Nebrasklopedia

Nebrasklopedia
In light of the nature of this album and this class, we have decided to structure our presentation a little differently. Since this is, ostensibly, a class on postmodernism, we looked to the work of our nearest and dearest Postmodern expert, Larry McCaffery, for inspiration. Among his many publications we found Federman: A to X-X-X-X, A Recyclopedic Narrative (McCaffery et al, 1998). This volume is an encyclopedia of sorts, but focused on one author, Raymond Federman. As with a regular encyclopedia there are multiple entries which appear in alphabetical order. Each entry is narrowly focused on a single topic, however, if the text of one entry happens to touch on the topic of another entry the key word is in bold font. When a reader encounters a bold font word, she or he may jump to the entry listed under that word and begin reading on a new topic. He or she may also choose to ignore this possibility and continue to read the original entry in its entirety. This format frees the reader from the confines of traditional left-to-tight, A-to-Z methods of conveying information.

If you take a look at the handout, you will see that we appropriated the Recyclopedia format. This is, after all, a class in postmodernism; something had to be appropriated at one point or another.

The Nebrasklopedia exists on the pages in front of you, but we are not content to leave it at that. Tonight you have tickets to a live, one-night-only concert by Pete, Wayne, Jim, Travis, Zac and myself. We are not a band, but we do intend to give you a performance. We have each authored entries in the Nebrasklopedia and tonight we are going to jam with them, just like Bruce, Clarence and little Stevie do at a show. We are going to fit these pieces of information together to form a melody, a harmony, a beat and hopefully a better understanding of what Nebraska is all abut. Like any good live show, this performance is going to be loose. We will need you, the audience, to be actively listening because we are going to be passing the melody around a lot. Each time one of the band starts to speak that person will be performing an entry listed in the handout. The bandmember may not make it all the way through that entry before hittinga word that is the topic of another band member's entry. At that point, the point of intersection, of harmony between ideas, the second band member will take over, beginning to perform the next topic. The entries we present should relate to each other just like songs on an album. The connection won't always be quickly apparent, but if you listen carefully, you will be sure to find it.

"Put on your stockings baby, the night's getting cold"

“Nebraska”

In Songs, Springsteen defines “Nebraska” as “the record’s center” (138). The song encapsulates the tone and themes of the entire album: it’s the story of a man isolated and pushed to the edge of society, to the point where “the thin line between stability and that moment when time stops and everything goes to black, when the things that connect you to your world—your job, your family, friends, your faith, the love and grace in your heart—fail you” (138-139). The song is a dramatic monologue sung “in a horrifyingly blank first-person voice” (Marsh 336), and was inspired by the story of Charles Starkweather’s 1957 murder spree. Rob Kirkpatrick writes, “Springsteen was so fascinated by Badlands,” Terrence Malick’s film adaptation of Starkweather’s story, “that he was moved to call journalist Ninette Beaver, the author of Caril, a nonfiction book on the Starkweather murders, to learn more about the case” (86). The first two lines, “I saw her standin’ on her front lawn/ just twirlin’ her baton,” are taken almost directly from Malick’s film. In the film, Holly/ Caril, played by Sissy Spacek, is twirling her baton in the street; and this image of innocence, in both the lyrics as well as the scene, provides a dramatic contrast to the senseless murders committed by Starkweather.
After a mournful harmonica intro, Springsteen’s dream-like guitar and the lack of emotion in his character’s voice echoes Malick’s portrayal of Holly and Kit/ Starkweather in their disturbing lack of affect and their sense of detachment to their horrific actions. The quiet, almost peaceful mood of the song is paradoxical, considering its subject matter. In a 1998 interview with Will Percy, Springsteen explains: “In most of the recent songs, I tell violent stories very quietly. You’re hearing characters’ thoughts—what they’re thinking after all the events that have shaped their situation have transpired” (308). Springsteen’s Starkweather shows no remorse as he politely addresses the Sheriff as “sir,” stating:
I can’t say that I’m sorry for the things
that we done
At least for a little while, sir, me and
her we had some fun
The use of “sir” shows that, at one time, Starkweather was an assimilated member of society, and this makes his actions, the meaningless murder of innocent victims, that much harder to explain. Just before his execution, he asks:
Sheriff, when the man pulls that
switch, sir, and snaps my poor head
back
You make sure my pretty baby is sittin’
right there on my lap
Critics often interpret the last two lines as Starkweather asking Caril to be there when he dies, and they are probably correct. Physically, however, with the volts of electricity coursing through both their bodies, this scenario is unlikely. Emotionally, in keeping with the theme of isolation, this would make Starkweather’s last request contradictory to his nature, and would be a sign of some last spark of humanity, also unlikely. A more compelling image, would be Starkweather asking for the “sawed off .410” that was on his lap in the second stanza, like a warrior going to his grave with his preferred weapon. The song ends with representatives of Authority asking why he killed those people, and all he has to say is, “well, sir, guess there’s just a/ meanness in this world.” It is as if he sees his actions as fulfilling a role, providing the “meanness” that is already a part of an uncaring, violent world.

