480
00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:58,280
Speaker 1: reverb on it. So I just think it's great that

481
00:26:58,359 --> 00:27:00,840
Speaker 1: Bruce isn't above that. Yeah, it's why you sound good

482
00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:05,199
Speaker 1: singing in the shower. Yeah. Um, not you, I mean you,

483
00:27:05,320 --> 00:27:08,040
Speaker 1: the the universal you. I'm sure you sound great singing anywhere.

484
00:27:08,119 --> 00:27:14,520
Speaker 1: Jordan's I sound great anywhere. This this is my instrument. Um,

485
00:27:14,800 --> 00:27:18,080
Speaker 1: some Bobby Darren tracks and I'm ready to go. Uh

486
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:23,240
Speaker 1: complicating things, um Scott best, Oh, I thought you talking

487
00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:26,600
Speaker 1: about No, this is Toby Scott. Apparently he actually talked

488
00:27:26,640 --> 00:27:29,760
Speaker 1: to task him about this whole situation, like I found

489
00:27:29,760 --> 00:27:33,760
Speaker 1: this on the task cam website. Um. He says. It

490
00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:36,520
Speaker 1: seems that during the recording process, Mike the ROADI the

491
00:27:36,520 --> 00:27:39,080
Speaker 1: guitar tech had never really figured out what that little

492
00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:42,720
Speaker 1: round knob next to the transport controls was and had

493
00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:46,240
Speaker 1: left it around the two o'clock position, So they ended

494
00:27:46,320 --> 00:27:50,480
Speaker 1: up recording everything with the very speed set fast. Then

495
00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:52,800
Speaker 1: he thought, well, maybe it shouldn't be in that position,

496
00:27:52,880 --> 00:27:55,120
Speaker 1: so he turned it back down to twelve o'clock from

497
00:27:55,119 --> 00:27:57,639
Speaker 1: mixed down. What that all means is that the songs

498
00:27:57,640 --> 00:28:01,840
Speaker 1: were recorded at one tape speed and mixed at another,

499
00:28:02,480 --> 00:28:06,200
Speaker 1: so Essentially when you're recording the very speed control is

500
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:08,080
Speaker 1: with the Beatles using on a lot of stuff. Um,

501
00:28:08,080 --> 00:28:11,199
Speaker 1: it's how they pitched um. Isn't how they pitched Paul's

502
00:28:11,280 --> 00:28:13,679
Speaker 1: voice up to make him sound younger for when I'm

503
00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:17,679
Speaker 1: um And you can do it on a obviously you

504
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:19,200
Speaker 1: can do it in a little port of studio, but

505
00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:22,439
Speaker 1: you have to keep that setting consistent. You cannot record

506
00:28:22,480 --> 00:28:25,800
Speaker 1: at one speed and then mixed down at another, because

507
00:28:26,320 --> 00:28:29,720
Speaker 1: that is going to create problems. But that wasn't even

508
00:28:29,720 --> 00:28:32,600
Speaker 1: the biggest problem that they had with the mixing process,

509
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:36,560
Speaker 1: Jordan take us away. Yes, there was an even bigger problem.

510
00:28:36,600 --> 00:28:39,040
Speaker 1: So Bruce had this little canoe that he liked to

511
00:28:39,080 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 1: go out on this little branch of the river near

512
00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:44,600
Speaker 1: his house. And on one of those trips in his canoe,

513
00:28:44,600 --> 00:28:47,920
Speaker 1: he brought the boom box with him and this boom

514
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:50,680
Speaker 1: box fell in the water and it sank in the mud,

515
00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:53,320
Speaker 1: and later that day, when the tide went out, he

516
00:28:53,360 --> 00:28:56,840
Speaker 1: retrieved it from the sogy river bed. It's the kick

517
00:28:56,920 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 1: of a fourlorn seasonal disorder ravaged Bruce Springsteen walking through

518
00:29:04,200 --> 00:29:09,120
Speaker 1: a muddy cream bed to recover his soggy panasonic boom

519
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:12,640
Speaker 1: box from the mud. He grabbed it, brought it back

520
00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 1: to the house, hosed off the mud, and left it

521
00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:17,720
Speaker 1: on the porch, assuming that it was it was it

522
00:29:17,760 --> 00:29:19,320
Speaker 1: was dead, it was gone. I was just going to

523
00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:22,240
Speaker 1: throw it away. About a week later, he was apparently

524
00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:24,880
Speaker 1: sitting on the porch reading the Sunday Paper and the

525
00:29:24,880 --> 00:29:28,200
Speaker 1: boom box. All of a sudden, it rises from the dead.

526
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:30,760
Speaker 1: It comes back to life. It starts playing whatever the

527
00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:33,280
Speaker 1: hell he was listening to. Probably scares the hell out

528
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:36,160
Speaker 1: of him. So that's Scott's version, But in the Peter

529
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:39,880
Speaker 1: Ames Carlin biography there's a slightly different version. The thing

530
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:41,920
Speaker 1: actually came back to life in the middle of the

531
00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:45,440
Speaker 1: night while Bruce was on the couch watching TV. So

532
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:47,440
Speaker 1: either way, probably scared the hell out of him. I

533
00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:48,760
Speaker 1: like the middle of the night one. It's a little

534
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:51,240
Speaker 1: more sinister. He's like sitting there watching I think. Another

535
00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:53,360
Speaker 1: another influence on this record that he liked was a

536
00:29:53,480 --> 00:29:57,400
Speaker 1: Night of the Hunter, the Robert Mitchell movie where Spike

537
00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:00,400
Speaker 1: Lee got the good and Evil thing from. I like

538
00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:03,520
Speaker 1: the idea of Bruce sitting watching Night of the Hunter

539
00:30:03,640 --> 00:30:05,520
Speaker 1: on TV, like in the middle of the night in

540
00:30:05,520 --> 00:30:08,640
Speaker 1: a boom box. Next to him crackles to life. I Mean,

541
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:10,320
Speaker 1: the thing that blows my mind is that Bruce was

542
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:14,200
Speaker 1: just walking around with these cassettes in his pocket. His engineer,

543
00:30:14,240 --> 00:30:16,200
Speaker 1: Toby scot would say Bruce had walked around with the

544
00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:18,520
Speaker 1: only copy of these mixes in the front pocket of

545
00:30:18,520 --> 00:30:21,040
Speaker 1: his jeans jacket this whole time. And here was the

546
00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:23,640
Speaker 1: tape he was holding up in the studio saying there's

547
00:30:23,680 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 1: just something about the atmosphere on this tape? Can we

548
00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:29,480
Speaker 1: just master off this? And I said, yes, Bruce, we could.

549
00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:32,720
Speaker 1: I'm not sure you'll like it, but we could. Yeah.

550
00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:35,440
Speaker 1: The other thing that Toby Scotty, He's like, yeah, you know,

551
00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:38,000
Speaker 1: I don't think Bruce really had any idea about cleaning

552
00:30:38,080 --> 00:30:42,280
Speaker 1: tape heads, just the idea that this demo tape is

553
00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:47,320
Speaker 1: coated and schmootz so much gunk um. So he ended

554
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:49,760
Speaker 1: up copying the cassette to a piece of two inch

555
00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:52,120
Speaker 1: tape before taking it to four or five of the

556
00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:55,840
Speaker 1: biggest mastering facilities on the East Coast, at which point,

557
00:30:55,840 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 1: as Bruce explained, they couldn't cut a lacquer disc when

558
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:01,960
Speaker 1: you're pressing vinyl. You have to the master disc that

559
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:04,840
Speaker 1: all of the subsequent records are pressed from it's called

560
00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:07,920
Speaker 1: the lacquer disc, and they were unable to get the

561
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:11,480
Speaker 1: signal off of this tape hot enough so that they

562
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:13,840
Speaker 1: could cut a lacquer from it. Um he said, they

563
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:18,880
Speaker 1: went to Bob Ludwig, Steve Marcuson at Precision Sterling Sound CBS.

564
00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:21,440
Speaker 1: Finally they ended up with Atlantic in New York, and

565
00:31:21,480 --> 00:31:24,240
Speaker 1: Dennis King tried one time and also couldn't get it

566
00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:26,840
Speaker 1: on the disc, so he had him try a different technique,

567
00:31:26,880 --> 00:31:29,480
Speaker 1: putting it onto disc at a much lower level, and

568
00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:31,680
Speaker 1: that seemed to work. In the end, we ended up

569
00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:35,000
Speaker 1: having Bob Ludwig used his EQ and his mastering facility,

570
00:31:35,200 --> 00:31:38,200
Speaker 1: but with Dennis's mastering parameters, and that's the master we

571
00:31:38,280 --> 00:31:41,960
Speaker 1: ended up using. There are four or five mastering people

572
00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:44,760
Speaker 1: credited on this record, which is more than the amount

573
00:31:44,800 --> 00:31:49,960
Speaker 1: of people who mixed it and recorded it, wrote it,

574
00:31:50,360 --> 00:31:54,240
Speaker 1: wrote it Um. The producer Chuck pluck In. In the

575
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:56,720
Speaker 1: Carlon bio, he says, I remember thinking the record would

576
00:31:56,720 --> 00:31:59,000
Speaker 1: never get onto the disc. I was sitting around in

577
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:04,960
Speaker 1: a hotel room. It was so frustrating. Ah. Thankfully the

578
00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:07,720
Speaker 1: records cover art was a little easier. It was shot

579
00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:11,000
Speaker 1: by David Michael Kennedy actually a few years earlier, in

580
00:32:11,080 --> 00:32:14,360
Speaker 1: ninety five, on a cross country trip of his own.

