Bruce Springsteen released the album Nebraska over 25 years ago. The album was originally recorded by Springsteen in his home with a 4-track cassette recorder. These recordings were only meant to serve as demos of the songs that would be recorded later in the studio with the E Street Band, but after recording these songs in the studio with the entire band Springsteen and the producers decided to release the stripped down demos instead of the studio recordings. In doing so they created an album full of sparse, haunting folks songs, matching the landscape of the state the album is named after and the lyrical content of these songs.
Still at the end of every hard earned day people find some reason to believe
This album never gained popular success, but was met with some critical acclaim. It isn't, after all, the large, pop sound of other Springsteen albums like Born in the USA or his latest album, Magic. And unlike the pop albums of the time the mode of Nebraska is mostly narrative. But there is something very big at stake in these songs. More than any other Springsteen album, Nebraska deals with the limits and capacity of the human soul in a world that seems so out of our direct control. Springsteen touches on the ethics of the American system in "Johnny 99," "Atlantic City" and "Used Cars," the evil that exists in humanity on the title track, the bonds of family verse the obligations doing what is right on "Highway Patrolman," the gap between the atonement of the afterlife and our current existence on "My Father's House" and in the end the resilience of the human soul on "Reason to Believe."
The album opens with the title track, a terrifying first person retelling of the story of serial killer Charles Starkweather as he drives across the plains killing for fun. At the end of song the narrator (Starkweather) is condemned to death and is asked why he "did what he did." In something like the thesis statement of the album he responds "Well sir I guess there's just a meanness in this world." So the question is set up, how much sovereignty does the human will have over its own lot in this world? Anyone in their right mind would blame Starkweather for his actions, but Springsteen goes on to complicate the question with songs like "Johnny 99," "Atlantic City" and "Used Cars."
As the album moves on the question continues to refine itself. "Johnny 99" and "Atlantic City" tell stories of individuals whose actions have had some affect on their situation, but who are also victims of circumstance/ "the system." The question becomes more complicated now: is it the individual who is to blame or is circumstance/ "the system" the cause? Johnny states his opinion in "Johnny 99:"
"Now judge, judge I had debts no honest man could pay. The bank was holdin' my mortgage and they was takin' my house away. Now I ain't sayin' that makes me an innocent man, but it was more 'n all this that put that gun in my hand."
Then we come to "Used Cars" where a family struggles to afford a "brand new used car" while the sounds of wealth are "echoin' all down Michigan Avenue." The question remains.
Springsteen even seems to deal with the counter argument that "if you just do what is right, it'll all work out." Springsteen wonders out loud, what is "right" with the song "Highway Patrolman" where a highway patrolman is confronted with that question as his down-on-his-luck brother ends up killing a man in a fit of rage and doesn't pursue him across the boarder as his brother flees to Canada. The song ends with the line "[a] Man turns his back on his family well he just ain't no good." So what is right, and who is to blame? Then in the same vein Springsteen laments the loneliness of the human condition and the sins we are unable to atone for on "My Father's House."
But this isn't the end of the story. While the majority of the album seems to question the abilities of the human will in a world that seems out of our control, the final track on the album "Reason to Believe," takes the final word and speaks of the resilience of human soul. The four verses of this song tell stories of loss and heartbreak, but all end with the refrain ""Still at the end of every hard earned day people find some reason to believe." While it isn't an answer to the question the rest of the album is asking "Reason to Believe" seems to say that maybe the question we have been asking throughout the album isn't the right question after all.
Maybe the question isn't who's to blame and what's right, but maybe the question (and the answer to that question) lies in the fact that the human soul is resilient, and even if it hasn't been redeemed just yet, as Springsteen reminds us time and again on this album and laments on "My Father's House," the resilience preached on "Reason to Believe" seems to leave the door open for the liberation of the human soul, as it can exist through even those circumstances that we think should kill it.
You can listen to clips of these songs and see the lyrics here.