Atlantic City

Atlantic City is an important song because it has close connections with some songs from earlier albums as well as other songs on Nebraska. It’s importance is further underlined by the fact that it was the only song (at the time) from the album that was made into a music video. Atlantic City begins with references to the Mafia; the “Chicken Man” was the nickname of a mafia boss named Philip Testa who was blown up along with his house in early 1981. The terms “boardwalk” (for instance, see the importance of the boardwalk in Elia Kazan’s film, On the Waterfront) and “racket boys” also conjure images of the Mafia. The “trouble” from “out of state” most likely refers to the encroachment of the Mob from Philadelphia into the territory of New Jersey. Atlantic City was known for its large amount of gambling and so it would prove profitable for the Mafia, especially for Testa who was known to avoid profiteering through drugs or alcohol. The first-person narrator of this song isn’t introduced until the third stanza (and after the first chorus). He says that he began by working and saving money but, like the desperate subject of Johnny 99, he needed to turn to crime because he “had debts that no honest man could pay”. This narrator is also like the central figure in Meeting Across the River from Born to Run. Both believe that they need to turn to crime to support themselves (and their women). Both have a certain illegal activity planned, but the specifics, whether they be dealing drugs or knocking somebody off, are not made clear in either song. There is also a connection with Prove It All Night from Darkness On the Edge of town. In the chorus of Atlantic City, the narrator tells the female figure, “put your makeup on and fix your hair up pretty” for their upcoming meeting. In Prove It All Night, the narrator tells her, “tie your hair back in a long, white bow” for their meeting “behind the dynamo”. Both narrators believe it is important for their respective women to look good and they want to be able to support this by acquiring money, whether it be through hard work or a quick score. In Atlantic City, he is unable to get any more money from the Central Trust and the irony of the word “trust” being the thing that is failing him probably doesn’t escape this narrator and certainly not Springsteen himself. All this guy can afford for his girl are “two tickets on that Coast City bus” to the beach where he sees the “sands turnin’ to gold”. The first two lines of the chorus, “Everything dies baby that’s a fact” and “But maybe everything that dies someday comes back” are deliberately ambiguous. Is he talking about a belief in literal reincarnation? Perhaps he is referring to his personal situation in the sense that he is going to be making some quick money soon if the plan is successful. One thing that has died, he says, is their “luck”. But he’s not giving up on her, “with you forever I’ll stay”. He shows his concern for her, “put on your stocking’s cause the nights getting cold”. In the final stanza, the unnamed narrator refers to “winners and losers”; his intention is to become a “winner” by earning money through some kind of illegal act. He sees “winners and losers” and nothing in between the two, only a “line”. He is crossing that "line" that separates straight from criminal activity in order to become a “winner” in his mind, and, he hopes, in the eyes of his girl.