581
00:32:14,760 --> 00:32:16,880
Speaker 1: He worked in advertising in New York, but he was

582
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:18,640
Speaker 1: tired of it, so he took some time off to

583
00:32:18,880 --> 00:32:20,880
Speaker 1: go on this cross country road trip with his brother

584
00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:24,040
Speaker 1: and two friends. And while it was in Nebraska, a

585
00:32:24,120 --> 00:32:26,480
Speaker 1: snowstorm hit and they had to pull over on the

586
00:32:26,480 --> 00:32:28,960
Speaker 1: side of the road for hours. And it was during

587
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:33,440
Speaker 1: this enforced pit stop on their trip that Kennedy shot

588
00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:37,560
Speaker 1: this famous photo right through the pickup trucks windshield forged

589
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:43,440
Speaker 1: in the Crucible of Terror, all great part emerges And

590
00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:46,400
Speaker 1: he talked about it at an event at the Morrison Gallery,

591
00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:49,600
Speaker 1: and I think in New York said, this picture was

592
00:32:49,640 --> 00:32:51,920
Speaker 1: in my studio. And Andrew Kline, who was one of

593
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:54,680
Speaker 1: the art directors at Sony that worked with Bruce, saw

594
00:32:54,760 --> 00:32:56,120
Speaker 1: it and she thought it would be great for the

595
00:32:56,200 --> 00:32:59,280
Speaker 1: Nebraska cover and showed it to Bruce. Bruce Love didn't

596
00:32:59,280 --> 00:33:00,760
Speaker 1: wanted to use it. I wonder if she knew at

597
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:03,000
Speaker 1: the time that it was actually taken in Nebraska. Like

598
00:33:03,080 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 1: it's very evocative. It almost just seems like a happy,

599
00:33:06,400 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 1: happy accident. If he will our friend Bob she art

600
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:12,960
Speaker 1: directed this in and born in the USA as well,

601
00:33:13,040 --> 00:33:14,680
Speaker 1: because I every time I was googling her, it was

602
00:33:14,760 --> 00:33:19,560
Speaker 1: just all about the Bruce ass shot. Um, did I

603
00:33:19,600 --> 00:33:23,040
Speaker 1: tell you my problem? I may cut this. Did I

604
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:25,720
Speaker 1: tell you my other Bruce Springsteen story? I know during

605
00:33:25,760 --> 00:33:28,440
Speaker 1: the New Radicals episode, I told you one of them.

606
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:30,920
Speaker 1: I don't know if I I don't think there's another one. Oh.

607
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:34,400
Speaker 1: I have a really good friend of mine was working

608
00:33:34,600 --> 00:33:37,640
Speaker 1: at the Ralph Lauren Double R L store in Soho,

609
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:39,920
Speaker 1: and that Double R L is like sells the kind

610
00:33:39,920 --> 00:33:43,080
Speaker 1: of things that, like, you know, you'd expect Bruce Springsteen

611
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:46,680
Speaker 1: to wear, like vintage aviators and like distress leather jackets

612
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:49,200
Speaker 1: and stuff. And Bruce would come into the store often

613
00:33:49,320 --> 00:33:52,840
Speaker 1: enough that like it was not that weird to actually

614
00:33:52,840 --> 00:33:55,680
Speaker 1: see him in there anymore, Like you know, it was, hey, Bruce,

615
00:33:55,680 --> 00:33:58,240
Speaker 1: how you doing. And so my friend, uh, he was

616
00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:01,200
Speaker 1: doing long distance with his girlfriend up in Boston and

617
00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:03,360
Speaker 1: they've had some big fight and he gets on the

618
00:34:03,400 --> 00:34:05,480
Speaker 1: first bus back to New York that he can. It's

619
00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:07,360
Speaker 1: like the middle of the night bus and he gets

620
00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:10,120
Speaker 1: back into New York at like dawn, and he's too

621
00:34:10,160 --> 00:34:12,840
Speaker 1: depressed to go back to his apartment and like face,

622
00:34:13,280 --> 00:34:17,120
Speaker 1: you know, just his empty room. So he goes into

623
00:34:17,239 --> 00:34:19,239
Speaker 1: the Double R L Store and just try to get

624
00:34:19,239 --> 00:34:21,080
Speaker 1: a head on work and get his mind off of stuff.

625
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:23,680
Speaker 1: And he's like doing inventory and putting things out on

626
00:34:23,760 --> 00:34:25,560
Speaker 1: shelves and stuff, and there's a little knock on the

627
00:34:25,600 --> 00:34:28,600
Speaker 1: door and he turns and it's Bruce. I guess he

628
00:34:28,680 --> 00:34:30,680
Speaker 1: was just like goes for early a lot of celebrities,

629
00:34:30,680 --> 00:34:32,600
Speaker 1: but Bowie used to do this to go on early

630
00:34:32,680 --> 00:34:35,560
Speaker 1: morning walks before like people are out, because it's kind

631
00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:37,400
Speaker 1: of the only private time they have to be like

632
00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:39,440
Speaker 1: normal in the city. So that there was a light

633
00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:41,160
Speaker 1: on in one of his favorite stores, knocked on the

634
00:34:41,160 --> 00:34:43,759
Speaker 1: door and my friend let him in, and Bruce is

635
00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:47,080
Speaker 1: walking around kind of rifling through the old you know,

636
00:34:47,760 --> 00:34:52,239
Speaker 1: switch blades, vintage World War One boots and all that

637
00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:54,960
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, and looks at my friend looks at

638
00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:57,319
Speaker 1: him long on hard and goes, hey, man, what's up.

639
00:34:57,800 --> 00:35:01,600
Speaker 1: You seem kind of bummed, And my friends like, you know,

640
00:35:01,600 --> 00:35:04,480
Speaker 1: he's gonna bother Bruce Springsteen with his love life trauma.

641
00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:07,920
Speaker 1: So no, it's fine, fine, and Bruce just like, no,

642
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:11,080
Speaker 1: what's the deal, And he just gets on his haunches,

643
00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:12,880
Speaker 1: you know, on one of those little autumns they have

644
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:16,160
Speaker 1: for you to try on shoes. Look, what's what's what's

645
00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:20,480
Speaker 1: what's rap about it? And they talked for like half

646
00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:23,640
Speaker 1: hour forty five minutes, just like life and love and

647
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:28,760
Speaker 1: experiences and this really great conversation. And Bruce buys a

648
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:31,640
Speaker 1: ton of clothes so that my buddy can get the

649
00:35:31,680 --> 00:35:34,839
Speaker 1: commission for it. And as he's walking out, he's getting

650
00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:36,319
Speaker 1: to the door's hands on the door, and my friend

651
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:39,319
Speaker 1: calls after me, Bruce, So what do I do? And

652
00:35:39,440 --> 00:35:45,760
Speaker 1: Bruce sun rays shining through the store window, turns, looks

653
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:48,759
Speaker 1: over his shoulders, just like the shot on Board in

654
00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:50,759
Speaker 1: the US, I imagine, looks over his shoulder and just

655
00:35:50,800 --> 00:35:56,560
Speaker 1: goes go to her on walks out the door, and

656
00:35:56,560 --> 00:36:01,040
Speaker 1: he's gone, Bruce Springsteen, had you lose with a guy

657
00:36:01,120 --> 00:36:03,600
Speaker 1: like that? Man, It's just like the scene from High Fidelity.

658
00:36:03,640 --> 00:36:06,839
Speaker 1: I love it exactly. I got now. I gotta tell

659
00:36:06,880 --> 00:36:08,319
Speaker 1: mine No. When I saw him in Jersey, he saw

660
00:36:08,400 --> 00:36:10,239
Speaker 1: this little girl who had a like a sign in

661
00:36:10,280 --> 00:36:12,000
Speaker 1: the in like one of the first couple of rows,

662
00:36:12,080 --> 00:36:14,920
Speaker 1: and you know they've got that big ramp goes down

663
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:17,680
Speaker 1: to the audience. So, yeah, there did I already tell

664
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:21,160
Speaker 1: this on this podcast. I've never heard this. And so

665
00:36:21,239 --> 00:36:23,319
Speaker 1: he goes down this ramp and the band is I

666
00:36:23,400 --> 00:36:24,959
Speaker 1: forget what they were doing. I think it was something

667
00:36:24,960 --> 00:36:27,000
Speaker 1: off the Rising actually, and the band is just kind

668
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:29,160
Speaker 1: of like vamping because they're like, okay, Bruce is off

669
00:36:29,160 --> 00:36:32,880
Speaker 1: in the crowd, like they know what to do. Uh,

670
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:35,319
Speaker 1: And so he hops down on the crowd, grabs this

671
00:36:35,320 --> 00:36:37,919
Speaker 1: little girl, walks back up on the stage with her.

672
00:36:38,440 --> 00:36:42,480
Speaker 1: She's like standing on the this is at the Meadowlands.

673
00:36:42,520 --> 00:36:45,040
Speaker 1: She's uh, standing on the stage with him and the

674
00:36:45,040 --> 00:36:46,680
Speaker 1: rest of the street band. He bends down and like

675
00:36:46,719 --> 00:36:49,879
Speaker 1: whispers in her ear and then he like gestures to her,

676
00:36:49,920 --> 00:36:52,200
Speaker 1: and she turns around and goes play at the street

677
00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:57,040
Speaker 1: band and they kick into the chorus and he puts

678
00:36:57,040 --> 00:36:59,839
Speaker 1: her on his shoulder and marches her back down into

679
00:36:59,840 --> 00:37:04,000
Speaker 1: the crowds like there's no the son of a bitch,

680
00:37:04,040 --> 00:37:06,960
Speaker 1: there's no losing to this man. He will he Uh.

