Review - Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska

In 1982, Bruce Springsteen released as his sixth album: a collection of home demos made with just his voice, guitar and harmonica. The songs in this collection would be stark recollections about life on the other side of the American Dream. This album was a harsh and unflinching look at American life through the eyes of outlaws, poor folk, estranged families, and other unseemly characters. This study will examine the picture of America through the pieces on Springsteen's Nebraska. Each of the songs will be discussed at length in terms of narrative and character development. Springsteen's own commentary on the work will also be explored. We will also discuss the American landscape that framed this powerful work.

In late 1957 and 1958, a lower-class young man named Charlie Starkweather committed murders in Nebraska and fled to Wyoming with his teenage girlfriend Caril Fugate. The news would outrage the nation and later inspire films, songs and commentary. Starkweather's antics would earn him the electric chair and a spot in American folklore as a symbol the young man down-on-his-luck who achieves notoriety. These incidents, and many more like them, have occurred in over the years in America outraging our citizens and gradually making them more fearful to live in their own communities. It is in this bleak yet hopeful black-and-white picture that we find ourselves in Springsteen's Nebraska.