Mansion on the Hill

“Mansion on the Hill” The third song on the first side of the album is a reworking of a Hank Williams 1947 song of the same name (Garman 88). It is a set of three images: one general overview, an introduction to the setting addressed to “sir,” to whom the narrator gives the description, two memories from childhood of the mansion, and a conclusion set in the narrative present. The mansion, set above the “factories and the fields” is surrounded by “gates of hardened steel” while children still play along the road outside. The children in both memories and in the narrative present propose the generational continuity that make this song a description of a sociohistorical process in addition to a personal memoir. The two memories from childhood are set apart by gender and by generation. The first tells of trips taken by the narrator and his father through a “silent and still” town to watch the mansion at night, from a “back road on the highway side”; the feel of this memory is of frustration and anger, set in the cars, roads, and towns of industrialization. The second memory is with the narrator’s sister, as they peer up at the mansion, secretly watching the lights, laughter, and music from a cornfield down below. This memory seems kinder, with a more natural, childlike wonder and camaraderie. The final summary sets the mansion in socioeconomic terms; as the narrator watches “cars rushing home from the mill” a full moon rises over the mansion, accentuating the sense of the recurring, endless cycle of childhood into adulthood, into a system separated by both geography and class.

In contrast to Hank Williams’s romantic allegory of class separation, where the narrator is in his “cabin” in the valley and his lover is “alone with her pride” in her “loveless mansion,” Springsteen’s allegory is more complex and more alienated. Garman and Guterson both note that the song emerged out of his growing sense of social consciousness especially, notes Guterson, after his appearance on August 20, 1981 at a benefit for the Vietnam Veterans of America, which Guterson claims “changed Springsteen and his music”, noting that Springsteen immediately started performing more covers in his concerts, including Woody Guthrie tunes such as “This Land is Your Land” (Guterrman 130). It appears as if Springsteen, influenced by the working-class music of Williams, was inspired by Guthrie’s social consciousness and contemporary events to create a complex web of intergenerational, genderized, and sociohistorically relevant experiences and observations in this retelling of class alienation.

The song’s placement, after “Nebraska” and “Atlantic City”, lends itself to the oft-interpreted (Garman 88-90, Marsh 366-68) class-struggle reading; after two songs that deal with realistic events told in a dramatic monologue from an adult’s perspective, monologues that describe specific nihilistic occasions, the third song gives the listener a look at the childhood roots of this hopelessness, in a kind of narrative overview, a dramatic monologue that functions as an Introduction to the social milieu of the lost American Dream. Marsh claims the song is set in an actual place near Freehold, and notes the interplay of professional, political, and personal crisis at work in the song (371).

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.

Johnny 99

“Johnny 99.” During Ronald Regan’s campaign speech in New Jersey, he declared, “‘America’s future rests in a thousand dreams inside your hearts. It rests in the message of hope in songs of a man so many young Americans admire: New Jersey’s Bruce Springsteen. And helping you make those dreams come true is what this job of mine is all about’”(Gilmore 273). Reagan’s laughable attempt to co-opt the popularity of local hero, Bruce Springsteen, was probably the brainchild of one of his political advisors, someone who had only paid attention to the rousing chorus of “Born in the U.S.A.,” oblivious to the protagonist unemployment or the despair in the line, “Nowhere to run, ain’t got nowhere to go/ Born in the U.S.A.” It would be difficult to imagine a more unlikely association than conservative Reaganomics—supply-side economics, resulting in lower taxes for the rich, and increased defense spending—and Springsteen’s career-long message that things are far from all right in the land of plenty. Springsteen’s response to Reagan’s statement was not immediate, and to his more liberal fans, not as dramatic as they might have hoped for. According to Marsh, in concert, fittingly using the stage for his rebuttal, he told the crowd, “The President was mentioning my name the other day, and I kinda got to wondering what his favorite album musta been. I don’t think it was the Nebraska album. I don’t think he’s been listening to this one.” And he played a scorching ‘Johnny 99’”(486-487).
Instead of the “Nebraska” harmonica intro, Springsteen begins the song with a quiet wail that has the sound of impotent resignation and sorrow; and it’s influence can be traced to Woody Guthrie and the hurt song, a genre that Bryan Garman summarizes as songs that “express the collective pain, suffering, and injustice working people have historically suffered, and articulate their hopes and dreams for a less oppressive future” (222). “Johnny 99” also shares a similarity in theme and tone to lowdown blues prison songs—such as Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “Prison Cell Blues,” found on the Anthology of American Folk Music, or Blind Willie McTell’s “Death Cell Blues.” The opening wail or moan mimics the lyrical phrasing of Blind Lemon and Blind Willie, and the sense of resignation of “Johnny 99,” in the line, “Well your honor I do believe I’d be better off dead,” echoes the Blind Willie’s “Ain’t but one thing could release me/ and that’s ole Father Time.”
“Johnny 99,” like “Nebraska” and “Death Cell Blues,” is another prison monologue, and it is yet another story of a man pushed to the edge by circumstances beyond his control. It is the story of Ralph who earns the nickname Johnny 99 after he is convicted for the killing of a night clerk. In “Nebraska,” the only justification Starkweather gives for killing “ten innocent people” is that “there’s just a meanness in this world”; “Johnny 99,” however, provides enough background information that suggest a possible cause and effect for Ralph’s crime. In the first stanza we are told that he loses his job because the auto plant closes; because he can not get a job he gets drunk, finds himself in that void where anything can happen, and shoots the night clerk. It is up to the listener, not to justify the crime, because even Ralph says he is not innocent, but to realize the implications of Ralph’s statement to the judge, “But it was more ‘n all this that put that gun in my hand.” Mikal Gilmore quotes Springsteen as he discusses Nebraska and the plight of the worker in America during the 1980s,“And if people are sick and hurting and lost, I guess it falls on everybody to address those problems in some fashion. Because injustice, and the price of that injustice, falls on everyone’s heads. The economic injustice falls on everybody’s head and steals everyone’s freedom” (271). Unlike the poets in the song “Jungleland” who “try to make an honest stand/ But they wind up wounded,” Ralph/ Johnny 99, like the narrator of “Atlantic City,” who has been “lookin’ for a job but it’s hard to find,” does not live in a world that affords people the opportunity to “make an honest stand.”