681
00:37:07,600 --> 00:37:11,000
Speaker 1: It's incredible. I started crying telling that anecdote earlier today

682
00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:15,560
Speaker 1: when I was explaining Bruce to my wife. Everyone has

683
00:37:15,600 --> 00:37:18,880
Speaker 1: a Bruce Springsteen is the greatest human being story. I

684
00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:21,520
Speaker 1: feel like, and I'm thank you for sharing yours. You know,

685
00:37:21,600 --> 00:37:23,920
Speaker 1: if you want to have your faith restored and rock

686
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:27,240
Speaker 1: and roll, he's the guy to do it. See him live.

687
00:37:27,440 --> 00:37:30,160
Speaker 1: I know, it's insane. I wasn't ambivalent to him, but

688
00:37:30,200 --> 00:37:32,160
Speaker 1: I was just like, oh yeah, cool, he's a rock legend.

689
00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:38,839
Speaker 1: But seeing him live at a fairly late age, like, well,

690
00:37:38,840 --> 00:37:41,120
Speaker 1: no for me. I I just I had no idea

691
00:37:41,360 --> 00:37:43,799
Speaker 1: one of the most amazing concerts I've ever seen in

692
00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:46,600
Speaker 1: my life. And then I saw him again and it

693
00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:49,080
Speaker 1: was also one of the most I mean, the consistency

694
00:37:49,080 --> 00:37:51,400
Speaker 1: of it is incredible. Yeah, I'm so amazing. If for

695
00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:54,960
Speaker 1: anyone who hasn't seen him and is somehow able to,

696
00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:57,920
Speaker 1: I know it's incredibly hard now with the ticket lotteries

697
00:37:57,960 --> 00:38:02,560
Speaker 1: in the prices and everything, but you know, try That's

698
00:38:02,600 --> 00:38:04,880
Speaker 1: what Bruce would want you to do. Steal a car.

699
00:38:04,920 --> 00:38:08,560
Speaker 1: I have a car. Steal a car. It's a little

700
00:38:08,640 --> 00:38:11,480
Speaker 1: Kids in the Hall reference for you. Um. I actually

701
00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:13,840
Speaker 1: think that opening the record with Nebraska is sort of

702
00:38:13,840 --> 00:38:16,720
Speaker 1: a faint on Bruce's part because the rest of this record,

703
00:38:17,800 --> 00:38:21,600
Speaker 1: while it is still personal, also is more concerned. I

704
00:38:21,640 --> 00:38:24,400
Speaker 1: would say, probably with the exception of Born in the

705
00:38:24,520 --> 00:38:28,760
Speaker 1: USA maybe the most topical Springsteen record other than Rising,

706
00:38:28,840 --> 00:38:32,560
Speaker 1: which has, like, you know, how, the whole nine eleven connection.

707
00:38:32,719 --> 00:38:37,520
Speaker 1: But look, I'm getting ahead of myself. Despite his post

708
00:38:37,560 --> 00:38:40,320
Speaker 1: Born in the USA reputation as a chronicler of the

709
00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:43,680
Speaker 1: runaway American dream, as he says, Springsteen had not been

710
00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:47,160
Speaker 1: much of a political artist prior to this album, with

711
00:38:47,239 --> 00:38:52,400
Speaker 1: his involvement in n No Nukes Anti Nuclear Power concert

712
00:38:52,480 --> 00:38:56,080
Speaker 1: and album basically being his first big, outspoken political act,

713
00:38:56,719 --> 00:38:59,279
Speaker 1: and by his own admission, he says, there wasn't any

714
00:38:59,360 --> 00:39:02,400
Speaker 1: kind of polity cool consciousness down in Freehold, New Jersey,

715
00:39:02,440 --> 00:39:05,320
Speaker 1: his hometown in the late sixties. But at some point

716
00:39:05,640 --> 00:39:10,399
Speaker 1: he read Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. Um,

717
00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:12,800
Speaker 1: and I actually got that from Zin's New York Times.

718
00:39:12,800 --> 00:39:16,439
Speaker 1: Oh bit they quoted, They quoted, Bruce is saying the

719
00:39:16,480 --> 00:39:19,520
Speaker 1: book was a big influence on Nebraska, and this starts

720
00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:24,400
Speaker 1: to sow the seeds of political Bruce broad Strokes. The

721
00:39:24,520 --> 00:39:29,040
Speaker 1: timing in the country is this, beginning in January, the

722
00:39:29,160 --> 00:39:33,120
Speaker 1: increasing federal funds rate made credit more difficult to obtain

723
00:39:33,320 --> 00:39:36,720
Speaker 1: for car and home loans, which in turn caused severe

724
00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:40,480
Speaker 1: contractions in manufacturing and housing, because both of those markets

725
00:39:40,640 --> 00:39:43,279
Speaker 1: hinge on how easily people can get credit. Can't get

726
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:45,120
Speaker 1: credit to buy a car, can't get credit to buy

727
00:39:45,120 --> 00:39:47,520
Speaker 1: a house. Cars are not gonna be made. Houses are

728
00:39:47,520 --> 00:39:50,600
Speaker 1: not going to be built. The manufacturing industry lost one

729
00:39:50,640 --> 00:39:54,640
Speaker 1: point one million jobs. The automotive industry, still reeling after

730
00:39:54,680 --> 00:39:56,960
Speaker 1: the gas crisis and the poor sales of the fallout

731
00:39:56,960 --> 00:40:01,520
Speaker 1: from that, in nineteen shed fully eighth third of its jobs.

732
00:40:02,040 --> 00:40:05,640
Speaker 1: Construction lost three hundred thousand. So this is this is

733
00:40:05,680 --> 00:40:10,239
Speaker 1: sensing a Springsteenian theme developing here. Going into nineteen eighty one,

734
00:40:10,640 --> 00:40:14,240
Speaker 1: the FED predicted little or no economic growth as interest

735
00:40:14,320 --> 00:40:17,960
Speaker 1: rates continued rising in an attempt to reduce inflation. Just

736
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:22,279
Speaker 1: how they combat inflation, they rise. It's it's solid deck,

737
00:40:22,360 --> 00:40:25,560
Speaker 1: it's all a house of cards. But again, without people

738
00:40:25,600 --> 00:40:28,440
Speaker 1: to get car and homelands, job loss picked back up.

739
00:40:29,719 --> 00:40:33,960
Speaker 1: Of all job losses in two or from manufacturing, construction

740
00:40:34,480 --> 00:40:37,239
Speaker 1: shed a total of three five thousand jobs from July

741
00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:43,160
Speaker 1: nine through December. The unemployment rate for auto workers rose

742
00:40:43,239 --> 00:40:46,360
Speaker 1: from just three point eight percent in early nineteen seventy

743
00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:50,080
Speaker 1: eight to twenty four percent by the end of nineteen two.

744
00:40:50,440 --> 00:40:55,719
Speaker 1: Construction worker unemployment peaked during the same time, so it

745
00:40:55,840 --> 00:40:58,799
Speaker 1: is no surprise that Nebraska is packed with what a

746
00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:02,720
Speaker 1: bad economy can you? A closed down auto plant in Mahwah,

747
00:41:02,800 --> 00:41:06,279
Speaker 1: New Jersey sends someone spiraling into murder. In Johnny ninety nine,

748
00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:10,600
Speaker 1: lack of jobs lead to criminal moonlighting. Atlantic City, grain

749
00:41:10,760 --> 00:41:13,320
Speaker 1: prices caused people to lose the family farm and highway

750
00:41:13,360 --> 00:41:16,440
Speaker 1: patrol man. The lyric I got debts no honest man

751
00:41:16,520 --> 00:41:19,279
Speaker 1: can pay is actually repeated twice on the record, once

752
00:41:19,320 --> 00:41:23,080
Speaker 1: in Atlantic City and again on Johnny. And incidentally, there

753
00:41:23,080 --> 00:41:26,120
Speaker 1: actually was a Ford Auto plant in mahba which when

754
00:41:26,160 --> 00:41:28,960
Speaker 1: it opened in ninety five was the largest in the

755
00:41:29,080 --> 00:41:32,400
Speaker 1: country at a hundred and seventy seven acres. Its truck

756
00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:35,080
Speaker 1: division closed during the first wave of the recession nineteen

757
00:41:35,120 --> 00:41:38,840
Speaker 1: seventy nine, a month after Ford closed five other plants

758
00:41:38,880 --> 00:41:43,000
Speaker 1: across the nation, with over eleven thousand workers put out

759
00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:46,719
Speaker 1: of work. Their car division followed the year after. So

760
00:41:47,680 --> 00:41:51,720
Speaker 1: that is the milieu into which Bruce is writing these songs.

761
00:41:52,800 --> 00:41:55,160
Speaker 1: Yeah for me, the crucial line is from Johnny nine.

762
00:41:55,719 --> 00:41:58,080
Speaker 1: Now I ain't saying that makes me an innocent man,

763
00:41:58,360 --> 00:42:00,319
Speaker 1: but it was more In all this the put a

764
00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:03,280
Speaker 1: gun in my hand. I mean all those economic factors

765
00:42:03,280 --> 00:42:05,520
Speaker 1: you just mentioned that that sums it up right there.

766
00:42:06,040 --> 00:42:07,960
Speaker 1: The general sense at the time was that the government

767
00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:10,480
Speaker 1: to turn its back on its moral responsibility to the

768
00:42:10,520 --> 00:42:13,600
Speaker 1: have nots of America. And another figure on Bruce's mind

769
00:42:13,600 --> 00:42:16,520
Speaker 1: in this period who we should probably mention is Woody Guthrie.

