In 1959, when he was only 20 years old and on his way to the electric chair, convicted mass murderer Charles Starkweather was asked to give some reason for the crimes that he and his 14-year old girlfriend committed. His only response, reportedly, was to say, "Well, sir, I guess there's just a meanness in the world."
Something about that meanness and the inexplicable circumstances that push most criminals and the disenfranchised to the fringe of society spoke to Bruce Springsteen in early 1982 when he started preparing demos for his band's sixth album. What started as an exercise in preproduction unexpectedly became Springsteen's first solo folk record, "Nebraska," a testament to the best and worst parts of the American identity.
The album opens with the title track, a first-hand imagining of Starkweather's cold account of his crimes and the consequences that they bore. Springsteen's version paints the portrait of a boy who'd simply run out of options and had no need for salvation, and the sentiment is carried throughout much of the rest of the album.
Bruce takes us from the badlands of Nebraska to the corruption and salty air of "Atlantic City," where he introduces us to another pair of young lovers on a collision course with their unpredictable destiny. The song's protagonist recounts his troubles keeping steady work and the recent murder of a gangster in Philadelphia. As he makes plans to help another gang boss later that night, he implores his girl to get dolled up while trying to reassure her that he'll no longer allow himself to get caught on the losing side of life.
Before his story is over, our antihero muses: "Everything dies, baby that's a fact. Maybe everything that dies, some day comes back." We're left to wonder, as he does, about his chances for success, for luck, for the future of their relationship and perhaps for whatever remains of his shaky American hopes and dreams.
By the time we get to "State Trooper" halfway through the album, Springsteen has introduced us to nearly a half-dozen criminals and vagabonds, for whom opportunities are sparse and impulse is the only way to survive. In that song, a shady figure bears down against the slick roads of a late night drive on the Jersey turnpike, afraid that if he gets stopped by a cop, it wont be the officer who walks away. "Hey, somebody out there, listen to my prayer," the driver begs. "Deliver me from nowhere."
Just as many of his other albums deal with the theme of faith's struggle against human indecency, "Nebraska" is a brilliant example of a particular strand of the guilty and desperate American DNA that Springsteen loves to examine, explode and then put back together. The only difference is that unlike 1978's "Darkness on the Edge of Town," there's no grace or salvation to be found here in the flatness of the Cornhusker state.
"Nebraska" has lived on as a beloved entry in Springsteen's discography - the representation of a turning point in the kind of music he created in the years following its release. The album is raw and dirty, a collection of demos that Bruce recorded on cassette in his bedroom, which never really made their way to the band. As is the case with so many of Springsteen's works, one group's loss is another group's gain. Trust me, we are all better for it.