State Trooper, the Lone Ranger’s bizarro twin.

Like a dark-brimmed rider coming into town with his back lit and his face shrouded by a crimson sunset “State Trooper,” the story of a tragically flawed transient of the night, is a mysterious spectacle. Situated in a musical landscape of two muted chords, the metronomic quality of the strumming lends itself to the inexorable rhythm of intake, compression, combustion, and exhaust. Set immediately on the New Jersey Turnpike by the driver/narrator, the lyrics are structured like narrative excerpts from an extended journey. The lyrical structure and musical style along with the lyrical content on this track support a reading which allows for an examination of the expanses and emanations of sound surrounding and punctuating the lyrics along with the words which populate the song.

The song begins simply with the strumming which will accompany the singing throughout, the car is already running and moving. It is almost like the rhythm was always already going, and will never stop going, at what point in the journey the song begins one cannot be sure. Similarly, the voice of the narrator comes out of nowhere to situate his tale of isolation amidst the blacktop and bleakness of the turnpike, the only illumination coming from the lights of industry and the set of bulbs he is steering.

After setting the scene, the first pair of verses define the conflicting nature of the aspirations and lifestyle that push the narrator onward. The first evidence is of his pseudo-vigilante nature comes as he relates that he is unremorsefully driving a stolen car, and that more crimes, which he has undoubtedly justified, may lie somewhere behind him. Shortly after this the narrator begins the chorus, the first of many pleas to the yet-unseen state trooper. Staying silent, he holds off for a time, nothing but the sound of the drive continues until the narrator begins again, further on down the road. The second verse, presents a side of the narrator which has given life to the inevitably approaching trooper. By the sound of the voice it seems he may even be a bit envious of the human connections, the wife and kids, which the trooper may have. The narrator is not only a bit jealous, the thoughts of family force him to confront his present reality, and he is reminded again of his solitary status and he is disturbed to the point of pleading again to the trooper.

After the drive has moved on some distance further, possibly hours down the road, the mind of the narrator, teetering on the edge of a demented cabin fever, turns for guidance to the vestige of society most available to his senses: the radio relay towers, monuments of modern communication. In the first line of the verse’s opening couplet the narrator admits his lack of reliance on his own judgment, and thus invites us to do the same. In the second line, he finishes the sentence by announcing that in his state-of-mind he must rely on the towers to get to his anonymous “baby.” Following this he turns again to the radio, this time to the waves and the radio shows that inhabit them. Here again the recurring theme of society denying the narrator that which he desires, deserves even, is played out as he heedlessly spins the dial looking for action, for a lively companion, not just the hollow talk of disembodied radio voices. At this point once again the narrator calls out to the state trooper, but as he finishes his plea his frustration overcomes him and he reacts with a sharp yelp of anger followed by a prolonged wail of blues-ridden anguish.