770
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:18,880
Speaker 1: Towards the end of the River Tour, just after the

771
00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:21,800
Speaker 1: election of Ronald Reagan in nineteen eighty, Bruce started reading

772
00:42:21,880 --> 00:42:25,440
Speaker 1: Joe Klein's biography of Woody Guthrie and talked a lot

773
00:42:25,440 --> 00:42:28,520
Speaker 1: about what he stood for and what would he taught

774
00:42:28,600 --> 00:42:31,799
Speaker 1: him about this country. And during one gig around this time,

775
00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:33,960
Speaker 1: Bruce said that the next song he was singing was

776
00:42:34,040 --> 00:42:36,840
Speaker 1: not a song for school children to sing. This song

777
00:42:36,960 --> 00:42:39,160
Speaker 1: is a fight song. And then he launched into this

778
00:42:39,239 --> 00:42:42,879
Speaker 1: Land is Your Land, which is sort of a sarcastic

779
00:42:42,920 --> 00:42:46,160
Speaker 1: flip side to God Bless America, criticizing the notion of

780
00:42:46,200 --> 00:42:53,280
Speaker 1: private property exclusively written as it's probably second to Bruce's

781
00:42:53,360 --> 00:42:56,279
Speaker 1: own track Born in the USA as like the most

782
00:42:56,400 --> 00:43:00,600
Speaker 1: misunderstood you know satire that people don't realize as a satire,

783
00:43:00,960 --> 00:43:04,480
Speaker 1: and just embraces the flag waving yea America song. And

784
00:43:04,520 --> 00:43:07,080
Speaker 1: it really it's possible to draw a line directly between

785
00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:09,399
Speaker 1: Born in the USA, which is written, as we said,

786
00:43:09,520 --> 00:43:13,120
Speaker 1: in the same Nebraska time period and this Land is

787
00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:16,320
Speaker 1: Your Land, I think um and. Writing for the site

788
00:43:16,400 --> 00:43:20,239
Speaker 1: Pop Matters in twelve, the writer Bill c says what

789
00:43:20,400 --> 00:43:23,720
Speaker 1: Springsteen gleaned from the songs of Woody Guthrie, the writings

790
00:43:23,719 --> 00:43:27,359
Speaker 1: of Flambery O'Connor and John Steinbeck, and filmmakers like John Ford,

791
00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:30,560
Speaker 1: John Houston and Terrence Malick was a humanity and a

792
00:43:30,640 --> 00:43:35,719
Speaker 1: curiosity about why certain people lose connection with themselves, their families,

793
00:43:35,880 --> 00:43:39,239
Speaker 1: their community, and their government, and what then happens when

794
00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:43,880
Speaker 1: that kind of alienation infiltrates the subconscious further profound effect

795
00:43:43,880 --> 00:43:46,719
Speaker 1: that it has on the people that love those alienated

796
00:43:46,760 --> 00:43:50,399
Speaker 1: and disconnected souls. Yeah, and this is why I don't

797
00:43:50,719 --> 00:43:52,919
Speaker 1: necessarily agree with what he said in Born to Run.

798
00:43:52,960 --> 00:43:54,640
Speaker 1: I mean, he can say that he didn't have a

799
00:43:54,680 --> 00:43:57,279
Speaker 1: political agenda going into this, and you know, maybe he

800
00:43:57,320 --> 00:43:59,480
Speaker 1: didn't in as many words, but you can't tell me that.

801
00:43:59,520 --> 00:44:01,560
Speaker 1: You read do you go through his autobiography, You read

802
00:44:01,600 --> 00:44:04,319
Speaker 1: the People's History the United States, you read what's going

803
00:44:04,360 --> 00:44:06,719
Speaker 1: on in the auto manufacturing industry. And then you say

804
00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:09,800
Speaker 1: I did not I have. I'm not writing political songs

805
00:44:09,880 --> 00:44:14,399
Speaker 1: like come on, come on, Bruce, Uh, don't lie to us.

806
00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:18,880
Speaker 1: You owe us that much. Yeah. He told Rolling Stone

807
00:44:18,880 --> 00:44:23,120
Speaker 1: that Nebraska was about that American isolation. What happens to

808
00:44:23,160 --> 00:44:26,120
Speaker 1: people when they're alienated from their friends and their community

809
00:44:26,200 --> 00:44:28,880
Speaker 1: and their government and their job. Because those are the

810
00:44:28,920 --> 00:44:31,640
Speaker 1: things that keep you saying, that give meaning to life

811
00:44:31,640 --> 00:44:34,160
Speaker 1: in some fashion. And if they slip away and you

812
00:44:34,200 --> 00:44:36,760
Speaker 1: start to exist in some void where the basic constraints

813
00:44:36,800 --> 00:44:39,400
Speaker 1: of society or a joke, then life becomes kind of

814
00:44:39,440 --> 00:44:43,080
Speaker 1: a joke. Mhmm. There's another big theme on the Braska,

815
00:44:43,200 --> 00:44:46,480
Speaker 1: much more personal one, and that's Bruce's own family. He

816
00:44:46,520 --> 00:44:49,920
Speaker 1: wrote in his book Songs, the songs on Nebraska connected

817
00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:52,839
Speaker 1: to my childhood more than any record I'd made. The

818
00:44:52,880 --> 00:44:54,799
Speaker 1: tone of the music was directly linked to what I

819
00:44:54,840 --> 00:44:57,399
Speaker 1: remember to my early youth. You mentioned earlier about those

820
00:44:57,400 --> 00:45:01,040
Speaker 1: Elvis e slap back echo. We lived with my grandparents

821
00:45:01,160 --> 00:45:04,040
Speaker 1: until I was six. Picking through these songs, I went

822
00:45:04,080 --> 00:45:07,040
Speaker 1: back and recalled what that time felt like, particularly my

823
00:45:07,080 --> 00:45:09,920
Speaker 1: grandmother's house. And part of this was being in his

824
00:45:09,960 --> 00:45:13,960
Speaker 1: early thirties, and he was at the aforementioned crossroads we

825
00:45:14,040 --> 00:45:16,360
Speaker 1: talked about at the top of the episode. In Peter

826
00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:20,480
Speaker 1: Rames Carlin's biography, Bruce Bruce's quota to saying it was

827
00:45:20,520 --> 00:45:23,200
Speaker 1: definitely a closing. There was a a certain earlier section of

828
00:45:23,200 --> 00:45:26,240
Speaker 1: my life, the initial section of the traveling and touring

829
00:45:26,280 --> 00:45:29,799
Speaker 1: and those early records, there was more contemplation. I was

830
00:45:29,880 --> 00:45:32,440
Speaker 1: thirty or thirty one, and something turned me back around

831
00:45:32,480 --> 00:45:36,440
Speaker 1: towards my early childhood that moved me into Nebraska. And

832
00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:39,759
Speaker 1: Springsteen explained to Carlin that he found himselves driving through

833
00:45:39,800 --> 00:45:42,520
Speaker 1: the streets of his hometown of Freehold late at night,

834
00:45:42,960 --> 00:45:45,319
Speaker 1: visiting the old houses where he once lived. And I

835
00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:48,640
Speaker 1: think this became like kind of a habit for a while. Accordingly,

836
00:45:48,680 --> 00:45:51,560
Speaker 1: almost every character heard on Nebraska who isn't at the

837
00:45:51,640 --> 00:45:54,640
Speaker 1: end of their tether owing to economic reasons is in

838
00:45:54,680 --> 00:45:58,680
Speaker 1: the same place because of emotional existential reasons. And the

839
00:45:58,719 --> 00:46:01,680
Speaker 1: phrase delivered me from nowhere is one of the most

840
00:46:01,680 --> 00:46:05,280
Speaker 1: repeated lyrics on the record. Yeah, and you mentioned that this.

841
00:46:05,560 --> 00:46:08,720
Speaker 1: He's talked a lot about this. It sounds it's actually

842
00:46:08,760 --> 00:46:11,000
Speaker 1: like one of the sadder things that I can imagine

843
00:46:11,120 --> 00:46:14,040
Speaker 1: his life of just like still being a millionaire and

844
00:46:14,120 --> 00:46:16,359
Speaker 1: just like something gets it gets you up to just

845
00:46:16,480 --> 00:46:21,839
Speaker 1: drive around your old neighborhood late at night. That's I mean,

846
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:23,840
Speaker 1: I do that now. I can only imagine if I

847
00:46:23,840 --> 00:46:26,360
Speaker 1: had his level of success, I probably feel more compelled

848
00:46:26,440 --> 00:46:29,120
Speaker 1: to do that and try to like rationalize the person

849
00:46:29,200 --> 00:46:30,920
Speaker 1: that you are now with the person that you were

850
00:46:30,960 --> 00:46:36,399
Speaker 1: when you were there. I don't see no, I mean,

851
00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:39,520
Speaker 1: I I mean, first of all, I'm a deeply nostalgic person,

852
00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:42,000
Speaker 1: so I mean that's part of it too. But like

853
00:46:42,400 --> 00:46:44,279
Speaker 1: you know, you you When I used to go to

854
00:46:44,280 --> 00:46:47,000
Speaker 1: my grandparents house once or twice a year, that was

855
00:46:47,040 --> 00:46:48,880
Speaker 1: always an interesting thing for me to go back to

856
00:46:48,920 --> 00:46:51,560
Speaker 1: this house where like nothing had changed in fifty years

857
00:46:51,560 --> 00:46:54,040
Speaker 1: because my grandparents lived there and the only thing that

858
00:46:54,080 --> 00:46:56,239
Speaker 1: had really changed for the most part was me, And

859
00:46:56,280 --> 00:47:00,279
Speaker 1: it was kind of an interesting, uh experiment in a

860
00:47:00,360 --> 00:47:03,160
Speaker 1: funny way to sort of recognize what changes had gone

861
00:47:03,160 --> 00:47:05,520
Speaker 1: on in my life and in myself since the last

862
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:08,120
Speaker 1: time I had been there. It additioned to just the

863
00:47:08,200 --> 00:47:13,399
Speaker 1: general sense of trying to keep tabs on where one

864
00:47:13,520 --> 00:47:16,719
Speaker 1: comes from in their roots in such a crazy situation.

