Highway Patrolman

In Runaway American Dream, Jimmy Guterman calls the narrator of this song the “hero of the record”. He also calls Joe Roberts the only character on Nebraska that you would be “comfortable inviting over for dinner. (136) But is Joe Roberts really a “hero”? And if so, is he really the “only hero”? In the first line of the song, Joe (average Joe?) says that he works for “the state” before he says that he is, more specifically, a police “sergeant”. Combined with the subdued, monotone style of Springsteen’s delivery, this word choice suggests that he has been, in some sense, defeated when he was forced to take this job. He later confirms this when he says that he had originally settled down on a farm to make a living for himself and his wife, Maria. Joe seems proud that he does an “honest job” but we later learn that he lets his brother Frankie run afoul of the law without punishment. He justifies this to himself in the chorus by stating that “family” is not only the most important thing in his life, but that this is the way it should be for everyone. But this attitude is not really in line with being “honest”. Joe certainly appears to be more stable than many of the other characters in Nebraska, but this does not necessarily make him heroic. He is clearly uneducated or, at least, he hasn’t learned proper grammar. He refers to “Me and Franky” and says “ever since we was young kids”. He’s not very perceptive either. The only thing he can really say about his brother is that “Franky ain’t no good”. He then echoes this by saying, more generally, that a man who “turns his back on his family ’ain’t no good’”. I don’t think Springsteen was merely running out of words here. Guterman calls Joe a “very good policeman” but I’m not sure how he acquires this information. All the lyrics tell us is that he gives his brother special treatment and nothing else about his performance on the job.
I think Guterman is correct when he says that Joe sees Franky as a “shadow representing what he could have been”. Joe married the girl (Maria) that they presumably both loved and avoided being sent off to Vietnam. Like Travis Bickle in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, when Franky returns from Vietnam he will have even more trouble fitting into regular society and following its rules and customs. The chorus of Highway Patrolman is Joe’s memory of the brothers in happier times, especially in the image of the two dancing together with Maria. The song he specifically remembers is called “Night of the Johnstown Flood” but I don’t believe there was a prior song with this exact title. There were songs, however, about the infamous Johnstown Flood, in which over three thousand people died. This disaster was a prime example of the promotion of individual and corporate greed at the great expense of the common worker. This sentiment is echoed in the song when Joe refers to being “robbed” by the powers that be when wheat prices drop and he is no longer able to support himself and his family.