As he begins his final utterances the narrator pleads first to that which he is furthest from: humanity, a humanity which is as distant from him as a god. Finishing the final verse he mimics his namesake, confirming his outcast status, and calls out to his steed, directing him only to “deliver me from nowhere.” As the track concludes the narrator is overcome by emotion again, this time with even greater force his voice stabs the sky before settling into a forlorn, defiant, howl.

* * *

Used Cars

Because Springsteen openly described this album as his most personal (Marsh, 382) it seems reasonable to read this song at least in part autobiographically. Often during his monologues at concerts he would reference his family's run of bad luck with used cars as he was growing up. As he wrote this song, however, the success of The River would have put a lifelong end to any stress related to cars ever again for Springsteen. But in line with the mood that runs through the entire album he puts himself back into his childhood to observe what the effect of lower middle class conditions are on families, a needed lens in 1981 when the country was experiencing its largest unemployment numbers since the Great Depression.
The song opens with a subtly startling scene of isolation. The boy narrator is standing in a used car lot watching his father, mother, and sister drive out of the lot to test the vehicle. It is clearly not an issue of space as his little sister sits in the front seat and his mother sitsin the back "All alone". While his sister gets to sit shotgun and eat an ice cream cone, this boy is alone to internalize what this all means. Springsteen makes no secret of the fact that he often was isolated as a child, voluntarily and otherwise, and this little boy encapsulates just that insulated feeling. It looks as if he stands there as collateral, the most dispensible part of the family.
When they return to the lot the boy continues to hone in on what appear to be meaningless details like his mother playing with her wedding ring and the salesman's fixation with his father's hands. We can imagine the latter pair as being rugged and worn, the hands of a man who works an endless string of hard days. The salesman is not familiar with such hands, but he knows that they are the tools of an honest man, the easiest sort to swindle. The boy's tone begins to change when his father is told there is no deal available. In an ambiguous promise to himself he says if given the chance he "swears" he knows what he would do. What is clear is that he is unhappy with the situation his father is in and he wants to change it.
Lacking any effective means (physical or financial) the boy imagines the impending day when he wins the lottery. It is only because he is a child that he can actually expect to win this impossible game. He is not old enough yet to have to wonder if "everything that dies someday comes back". Death and defeat are far from his mind. All he knows is that when he wins he will have a new car and all will be made right. What he does not yet know is that he already has "debts no honest man can pay", debts that will only grow as he does, debts that no brand new car can make go away. It is in this boy's vain optimism that the song painfully drives home the refrain of the album, there is no escape from this world, not via crime, women, cars, or atonement.
When the full family drives up to the house in their "brand-new used car" the entire neighborhood comes to see. This public reaction shows the condition of the lives that surround the family. The purchase of a measly used car creates a comotion in the streets. The boy is not satisfied with this simpe world. Instead he wished his father would do exactly what the driver does at the end of the "State Trooper", the song that preceeds this one. As he expells his last prayer he goes shooting down the dark highway and lets out a Lizard King-like ecstatic yelp that echoes throughout the night. The boy's father is not nearly as free of reckless. Instead the family slowly pulls in to the driveway as the boy's mind silently screams his wish for defiance from what surrounds him.
The purchase of the used car changes nothing. His dad still works the same job and the boy still "walks the same dirty streets where [he] was born". The implication here is that, like his father, he will walk these very streets until he is no more. This realization takes him back to the lonliness he felt the day of the test drive as he can still hear his sister honking the horn with one hand as she holds her ice cream in the other. She is experiecing a taste of freedom he has yet to feel. If we can be allowed to use the rest of the album as a lens, it is safe to say he never will. Despite all the emptiness he sees around him the boy awaits the day his "number comes in" so that he can finally get the new car that will save him. Sadly we know on this album every road leads to the same place. Unlike Thunder Road that leads to "heaven waiting down the tracks" and a chance to "case the Promised Land", Michigan Avenue eventually leads to barren Badlands.