865
00:47:16,800 --> 00:47:20,719
Speaker 1: What was this? It's been seven years since he's just

866
00:47:20,800 --> 00:47:23,560
Speaker 1: constantly touring on the road on the cover of newsweek

867
00:47:23,600 --> 00:47:27,239
Speaker 1: and Time what on the same week something like that. Uh,

868
00:47:27,280 --> 00:47:32,200
Speaker 1: and just completely like be level fame. Uh. I can

869
00:47:32,640 --> 00:47:35,320
Speaker 1: very much understand the importance of wanting to remind yourself

870
00:47:35,320 --> 00:47:39,960
Speaker 1: where you come from and at the same time try

871
00:47:40,040 --> 00:47:43,319
Speaker 1: to almost rationalize those two people, the people that you

872
00:47:43,320 --> 00:47:46,080
Speaker 1: were in the person you are now by going back

873
00:47:46,120 --> 00:47:48,799
Speaker 1: to some sort of the scene of the crime. Well,

874
00:47:48,840 --> 00:47:51,040
Speaker 1: the other big character in all of this, the person

875
00:47:51,080 --> 00:47:53,200
Speaker 1: that you were in the person that you are, is

876
00:47:53,400 --> 00:47:55,600
Speaker 1: his dad. I mean, there's a trip tick of songs

877
00:47:55,640 --> 00:47:58,360
Speaker 1: on this record, Mansion on the Hill and used Cars

878
00:47:58,680 --> 00:48:02,440
Speaker 1: and my Father's House that are all explicitly about either.

879
00:48:02,760 --> 00:48:06,080
Speaker 1: Used Cars is about him and his dad and mom

880
00:48:06,120 --> 00:48:08,239
Speaker 1: going down to the dealership and getting a used car,

881
00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:12,759
Speaker 1: and the chorus of that song is um, well, uh, mr,

882
00:48:12,800 --> 00:48:15,239
Speaker 1: I swear the day my number comes in or the

883
00:48:15,280 --> 00:48:17,360
Speaker 1: lottery I win, I'm never going to ride in a

884
00:48:17,440 --> 00:48:22,040
Speaker 1: used car again. Um. And Uh, my father's House is

885
00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:24,480
Speaker 1: about it's painted as a dream in that I think,

886
00:48:24,520 --> 00:48:26,560
Speaker 1: but I mean it's based on this habit he was

887
00:48:27,040 --> 00:48:30,239
Speaker 1: developing around this time. Um, Mansion on the Hill is

888
00:48:30,360 --> 00:48:33,160
Speaker 1: an actual thing. It comes from an actual thing that

889
00:48:33,200 --> 00:48:35,239
Speaker 1: his dad used to do, which is like, I guess

890
00:48:35,320 --> 00:48:37,439
Speaker 1: drive him around and be like, look at that nice

891
00:48:37,480 --> 00:48:41,400
Speaker 1: house while we're living in your grandparents house. Um. In

892
00:48:41,400 --> 00:48:43,560
Speaker 1: that Rolling Stone interview, it's really funny because he had

893
00:48:43,600 --> 00:48:46,360
Speaker 1: just purchased a house in Rumsun, New Jersey, and Kurt

894
00:48:46,880 --> 00:48:49,719
Speaker 1: Kurt Loaders like, yeah, so what's your what's your house like?

895
00:48:49,840 --> 00:48:53,440
Speaker 1: And Bruce says, it's the mansion on the Hill. So

896
00:48:54,160 --> 00:48:58,319
Speaker 1: really putting a hat on it. Uh, not just not

897
00:48:58,400 --> 00:49:02,759
Speaker 1: just turning them into metal sphorical songs, but actually being like, no,

898
00:49:02,920 --> 00:49:05,319
Speaker 1: I went and bought the house that my dad told

899
00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:08,680
Speaker 1: me we could never have. Bruce has also been very

900
00:49:08,680 --> 00:49:11,920
Speaker 1: open about the fact that he inherited his father's depressive episodes. UM,

901
00:49:12,080 --> 00:49:14,040
Speaker 1: something that apparently came to a head just to see

902
00:49:14,160 --> 00:49:16,800
Speaker 1: was finishing these these records. He said, I was thirty

903
00:49:16,800 --> 00:49:18,760
Speaker 1: two at the time. Now he's talking to Rolling Stone

904
00:49:18,880 --> 00:49:22,560
Speaker 1: in sixteen, I had just finished Nebraska. Literally, I don't

905
00:49:22,560 --> 00:49:24,160
Speaker 1: think it was out yet, and that was a pretty

906
00:49:24,160 --> 00:49:27,239
Speaker 1: lonely record. It may have struck home, but my own

907
00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:30,240
Speaker 1: biological clock may have been ticking towards that you carry

908
00:49:30,239 --> 00:49:32,880
Speaker 1: your baggage, and if you don't start unpacking, your bags

909
00:49:32,960 --> 00:49:36,640
Speaker 1: get heavier as you move along. Man's got away with words.

910
00:49:38,040 --> 00:49:40,800
Speaker 1: So at some point the weight becomes impossible to carry,

911
00:49:40,840 --> 00:49:43,040
Speaker 1: and you look for some way to unpack those bags,

912
00:49:43,160 --> 00:49:46,640
Speaker 1: and it can get pretty messy. That's what happened to me. Apparently,

913
00:49:46,680 --> 00:49:50,080
Speaker 1: he drove from New Jersey to California, where he had

914
00:49:50,080 --> 00:49:54,240
Speaker 1: bought a house, and then turned around and drove straight back. Um.

915
00:49:54,320 --> 00:49:57,160
Speaker 1: His friend and biographer Dave Marsh told The New Yorker

916
00:49:57,239 --> 00:50:02,080
Speaker 1: in Bruce was feeling suicidal. The depression wasn't shocking, per se.

917
00:50:02,280 --> 00:50:04,400
Speaker 1: He was on a rocket ride from nothing to something.

918
00:50:04,640 --> 00:50:06,839
Speaker 1: And now you're getting your ass kissed day and night,

919
00:50:07,080 --> 00:50:09,160
Speaker 1: you might start to have some inner conflicts about your

920
00:50:09,160 --> 00:50:12,480
Speaker 1: real self worth. Yeah, which is why I completely understand

921
00:50:12,560 --> 00:50:17,279
Speaker 1: revisiting his childhood neighborhood. He didn't get on antidepressants into

922
00:50:17,320 --> 00:50:21,040
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve apparently, which I think also came out

923
00:50:21,080 --> 00:50:26,000
Speaker 1: around this time in from that interview. But um, he uh.

924
00:50:26,080 --> 00:50:28,919
Speaker 1: He did start seeing a therapist in nine two, and

925
00:50:29,000 --> 00:50:34,520
Speaker 1: he elaborated on these He basically tells his well worn anecdote.

926
00:50:34,920 --> 00:50:37,480
Speaker 1: It's from a concert around this time that he's When

927
00:50:37,520 --> 00:50:41,160
Speaker 1: he was in therapy, he was telling his therapist like, hey, doc,

928
00:50:41,200 --> 00:50:44,279
Speaker 1: I'm going to my childhood neighborhood in the middle of

929
00:50:44,280 --> 00:50:48,560
Speaker 1: the night and just driving around, and he is paraphrasing

930
00:50:48,600 --> 00:50:50,960
Speaker 1: his therapist. He said, what you're doing is something bad

931
00:50:51,040 --> 00:50:53,759
Speaker 1: happened and you're going back thinking that you can make

932
00:50:53,760 --> 00:50:56,760
Speaker 1: it right again. Something went wrong, and you keep going

933
00:50:56,800 --> 00:50:58,800
Speaker 1: back to see if you can fix it or somehow

934
00:50:58,840 --> 00:51:02,200
Speaker 1: make it right. And Bruce says, he said, I sat

935
00:51:02,280 --> 00:51:04,960
Speaker 1: there and I said, that is what I'm doing. And

936
00:51:05,080 --> 00:51:11,840
Speaker 1: his therapist said, well you can't real life. Yeah, exactly,

937
00:51:12,480 --> 00:51:16,400
Speaker 1: that's life man doing the work. I love that. Bruce Springsteen,

938
00:51:16,480 --> 00:51:22,400
Speaker 1: just in therapy doing the work. Umn Weird Sopranos Soft Shoot,

939
00:51:24,320 --> 00:51:31,799
Speaker 1: the other New Jersey therapy show. We're going to take

940
00:51:31,800 --> 00:51:34,080
Speaker 1: a quick break, but we'll be right back with more

941
00:51:34,200 --> 00:51:51,400
Speaker 1: too much information in just a moment. I'll tell you

942
00:51:51,400 --> 00:51:52,719
Speaker 1: one thing though, If it weren't for how good of

943
00:51:52,719 --> 00:51:54,560
Speaker 1: the song Nebraska is and the fact that it's the

944
00:51:54,600 --> 00:51:57,439
Speaker 1: title track, I would argue that this album should start

945
00:51:57,480 --> 00:52:00,640
Speaker 1: with Atlantic City because it has one of the all

946
00:52:00,800 --> 00:52:04,520
Speaker 1: time opening lines. Well, they blew up the chicken Man

947
00:52:04,640 --> 00:52:10,840
Speaker 1: in Philly last night. Yeah, they blew up his house too. Tremendous.

