Nebraska is one of my favorite albums and my favorite Bruce Springsteen album, it’s good enough that it changed my opinion on Bruce from being an overproduced boomer blowhard to actually pretty good. Anyway, the story goes he recorded Nebraska in a cabin and then tried re-recording them with members of the East Street Band, but decided the demos were better. Thus releasing Nebraska but also the fabled “Electric Nebraska” sessions became legends of old. Decades later Bruce decided to dig around his archive and lo-and-behold found the sessions he “forgot” about.
Listening to the songs it’s clear that he was right. Not that the Electric Nebraska sessions are bad, they seem to be mostly demos with minimal production. However, the original versions of “Born in the USA” are here. And there’s 2 versions, a “Electric Nebraska” session that sounds fucking wild, but also the cabin solo recording - which sounds stark and incredibly bleak.
Johnny 99, for example, sounds like a rollicking rock-and-roll ballad instead of being literally about going to prison for life.
I do like the Electric Nebraska version of Atlantic City, not more than the original version.
The one thing i wish Bruce did was record an Electric version of “State Trooper” because it’s inspired by Suicide’s “Frankie Teardrop” which is fucking crazy to me.
I haven’t worked my way through the rest of the Electric tracks yet but probably will soon. Bruce also re-recorded the entire Nebraska album live, and I think it’ll be interesting to hear the newer takes on it. It’s probably weird to have a bunch of unused creative dead ends reach mythological status which is maybe why Springsteen probably held off on doing a full project on it for a while.
i love full album explanations like this and i need to do a couple for my favorite albums that i think i talk about too much so i end up not talking about them at all
i listened to this the last time you mentioned it and fell in love. i used to think ‘who cares about 40 different versions of the same song’ but then i got into the beach boys and realized that finding tiny differences in a similar sound is fun as fuck. and sometimes the differences arent so tiny!
Nebraska does rule so much, and I have definitely heard a few of the live versions he does of them with the full band, but the original is just such a perfect album.
I gotta think of some albums I can do this for (OK, probably Devo albums at least).
there was no general music thread (that I could find?) and it doesn’t really fit into the full album thread or song of the moment so I was like “ok, thread time”
This album goes hard and earned the boss the right to do whatever the fuck he wants for the rest of his career imo. It’s actually better that he never really did anything like this again afaik
I really like Losin Kind, it could have been on the original release.
Downbound Train sounds like it could be something, the second half is almost spoken word
I’m listening to more of the outtakes, a lot of which end up on Born In The USA (which I haven’t listened to, lmao) It’s interesting listening to someone’s musical sketches and finding what they reuse or discard.
Born in the USA was my childhood album, Dad and I always had that playing in the car (I am not American). Pretty sure I showed him Nebraska once and he called it “creepy”.
as a pretty big Springsteen fan, finally having access to these “Electric Nebraska” recordings is pretty incredible
some work better than others. “reason to believe” sounds fantastic this way, and is maybe the one track that I might prefer to the album version
“atlantic city” isn’t as good as the one on “nebraska,” but i like it, and it does offer a really compelling alternative take to the song—more confident, more full-throated, less contemplative. the “everything dies” chorus hits real different. in my mind, it’s the version of the song in the protagonist’s head after he’s gone through the soul-searching of the album version, moving on from trying to convince himself of what he’s about to do to having somewhat convinced himself and taking more ownership of it.
“born in the usa” is a really interesting point between the acoustic version originally recorded for the nebraska demos and the anthemic track we know from the 1984 album. it’s a more angry take, and I like that the nexus of meanings the three generate together. (also, hellojed, you might consider listening to the born in the usa album at some point? idk enough about your music tastes to say more than that though, lol. obvs a very different vibe, but i think it complements nebraska well.)
I like the “downbound train” that ends up on “born in the usa” better, but this is another one where it reveals a different layer of meaning in the song.
anyway, i’m a giant springsteen fan, especially that run of albums from 1975 (born to run) to 1987 (tunnel of love), which are all some of my favorite rock albums ever (though there’s about half of “the river” i could do without—title track is one of my favorite songs though). saw him perform in portland in 2023, and it was kinda a religious experience.
“nebraska” is something really special in the middle of that run though
i am somewhat sad there isn’t an electric version of “highway patrolman,” one of my favorite songs from the album. i’m not sure i even have an idea of what it’d sound like, and that’s why i’d really like to hear one.