Open All Night: the Lone Ranger of Rockabilly

“Open All Night” by far the most up-beat number on all of Nebraska, seems to show Springsteen breaking the persona of the album and slipping back into the imagery and attitudes (read: hopeful and defiant) of the previous three or so albums. The song itself, which is an up-beat rockabilly jam played on the album’s lone electric guitar, is in many ways a parody of, or less-likely an homage to, the music of early rock’n’roll/rockabilly artists like Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, and Jerry Lee Lewis. While this comparison is justifiably made, the guitar intro smacks with the sound of Chuck Berry licks, the goal of this stylistic parody may not be as apparent. What does become apparent, especially if one studies the lyrics, is the illusion which this narrator is creating for himself, the illusion of having a destination with human contact somewhere down the road. Immediately one is forced to draw a comparison between this track and “State Trooper,” which has a similar setting, narrator, and sequence of events. Through this comparison one is able to see into the psyche of this narrator and how stranded he really is, despite his upbeat tone. Ultimately, as the song progresses and the rockabilly allusions begin to stack up, the song becomes a dark commentary on the illusory relationship people have with their dreams, and the way in which people refuse to look beyond themselves to see their reality.

This song, which quickly draws many parallels with the haunting “State Trooper”, starts with a lone narrator describing the catalogue of improvements and checks he has run on his car. This movement is an illusion which allows Springsteen to continue with his allusions (which started with the Berry-esque guitar intro), in this case ending the verse with “rock that joint” a reference to a song in which rock’n’roll has as it’s result an abundance of chaotic violence (“tear down the mailbox, rip up the floor, smash out the windows”), Bill Haley and the Comets’ “Rock the Joint.” The opening verse also shows the amount of time the narrator has on his hands to prepare for this trip, an amount of time which will seem to contradict him later in the song. In the following verse the narrator situates us once again on the New Jersey Turnpike, like his “State Trooper” comrade he is all alone out on the road, but unlike his counterpart he is nervous and unfamiliar with the isolation and bleakness of the turnpike, which thus becomes to him as foreign as the surface of the moon. Unlike his inevitably solo counterpart, this driver believes he has somewhere to be, that someone is waiting for him somewhere and that he had better call and reassure them of his arrival as soon as possible.

In the following verse, the third thus far without a chorus, Springsteen shifts gears, giving a bit of exposition about this drivers situation before slipping into a verse almost identical to the third verse of “State Trooper.” Beginning with “The boss don’t dig me…” this verse has a meta-narrative twist which begs the listener to question who the Springsteen they’re listening to really his, seeing as how “the Boss” put him on the night shift, where, like the narrator of this song, it would be nearly impossible to reach anyone. The fact that this driver is on an “all night run” to get back to another yet unnamed “baby” figure comes before Springsteen takes a direct quotation from “State Trooper.” These identical lyrics, which contain another Chuck Berry allusion which will become more important later, become most interesting when one reads them as the narrator of each song putting his faith in a string of relay towers rather than their own wavering psyche. Except, as the state trooper becomes a reality, hitting his spot light as this driver flies overhead, this song takes a turn from it’s counterpart, the narrator here can’t afford to be stopped and thus must drop a gear and push his faithful machine to the limit. Next, as the narrator hurls onward, his mind slips into a dream-like memory of how he and his baby, “Wanda,” met. In a song whose sound and feel is so contrary to the rest of the album, this verse goes over the top with such ridiculous, idyllic, and clichéd, images that it forces one to question the truth of it all. Instead, it seems more like this driver, in his demented, lonely, state, has created a memory which is more reminiscent of George Lucas’ “American Graffiti” or Van Morrison’s “Brown-Eyed Girl” than any New Jersey reality. The unreliable nature of this verse certainly forces one to question whether Wanda knows he is coming, and how long it has been since he has seen, or even met, her (seeing as how according to the first verse he had his car up blocks for some time).

The next verse brings us back to reality as we learn that the car is beginning to suffer the consequences of such a full-bore run, namely it’s eating oil faster than gas and the windshield is getting hazier than the narrator’s mind. In the second line of this verse Springsteen makes another Chuck Berry reference, quoting “Too Much Monkey Business,” a lighthearted song about the daily struggles between man and the machine of society. Next, Springsteen confirms the suspicious nature of the journey as the narrator explains that he still needs to find a phone and call his love, who may know he is supposed to return, but likely has no idea when. Before moving into the unsettling final verse the listener learns that despite driving all through the darkness, this driver still has a long way yet, three more hours on the lonely turnpike.