948
00:52:11,280 --> 00:52:14,040
Speaker 1: Atlantic City is, aside from obviously being about the Jersey

949
00:52:14,400 --> 00:52:17,239
Speaker 1: gambling mecca, which was also at the time, I believe,

950
00:52:17,280 --> 00:52:19,880
Speaker 1: in a historically low period, it's about the ways in

951
00:52:19,920 --> 00:52:22,920
Speaker 1: which otherwise good men can turn to the region's organized

952
00:52:22,960 --> 00:52:27,000
Speaker 1: crime families say to make ends meet. The unnamed protagonist

953
00:52:27,080 --> 00:52:29,359
Speaker 1: repeatedly states that he's trying to save money and look

954
00:52:29,400 --> 00:52:33,399
Speaker 1: for jobs, but ultimately ends up doing the proverbial euphemistic

955
00:52:33,600 --> 00:52:38,040
Speaker 1: favor for a guy he knows, and this was noted

956
00:52:38,040 --> 00:52:41,800
Speaker 1: in Mark Richardson's retrospective review of Nebraska in Pitchfork In

957
00:52:42,880 --> 00:52:47,000
Speaker 1: But it's interesting how for all the sinister seeming characters

958
00:52:47,040 --> 00:52:50,320
Speaker 1: on this record, there's a very little judgment coming from Bruce.

959
00:52:50,800 --> 00:52:53,360
Speaker 1: And you know, you see this a lot. Through fiction,

960
00:52:53,480 --> 00:52:55,760
Speaker 1: you can almost be a little more honest with yourself.

961
00:52:55,840 --> 00:52:58,360
Speaker 1: It's like a dream. You know, these characters aren't you,

962
00:52:58,960 --> 00:53:00,759
Speaker 1: so you can have them a things that are may

963
00:53:00,800 --> 00:53:03,480
Speaker 1: be closer to how you feel or think, or things

964
00:53:03,480 --> 00:53:06,520
Speaker 1: you would want to say, but because they're not explicitly you,

965
00:53:06,520 --> 00:53:08,040
Speaker 1: you have a little more freedom. And I think that's

966
00:53:08,040 --> 00:53:10,000
Speaker 1: something that crops up a lot with Paul McCartney to

967
00:53:10,120 --> 00:53:12,800
Speaker 1: a lot of his fiction stuff. When you actually dig

968
00:53:12,920 --> 00:53:14,920
Speaker 1: just beneath the surface, you see a lot of like

969
00:53:15,480 --> 00:53:18,080
Speaker 1: things that you can see really kind of come from him.

970
00:53:18,239 --> 00:53:21,560
Speaker 1: Then Nebraska is this weird blend of memoir and fiction

971
00:53:21,840 --> 00:53:24,080
Speaker 1: and spring ste has talked about his compassion for these

972
00:53:24,120 --> 00:53:26,799
Speaker 1: characters on Nebraska. He said, quote, you can put together

973
00:53:26,840 --> 00:53:29,080
Speaker 1: a lot of detail, but unless you pull something up

974
00:53:29,080 --> 00:53:32,000
Speaker 1: from out of yourself, it's gonna lie flat on the page.

975
00:53:32,239 --> 00:53:34,400
Speaker 1: You've got to find out what you have in common

976
00:53:34,440 --> 00:53:36,680
Speaker 1: with that character, no matter who they are or what

977
00:53:36,719 --> 00:53:39,440
Speaker 1: they did. So Nebraska is written with the premise that

978
00:53:39,520 --> 00:53:42,480
Speaker 1: everybody knows what it's like to be condemned, which they do,

979
00:53:42,600 --> 00:53:46,680
Speaker 1: of course. I don't know about that, Bruce, But empathy,

980
00:53:46,880 --> 00:53:51,160
Speaker 1: I love it. Bruce is the only good straight man.

981
00:53:52,960 --> 00:53:56,680
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, my wife is like, I don't

982
00:53:56,719 --> 00:53:59,960
Speaker 1: really think this is for me as like not us

983
00:54:00,040 --> 00:54:03,719
Speaker 1: straight white man, And I was like, yeah, I get that. Well, no,

984
00:54:03,880 --> 00:54:06,000
Speaker 1: I get that. I get why like women here he's

985
00:54:06,080 --> 00:54:11,480
Speaker 1: like like he's yarling and there's saxophone and it's like

986
00:54:11,560 --> 00:54:14,120
Speaker 1: all very just blown out. I'm like, okay, yeah, I

987
00:54:14,160 --> 00:54:18,080
Speaker 1: get that. But all of the qualities in which we attempt,

988
00:54:18,200 --> 00:54:22,239
Speaker 1: in which we like strive to inculcate as an antidote

989
00:54:22,280 --> 00:54:25,640
Speaker 1: for how the men are. You see Bruce working on

990
00:54:25,719 --> 00:54:28,480
Speaker 1: it man like you know, he didn't have political awareness,

991
00:54:28,480 --> 00:54:31,400
Speaker 1: so he read some books. He had some he was

992
00:54:31,440 --> 00:54:34,000
Speaker 1: going through, so he went to therapy. You know, he

993
00:54:34,040 --> 00:54:37,440
Speaker 1: talks about having empathy for people who are in terrible situations,

994
00:54:37,480 --> 00:54:42,080
Speaker 1: like come on, that's anyway. Philip Charles Testa, the chicken man,

995
00:54:42,440 --> 00:54:47,759
Speaker 1: he was back to back to the chicken guy. He

996
00:54:47,880 --> 00:54:51,200
Speaker 1: was indeed a real East Coast mobster whose biggest claim

997
00:54:51,239 --> 00:54:54,360
Speaker 1: to fame was briefly leading the Philadelphia crime family. His

998
00:54:54,520 --> 00:54:57,560
Speaker 1: nickname came from his involvement in the poultry business, as

999
00:54:57,600 --> 00:55:01,080
Speaker 1: his wife owned a farm in Salem County, New Testa

1000
00:55:01,160 --> 00:55:04,600
Speaker 1: succeeded Angelo Bruno, who had ruled the Philadelphia family for

1001
00:55:04,640 --> 00:55:06,760
Speaker 1: twenty years until he was killed by a shotgun blast

1002
00:55:06,760 --> 00:55:11,719
Speaker 1: to the head as he said every time uh as

1003
00:55:11,800 --> 00:55:13,960
Speaker 1: he sat in his car in front of his house

1004
00:55:14,080 --> 00:55:18,000
Speaker 1: in South Philly in night. Bruno's death caused a power

1005
00:55:18,040 --> 00:55:21,680
Speaker 1: vacuum in Philadelphia, sparking a mob war that would last

1006
00:55:21,719 --> 00:55:24,480
Speaker 1: four years and claim the lives of not just Testa,

1007
00:55:24,600 --> 00:55:30,280
Speaker 1: but his son Salvatory and eighteen other people Jesus Christ Yeah,

1008
00:55:30,480 --> 00:55:35,279
Speaker 1: um Testa returned to his house in South Philly and

1009
00:55:35,320 --> 00:55:37,960
Speaker 1: as he was opening the door and nail bomb exploded

1010
00:55:38,080 --> 00:55:42,000
Speaker 1: under his front porch. This incident happened a little under

1011
00:55:42,040 --> 00:55:46,240
Speaker 1: a year before Bruce's marathon demo session for Nebraska. Fun fact,

1012
00:55:46,960 --> 00:55:50,360
Speaker 1: the song's title Atlantic City was originally fistful of dollars

1013
00:55:50,440 --> 00:55:55,880
Speaker 1: from the Sergio Leone Cling Eastwood spaghetti Western, which rules, uh,

1014
00:55:55,960 --> 00:55:58,960
Speaker 1: so Nebraska comes out Land down, Bruce are like no,

1015
00:55:59,480 --> 00:56:02,520
Speaker 1: those are were born in the USA. These are for Nebraska.

1016
00:56:02,600 --> 00:56:05,439
Speaker 1: They settle the mastering debacle and they put it out

1017
00:56:06,040 --> 00:56:13,400
Speaker 1: and the reception was predictably. Someone muted um in uh.

1018
00:56:13,440 --> 00:56:15,880
Speaker 1: It was voted the third best album of two in

1019
00:56:15,920 --> 00:56:21,880
Speaker 1: the influential Village Voice Passant Job critics poll that Jordan

1020
00:56:22,000 --> 00:56:25,480
Speaker 1: just made a dismissive gesture. It's venom five bucks and

1021
00:56:25,520 --> 00:56:28,919
Speaker 1: I'll let you know what it was. Rolling Stone voted

1022
00:56:28,960 --> 00:56:32,760
Speaker 1: Nebraska their album of the Year, but the record buying

1023
00:56:33,000 --> 00:56:36,840
Speaker 1: and listening public was baffled by this collection of incredibly depressing,

1024
00:56:36,880 --> 00:56:41,319
Speaker 1: stripped down songs from their beloved anthemic stadium rocker as

1025
00:56:41,400 --> 00:56:44,759
Speaker 1: late as nine nine Q magazine was writing Nebraska would

1026
00:56:44,760 --> 00:56:47,120
Speaker 1: simply have been a vastly better record with the benefit

1027
00:56:47,120 --> 00:56:49,120
Speaker 1: of the E Street Band and a few months in

1028
00:56:49,160 --> 00:56:54,160
Speaker 1: the studio. He was wrong, Richard Williams. Accordingly, only Atlantic

1029
00:56:54,200 --> 00:56:56,759
Speaker 1: City and Open All Night were released as singles from

1030
00:56:56,760 --> 00:57:00,640
Speaker 1: the record, and just in the UK. I love that

1031
00:57:00,640 --> 00:57:02,520
Speaker 1: that they thought this was all alien enough to the

1032
00:57:02,600 --> 00:57:05,600
Speaker 1: UK that they were like, yeah, sell it to them.

