Nebraska '82 Review By Ian Henry

It’s been a long time comin’ and now it’s here. Finally, we have the fabled Electric Nebraska and more. Thanks are due to Scott Cooper for having decided to make Deliver Me From Nowhere and for getting Springsteen so heavily involved. Without the film and Springsteen providing his blessing and support, I doubt we would have got this fascinating and intriguing box set. Some Nebraska outtakes and rough demos have circulated for years in various degrees of quality. But these did not include any band interpretations of the songs, until now.

I wasn’t sure whether to start my listening with the Outtakes or the Electric disc: I settled on the latter first and have also listened once to the Count Basie CD; soon I will watch the DVD and listen to the 2005 remaster of the original album.

The Electric Nebraska songs fall into three categories: those which are not really very electric at all (Nebraska and Mansion on the Hill); those which are similar to the live versions we have heard over the years (Atlantic City and Johnny 99, complete with some interesting lyrical variations); and four (BITUSA, Downbound Train, Open All Night and Reason To Believe) which Bruce performs with a very stripped-down ESB, just himself and Gary and Mighty Max, although SvZ and Roy join in on a raucous Downbound Train.

The BITUSA version here had been released on Bruce’s website a few weeks ago and is a quasi-punk guitar bash, very different to the version which leads the album which launched Bruce into mega-stardom. And as with the acoustic BITUSA which we knew from Tracks, included here too on the Outtakes disc, one has to wonder how Bruce’s career and our own experience as fans might have been different if BITUSA had been released in one of the incarnations rejected in 1982. I like the punk BITUSA but not as much as the version of Open All Night with part of the band on Electric Nebraska. Each to their own I know. I may of course change my mind after more listens!

We have two very different versions of several songs in this box set, not to mention the well-known BITUSA incarnations of some. Add in the very different live versions we have witnessed down the years, and it really is quite remarkable how Bruce has been able to mould and remould songs into different versions, giving them a very different feel each time. Compare the original Reason To Believe to the stripped-down band version on Electric Nebraska, then to the “bullet mike” and distorted vocals version on the 2005 solo tour, and then with the “Spirit In The Sky” riff-infused version performed in 2024-25. Same song, four radically different versions. Few artists have written songs which allow this flexibility and variety; and even fewer have the ability to pull it off over 40-plus years.

Electric Nebraska was not, it must be said, ever intended to be an album in its own right; the versions we have here were part of the process of convincing Jon Landau and others that the original Nebraska was the right way to go. Having them available now, and in the light of having seen Deliver Me From Nowhere, they make so much more sense. Bruce was clearly struggling artistically and mentally of course. Hearing the different versions now helps contextualise this so well.

I have to say that excited though I was to hear Electric Nebraska, it was the Outtakes disc which I was most looking forward to. Despite some reservations, it does not disappoint, even if much of it I knew already and though the “new” songs are not as good as I hoped. Context is all. I like having as much of the creative process which Bruce goes through when making an album, or albums. I like to trace the lyrical developments and how the sound of different songs evolves. I also like to compare the released songs to those rejected in the final selection: how different might Born To Run have been with an acoustic rather than the full band Thunder Roadfor example?

From the Outtakes disc, we knew BITUSA from Tracks; The Big Payback was a B-side (for Open All Night if I recall) and the versions of Losin’ Kind, Downbound Train, Child Bride and Pink Cadillac had been circulating for years. But it is nice to have clean versions to listen to finally. Pink Cadillac works best as a band version. Downbound Train didn’t fit with the rest of Nebraska and was a better fit with the BITUSA album; that said, I prefer the acoustic version here and interesting though the rock version on Electric Nebraska is, I don’t think that does justice to the song. Child Bride is, as many will know, the lyrics to Working on the Highway without the chorus. As much as WOTH is a fun song live, the meaning of the lyrics are lost in a stadium singalong; so I for one am delighted the original has finally seen the light of day.

The fourth outtake which had been circulating is Losin’ Kind. For many years this has been my favourite unreleased Springsteen song. I know Bruce said at the time that he felt it was incomplete, and he hadn’t finished it; for what it’s worth I disagree and think it’s a masterpiece. I suspect many will disagree with me on that but hey ho, it’s been delivered from nowhere, finally. To me, Losin’ Kind is vastly superior to Highway 29 which revisited similar themes on The Ghost of Tom Joad more than a decade later. One interesting thing about Losin’ Kind is that it is referenced here as having been recorded at The Power Station in NYC and not at Colts Neck, despite having been circulating along with the Colts Neck outtakes for many years.

The Outtakes disc is completed with two all-new songs, and an acoustic workout of Working on the Highway, which is OK, but nothing special. Out on the Prowl is also ok but the vocals are too low in the mix for me, but it is still an interesting song. I think A Gun In Every Home could turn out to be a real classic (it needs several more listens); it tells the story of a man moving his family to the suburbs to fulfil the modern American dream: “On the block I live you got everything a man would need to want” sings Bruce, with the ideal lifestyle completed with “Two cars in each garage and a gun in every home”; I assume that these would be new rather than used cars. Written in 1982, it is remarkably apt for today’s America, as Bruce sings:

“Sometimes I wanna take my little boy and hold him in my arms

Shield him from all pain, protect him from all harm

From a world gone crazy now

From a world that’s gone all wrong.”

Before concluding

“But I don’t know what to do

No, I don’t know what to do.”

It’s interesting that Bruce was trying to articulate how a father might feel about bringing up and protecting his children; remember he was still dealing with his own inner demons and the troubled relationship with his own father. It’s a great song and I really like it, but I wish the singing voice Bruce adopted for such a dark song, reflecting on the underlying violent nature of American life, were not so gentle and soft. The song needs a harder edge. But this is to quibble unfairly. The song may not have seen the light of day were it not for the film.

It might have taken more than 40 years, but we now have a much better understanding of the creative process which went into the making of both Nebraska and Born In The USA; Tracks gave us many of the BITUSA outtakes and LA ’83 (again not intended as an album originally) gave us an insight into the transition from Nebraska to the completed BITUSA. We may or may not get an expanded BITUSA box set (it would not be surprising if Bruce decided not to do this given the way BITUSA itself is still not fully understood by many (or maybe most) Americans). I guess we may see some of the still missing BITUSA era songs when Tracks 3 appears.

A quick word on the Count Basie live version of Nebraska recorded earlier this year: the first thing which struck me on listening to it after several run throughs of the Electric and Outtakes discs is how different Bruce’s voice in 2025 is to his 1982 voice. Not surprising of course, but so very striking here. These are good, modern performances of the original Nebraska songs; I’d love to hear/see a complete run through of Nebraska live one day, along with Losin’ Kind. Not too much to ask I think.

Finally, now that Losin’ Kind is no longer my favourite unreleased Springsteen song, I have to have another in its place; Walking in the Street (Lovers in the Cold) in case you wondered. Thanks for reading. Enjoy the listening experience which awaits.