Catholic Imagery: Faith and Betrayal in Nebraska

Nebraska is an album about loss of faith and faith is a difficult institution to define, much less examine in detail. In spite of this, the songs on Nebraska are far from wordy ruminations on an esoteric topic. In fact, they represent a new economy of language in Springsteen's lyrics and a turning point in his song writing career. Bruce achieves this new spare sound thrugh the careful use of imagery, but especially through the use of Catholic imagery.

Bruce's previous albums were rich in Catholic imagery, most particularly in the images associated with the sacraments. In the Catholic tradition a sacrament is a rite that mediates divine grace. It is a ceremony which stands as an outward visible sign that conveys inward, spiritual grace. The sacraments are highly symbolic, theatrical and public. Any person who has grown up in the church will witness or participate in the four most practiced sacraments - baptism, communion, confession, matrimony - many times in the course of his or her life. The images and language present in these ceremonies for a "vocabulary of faith" for Bruce, a way for him to relate faith to the reality of daily life. By singing about water he can invoke the ideas behind baptism: rebirth, cleansing of sins. By singing about light, especially in relation to darkness, he recalls confession: spiritual darkness alleviated, driven away by grace and love. Singing about blood invokes communion: sacrifice and commitment.

In his early albums Bruce employs sacramental imagery in a manner consistent with the idea that religion and "faith provide people with identity, community" (Greely, p. 155), a sense of order and value in life. Each of these things is a promise of sorts and in Nebraska these promises are broken. Bruce's use of Catholic imagery both defines the promises that were made and highlights the bitterness of their betrayal.

"Highway Patrolman", the most verbose song on Nebraska, deals with a twofold betrayal: Franky Robert's betrayal of his brother and Joe Robert's betrayal of his identity as a lawman. The heartbreaking chorus

Me and Franky laughin' n' drinkin'
Nothing feels better than blood on blood
Taking turns dancin' with Maria
As the band played "Night of the Johnstown Flood"

uses the sacramental image of blood to illustrate the brotherly relationship before it was broken. "Blood on blood" indicates that these two men were committed to each other as brothers, as friends, as members of a functioning community where boys can share a dance with the same girl and there is no jealousy. Sharing a dance with Maria (reminicent of Mary?), shows the amount of trust and intimacy between the two brothers. Springsteen's use of this memory as Joe's refrain drives home how important that relationship was to him. At the end of the song Bruce repeats the two men, one girl in a bar scenario

There was a kid lookin' bad and bleedin' hard from the head, there was a
Girl cryin' at a table and it was Frank they said

The firs scene was almost idyllic but this second scenario shows the results of Franky's betrayal. The blood here is not sacramental blood - it is blood from violence, mistrust and selfishness. It is not shared blood, as the kid is "bleeding hard" and Franky is nowhere to be found. The only blood Joe and his brother share now is the literal blood that Frank spills and Joe is left to justify.

Light, symbolizing hope redemption and reunion found in confession (also known a reconciliation of the penitent), is one of the most frequent images in Nebraska. Springsteen uses it to striking, poignant effect in "Mansion on the Hill", and "My Father's House". Both songs deal with the betrayal of community. The mansion on the hill is the idealized vision of wealth and success. The distant vision of "all the lights that would shine" reminds the speaker in this song that he is not successful enough, that he is not the right kind of person to join in the "music playin' and people laughing all the time". He and his family are excluded from that community in spite of their hard work at the factory. In the closing lines of the song Bruce gives us the image of "a beautiful full moon rising above the mansion on the hill". The moon doesn't shine its light on the speaker or his home down in Linden Town. That light, symbolic of hope and opportunity, shines only on those who already have the good fortune to live in the mansion on the hill.

In "My Father's House" the community betrayed is the most primal community, that of one's own family. Here the speaker dreams of a reconciliation with his father, wants it so badly that he describes his father's house as "shining hard and bright". The light and promise coming off of this house is almost violent in its intensity, it's pull. "It stands like a beacon" for the speaker's desire for reconciliation with his father, redemption in his father's eyes and the hope that he could live in the source of that light. Again, the speaker is denied access to what he so desperately wants. The light and all the good it represents is seen only in the distance of a dream. When the speaker visits his father's house in real life it is peopled only by strangers and does not glow like he dreamed it would. The last lines of the song are the most chilling, as they leave the speaker and the listener outside, across the highway "where our sins lie unattoned". The darkness that encompasses the speaker has leaked out of the song and is spreading out to encompass anyone who hears his song.

Springsteen's sacramental images in Nebraska are familiar, just as familiar as the sacraments of baptism or communion are to any member of the church. They are, however unfamiliar as well because Bruce is no longer using them in quite the same way. In Nebraska Springsteen puts these images , especially light, out of reach of the characters in his songs. He forces the listener to consider that the goodness and order that these images represent might be unattainable.