1033
00:57:05,640 --> 00:57:07,880
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter to them. It's like it's like opening

1034
00:57:07,920 --> 00:57:10,759
Speaker 1: your tour and like Ontario, it's like, all right, well

1035
00:57:11,080 --> 00:57:13,040
Speaker 1: send it out of town and if it bombs then

1036
00:57:13,080 --> 00:57:15,720
Speaker 1: it'll be too far away for I mean, a record

1037
00:57:15,760 --> 00:57:20,000
Speaker 1: about the decaying auto and manufacturing sector with references to

1038
00:57:20,560 --> 00:57:22,720
Speaker 1: the East Coast and Middle America must have seemed about

1039
00:57:22,720 --> 00:57:25,200
Speaker 1: a strange to the British, as like the Kinks singing

1040
00:57:25,200 --> 00:57:29,480
Speaker 1: about the Village Green to Us in the sixties or

1041
00:57:29,640 --> 00:57:32,920
Speaker 1: Delta Blues references did the like Alexis Corner and John

1042
00:57:32,960 --> 00:57:38,040
Speaker 1: Mayo and the Yeah Um but Sandwich between the River,

1043
00:57:38,120 --> 00:57:40,760
Speaker 1: which went platinum in the UK, double platinum in Canada,

1044
00:57:40,840 --> 00:57:43,880
Speaker 1: three times platinum in Australia and five times platinum in

1045
00:57:43,880 --> 00:57:46,040
Speaker 1: the US, and born in the USA which came out

1046
00:57:46,080 --> 00:57:51,000
Speaker 1: after Nebraska. That record went platinum in eleven countries, sold

1047
00:57:51,120 --> 00:57:54,240
Speaker 1: seventy mill in the U. S Alone. It is easy

1048
00:57:54,280 --> 00:57:57,600
Speaker 1: to see how Nebraska was considered a flop. I think

1049
00:57:57,600 --> 00:58:01,040
Speaker 1: it only sold a million copies. Yeah, I mean this

1050
00:58:01,120 --> 00:58:03,760
Speaker 1: was the year of Olivia Newton, John's Physical I Love

1051
00:58:03,840 --> 00:58:06,280
Speaker 1: Rock and Roll by Joan Jet, Human Leagues, Don't You

1052
00:58:06,320 --> 00:58:09,120
Speaker 1: Want Me? And Survivors Iah the Tiger, And I mean

1053
00:58:09,360 --> 00:58:12,000
Speaker 1: this is the year that John Mellencamp basically out bruced

1054
00:58:12,040 --> 00:58:14,400
Speaker 1: Bruce with Jack and Diane. I mean that sounds like

1055
00:58:14,560 --> 00:58:17,360
Speaker 1: the Bruce Springsteen style stuff that he was known for.

1056
00:58:17,840 --> 00:58:20,520
Speaker 1: This record didn't sound anything like what was playing on

1057
00:58:20,560 --> 00:58:22,960
Speaker 1: the radio. And it's also interesting to note that Bruce

1058
00:58:23,000 --> 00:58:25,840
Speaker 1: didn't tour behind this record, and I think the only

1059
00:58:25,880 --> 00:58:29,320
Speaker 1: other records that he didn't tour behind were twenty nineteen's

1060
00:58:29,360 --> 00:58:33,760
Speaker 1: Western Stars and Letter to You, which I feel like

1061
00:58:33,840 --> 00:58:37,000
Speaker 1: both were probably a result of COVID. So yeah, I

1062
00:58:37,000 --> 00:58:40,440
Speaker 1: mean his section on Nebraska in his memoir is just

1063
00:58:40,480 --> 00:58:42,840
Speaker 1: a couple of pages, and it ends on the phrase

1064
00:58:43,240 --> 00:58:47,960
Speaker 1: life went On, which seems a little dismissing sents a

1065
00:58:48,120 --> 00:58:51,360
Speaker 1: neo young Ian level of dismissiveness. Yes, yes, I mean

1066
00:58:51,360 --> 00:58:53,680
Speaker 1: it didn't sell well, he didn't tour it, and though

1067
00:58:53,760 --> 00:58:57,760
Speaker 1: he revisit the strip down acoustic format the Ghosts on

1068
00:58:57,880 --> 00:59:01,440
Speaker 1: Joe and two thousand Fives Devils and Us, this album

1069
00:59:01,440 --> 00:59:05,720
Speaker 1: would remains something and an anomaly in its catalog. Yeah,

1070
00:59:05,800 --> 00:59:10,800
Speaker 1: and that's that sucks the jan Winner profile when he's like,

1071
00:59:10,840 --> 00:59:13,360
Speaker 1: I picked Ghost of Tom Joe. That's how you know

1072
00:59:13,440 --> 00:59:16,080
Speaker 1: someone's a narc. If they picked Ghost of Tom Joan

1073
00:59:16,200 --> 00:59:18,640
Speaker 1: over Nebraska, that person is a cop and you need

1074
00:59:18,680 --> 00:59:20,480
Speaker 1: to get out of their car. Do not go with

1075
00:59:20,560 --> 00:59:24,280
Speaker 1: them to a second location. But Nebraska has a long

1076
00:59:24,560 --> 00:59:27,880
Speaker 1: reach cast a long the proverbial long shadow. As we

1077
00:59:27,920 --> 00:59:30,880
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, eight of the twelve tracks on Board in

1078
00:59:30,920 --> 00:59:34,440
Speaker 1: the USA came out of the Electric Nebraska section sessions,

1079
00:59:34,680 --> 00:59:39,240
Speaker 1: making that record practically a an extension of Nebraska rather

1080
00:59:39,320 --> 00:59:41,720
Speaker 1: than the follow up UM. Then there's the fact that

1081
00:59:41,800 --> 00:59:46,240
Speaker 1: this album has managed to become a literal cross medium success.

1082
00:59:46,880 --> 00:59:49,200
Speaker 1: We didn't talk about this song, Highway Patrolman, which is

1083
00:59:49,240 --> 00:59:52,520
Speaker 1: one of my favorites on their UM. It's uh the

1084
00:59:52,560 --> 00:59:56,400
Speaker 1: story of two brothers, and the chorus is um, Yeah,

1085
00:59:56,440 --> 00:59:59,400
Speaker 1: We're dancing and drinking nothing feels better than blood on blood,

1086
00:59:59,400 --> 01:00:02,640
Speaker 1: taking turns dancing with Maria while the band plays Night

1087
01:00:02,680 --> 01:00:05,000
Speaker 1: of the Johnstown Flood. So these two guys are growing

1088
01:00:05,080 --> 01:00:07,240
Speaker 1: up in the same town. One of them takes over

1089
01:00:07,240 --> 01:00:10,440
Speaker 1: the family farm marries Maria. The other guy goes off

1090
01:00:10,480 --> 01:00:13,200
Speaker 1: to I guess it would have been Korea at that point,

1091
01:00:13,200 --> 01:00:17,000
Speaker 1: because he says, Frank came home in although I guess

1092
01:00:17,000 --> 01:00:23,320
Speaker 1: it could have been nom right, yeah, um okay, so

1093
01:00:23,400 --> 01:00:25,920
Speaker 1: definitely not Korea. Yeah, so he says, then we prices

1094
01:00:26,000 --> 01:00:28,160
Speaker 1: kept dropping until it was like we was getting robbed.

1095
01:00:28,720 --> 01:00:31,360
Speaker 1: Frank came home in sight and Mi I took this job.

1096
01:00:32,120 --> 01:00:37,000
Speaker 1: So basically, you know, at the end of the song spoilers, uh,

1097
01:00:37,080 --> 01:00:39,400
Speaker 1: he gets the call to a crime scene and the

1098
01:00:39,440 --> 01:00:41,600
Speaker 1: witness at the crime scene says, this was your brother,

1099
01:00:42,280 --> 01:00:44,040
Speaker 1: and so he tails his brother all the way to

1100
01:00:44,080 --> 01:00:47,760
Speaker 1: the border and lets him go, and it's, you know,

1101
01:00:48,200 --> 01:00:51,440
Speaker 1: just an incredible song, and Sean Penn agrees with me,

1102
01:00:51,640 --> 01:00:56,800
Speaker 1: Thank god. Um. Written and directed by Sean Penn, The

1103
01:00:56,840 --> 01:01:00,440
Speaker 1: Indian Runner is basically a feature length addaptation of this

1104
01:01:00,480 --> 01:01:04,960
Speaker 1: song Hiway Patrolman Um. Sean Penn later said that quote

1105
01:01:05,040 --> 01:01:08,680
Speaker 1: after fifteen to seventeen Heinekens. He called Bruce in the

1106
01:01:08,720 --> 01:01:11,000
Speaker 1: middle of the night to ask him his permission to

1107
01:01:11,000 --> 01:01:15,200
Speaker 1: adapt the song. This movie has an insane cast, David

1108
01:01:15,240 --> 01:01:19,360
Speaker 1: Morrise from Contact, Jodie Foster's dad and like NYPD Blue,

1109
01:01:19,440 --> 01:01:21,600
Speaker 1: and a bunch of other things. Vio Morton's in an

1110
01:01:21,600 --> 01:01:26,240
Speaker 1: early role, Benicio del Toro, Patricia Arquette and Charles Bronson,

1111
01:01:27,040 --> 01:01:30,640
Speaker 1: Dennis Hopper and Sandy Dennis in her final film role,

1112
01:01:31,000 --> 01:01:35,120
Speaker 1: and making this Southern gothic thing a complete loop. Harry Cruz,

1113
01:01:35,160 --> 01:01:39,520
Speaker 1: who is one of the other mid century comic grotesque

1114
01:01:40,120 --> 01:01:42,640
Speaker 1: UH fiction writers of the American South. He has a

1115
01:01:42,640 --> 01:01:46,320
Speaker 1: cameo in it, and it was shot in Nebraska. Uh

1116
01:01:46,600 --> 01:01:50,760
Speaker 1: somewhat depressingly, folks, holds hand to my earpiece. We're just

1117
01:01:50,800 --> 01:01:54,040
Speaker 1: now learning that Trump advisor and general all around piece

1118
01:01:54,040 --> 01:01:59,160
Speaker 1: of Steve Bannon was a producer on this film, So

1119
01:02:00,360 --> 01:02:03,640
Speaker 1: stream it, don't don't buy it. There's also a two

1120
01:02:03,680 --> 01:02:06,200
Speaker 1: thousand five book of short stories, Deliver Me from Nowhere,

1121
01:02:06,360 --> 01:02:09,400
Speaker 1: written by Tennessee Jones, inspired by this record. I know

1122
01:02:09,480 --> 01:02:13,400
Speaker 1: nothing about it, but um presumably a small press kind

1123
01:02:13,400 --> 01:02:18,480
Speaker 1: of thing, so go support your local author. UM. The

1124
01:02:18,480 --> 01:02:21,200
Speaker 1: band have a great version of Atlantic City on Jericho,

1125
01:02:21,400 --> 01:02:24,680
Speaker 1: which is a record I cannot in good conscience endorse,

1126
01:02:25,240 --> 01:02:28,120
Speaker 1: but it's it's a great cover. Garth Hudson is playing

1127
01:02:28,200 --> 01:02:32,040
Speaker 1: accordion on it, and the accordion solo it sounds like

1128
01:02:32,520 --> 01:02:36,919
Speaker 1: if John Coltrane played accordion. It rules and Subpop put

1129
01:02:36,960 --> 01:02:39,840
Speaker 1: out an entire record of covers from this and other

1130
01:02:39,880 --> 01:02:43,120
Speaker 1: Bruce period from that time, which is fine. And also

1131
01:02:43,200 --> 01:02:47,080
Speaker 1: Johnny Cash covered not only Johnny but also Highway Patrolman

1132
01:02:47,240 --> 01:02:53,200
Speaker 1: on his record. Johnny, isn't this like fallow period for Cash? Though?

1133
01:02:53,280 --> 01:02:56,080
Speaker 1: This is like bad bad Cash times? Yeah, I mean

1134
01:02:56,200 --> 01:03:00,760
Speaker 1: between like dying Embers of his seventies six and then

1135
01:03:00,840 --> 01:03:04,480
Speaker 1: like Rick Rubin. Yeah. Yeah. Despite all that, Bruce still

1136
01:03:04,520 --> 01:03:07,280
Speaker 1: doesn't really revisit these songs that much. I don't know

1137
01:03:07,480 --> 01:03:08,800
Speaker 1: how much of these he would have been doing on

1138
01:03:08,800 --> 01:03:11,320
Speaker 1: the Broadway run when he's just doing all the solo stuff.

1139
01:03:11,360 --> 01:03:14,720
Speaker 1: But the site Bruce Base that tracks live performances of

1140
01:03:14,840 --> 01:03:17,920
Speaker 1: his songs has the numbers are not great. For stuff

1141
01:03:17,920 --> 01:03:20,840
Speaker 1: Off Nebraska, The title track performed only a hundred and

1142
01:03:20,880 --> 01:03:24,000
Speaker 1: fifteen times since its release. Open All Night add ten

1143
01:03:24,040 --> 01:03:29,520
Speaker 1: performances My Father's House two Um Highway patrolman, State trooper,

1144
01:03:29,560 --> 01:03:35,160
Speaker 1: and news cars thirty six and thirty eight for Bruce

1145
01:03:35,200 --> 01:03:38,040
Speaker 1: Springsteen song to only get played thirty eight times. With

1146
01:03:38,080 --> 01:03:41,880
Speaker 1: that man's story and performing schedule, that's something he's keeping,

1147
01:03:41,920 --> 01:03:44,520
Speaker 1: something locked away. He doesn't want to see that one. Yeah.

1148
01:03:44,560 --> 01:03:47,080
Speaker 1: Contrast that with Born to Run, which has been performance

1149
01:03:47,120 --> 01:03:50,760
Speaker 1: by Bruce bass count one thousand, seven hundred and twenty

1150
01:03:50,840 --> 01:03:54,880
Speaker 1: nine times. Yeah. The two ones that you will see

1151
01:03:54,880 --> 01:03:58,280
Speaker 1: belive are the full band arrangement of Atlantic City and Johnny.

1152
01:03:58,960 --> 01:04:03,200
Speaker 1: Those are both hover and around nearly four hundred live outings.

1153
01:04:03,240 --> 01:04:05,880
Speaker 1: But that's all, you know, that's all aside the point.

1154
01:04:05,960 --> 01:04:08,920
Speaker 1: I think the biggest legacy that this record casts is

1155
01:04:09,000 --> 01:04:13,080
Speaker 1: in the d I Y recording community. I mean, home

1156
01:04:13,120 --> 01:04:16,440
Speaker 1: recording had existed beforehand. There was the Boston record that

1157
01:04:16,480 --> 01:04:18,520
Speaker 1: Tom Schulz like made in his basement, but that dude

1158
01:04:18,520 --> 01:04:22,280
Speaker 1: had an engineering degree from m I T. Yeah, from

1159
01:04:22,360 --> 01:04:25,000
Speaker 1: m I T. And if you were like doing home

1160
01:04:25,080 --> 01:04:26,960
Speaker 1: recording and other you would have had like a two

1161
01:04:27,000 --> 01:04:29,840
Speaker 1: track or you know, you would have had tape machines,

1162
01:04:29,880 --> 01:04:33,439
Speaker 1: but cassette tapes democratic can go down to the drug

1163
01:04:33,440 --> 01:04:36,000
Speaker 1: store by them. You know, this four track can go out.

1164
01:04:36,080 --> 01:04:39,040
Speaker 1: Pick one up consumer grade for a couple of microphones,

1165
01:04:39,360 --> 01:04:44,240
Speaker 1: you you could make something that, in theory, could be

1166
01:04:44,280 --> 01:04:47,760
Speaker 1: as good as what Bruce put out. Many people did not,

1167
01:04:48,240 --> 01:04:51,080
Speaker 1: Hence one of my favorite Onion articles of all time.

1168
01:04:51,720 --> 01:04:54,400
Speaker 1: Man just going to grab guitar and old four track,

1169
01:04:54,600 --> 01:04:57,960
Speaker 1: go out to cabin in woods make this album. Anyone's

1170
01:04:58,000 --> 01:05:01,240
Speaker 1: ever heard um? Well, you know that's besides the point.

1171
01:05:01,240 --> 01:05:05,280
Speaker 1: I think anything that as dark and bleak and unrelenting

1172
01:05:05,360 --> 01:05:09,000
Speaker 1: as this record is, it inspired people to make music,

1173
01:05:09,040 --> 01:05:11,760
Speaker 1: and it showed people that the barriers to entry that

1174
01:05:11,840 --> 01:05:15,360
Speaker 1: they were maybe imagining, we're not real. And for a

1175
01:05:15,400 --> 01:05:20,640
Speaker 1: record that's so concerned with people being downtrodden and people

1176
01:05:20,680 --> 01:05:22,320
Speaker 1: being at the end of their rope, it has a

1177
01:05:22,400 --> 01:05:26,800
Speaker 1: legacy as something that democratized music making and songwriting. That's

1178
01:05:26,840 --> 01:05:29,440
Speaker 1: a really beautiful thing. That's a really light side to

1179
01:05:29,520 --> 01:05:33,760
Speaker 1: a very dark record. So I feel good about that,

1180
01:05:34,480 --> 01:05:37,800
Speaker 1: well said yeah, as uh as Bruce himself said at

1181
01:05:37,800 --> 01:05:41,280
Speaker 1: the end of the section on his memoir about Nebraska Life,

1182
01:05:41,280 --> 01:05:44,680
Speaker 1: went on, well, folks, thank you for listening. This has

1183
01:05:44,720 --> 01:05:47,919
Speaker 1: been too much information. I'm Alex Hegel and I'm Jordan

1184
01:05:48,040 --> 01:05:55,760
Speaker 1: run talk. We'll catch you next time. Too much Information

1185
01:05:55,800 --> 01:05:58,520
Speaker 1: was a production of I Heart Radio. The show's executive

1186
01:05:58,520 --> 01:06:01,640
Speaker 1: producers are Noel Brown and Jordan run Talk. The supervising

1187
01:06:01,680 --> 01:06:04,760
Speaker 1: producer is Mike John's. The show was researched, written, and

1188
01:06:04,840 --> 01:06:07,920
Speaker 1: hosted by Jordan run Talk and Alex Hegel, with original

1189
01:06:08,000 --> 01:06:11,080
Speaker 1: music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra. If

1190
01:06:11,120 --> 01:06:13,120
Speaker 1: you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave us

1191
01:06:13,120 --> 01:06:15,919
Speaker 1: a review. For more podcasts and I heart Radio, visit

1192
01:06:15,920 --> 01:06:18,880
Speaker 1: the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you

1193
01:06:18,880 --> 01:06:20,040
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.