By far the darkest, the final verse begins with a pair of allusions, the first another reference to the Chuck Berry song “Wee Wee Hours,” which, interestingly enough is a bluesy number about a loner who sits in small room, pining and pondering over the fading memories of his one true love. The second allusion, “the red ball risin,” is more of a nod than anything else, to Jerry Lee Lewis and his perennial hit “Great Balls of Fire.” Following these references Springsteen slips back into the voice and lyric of “State Trooper,” casting a doubtful shadow across the end of the song. Similar to his lone counterpart, this narrator turns to the radio for relief only to be thwarted by talk once again. This time, though, it’s “lost souls” calling radio evangelists to have their hearts uplifted that clog the airwaves. Ironically, these people are in a state similar to that of the narrator, so isolated that instead of turning to other people, as in the church congregation, they turn to “long-distance salvation.” Finally, the verse concludes with this loner calling out to the leader of rock’n’roll society, to the deejay, hoping he will hear his final plea and play the rockin’ music that will keep him sane until he can escape his lonely prison. Immediately after this the narrator, echoing “State Trooper” yet again, begins vocally expounding his situation with a nonverbal string of syllables, sounds that are the proper accompaniment to a desperate rock beat pounded out on the steering wheel.

* * *

Ultimately, the song, which strikes a certain parallel to the title track of Born in the U.S.A., is easily misunderstood. With such a fun sound it is easy to mistake this for a song of hope on an album of isolation and meanness. Despite the sound, it is another song about being alone on the highway. An apt companion to “State Trooper,” the narrator of this song is inevitably bound to the road, always in between places he is never arriving of leaving, just moving again. Despite his best efforts and his hopeful dreaming, he is stuck in a failing car and most likely will never escape the disparaging eyes of the refineries.

Ironically, this song also parallels the careers of the legends it parodies, particularly in the way the reality of the situation is ignored in favor of the rock’n’roll dream. In the case of Chuck Berry, the fall from grace came early in his career. Arrested for hiring a fourteen year old girl, then firing her and turning her loose on the streets (she was brought in for prostitution), Berry fell from grace and served a four year sentence. Jerry Lee Lewis fell after a similar bad choice when he famously married his teenage second cousin, this combined with drug abuse and alcoholism has permanently tainted his legendary status. Bill Haley was even an admitted alcoholic. In their lives, as in the life of the narrator of “Open All Night,” the dream of living like it’s always Friday night has failed, and now they are stuck, caught between the glory of the rock’n’roll lifestyle and the reality of being a flawed character in a cutthroat world.

My Father's House

The third song on the second side of Nebraska is, like “Mansion on the Hill,” an architectural metaphor but in this case the setting is psychological rather than social or historical. After two songs on side two set in the narrative present, the narrator once again mines his own past, a memory of a dream, and makes a statement about his relationship with his father in the narrative present. In the contexts of both Bruce’s psychological and autobiographical development and his development with the use of place in his songs, this song represents two aspects of a major paradigm shift in Bruce’s thinking: his relationship with his father has matured from the trauma of “Adam Raised a Cain” and the separation of “Independence Day” to self-realization and acceptance; and, his use of landscape in his writing has matured from the metaphorical escape routes of earlier songs such as “Born to Run” and “Wreck on the Highway” to an inhabited space, a landscape shared with the listener, lived out in a sociohistorical and psychological context.

The song begins as a narrative of a dream, a dream that Bruce claimed (at the Christic Institute concert of 1990) haunted him for years, a archetypal story of being chased by the devil in a forest of pines to a house that, like the Mansion on the Hill, is “shining hard and bright”; however, in the dream the house is the site of refuge, where the narrator “fell shaking into his arms.” It is unclear whether the narrator goes into the house during his dream, but when he awakens, he realizes the refuge is unattainable. The “hard things that pulled us apart” are gone, and he tells the listener—a “sir” who may be the same person as the listener in Mansion on the Hill—a short anecdote to emphasize the lost opportunities for resolution with his father. In the last two stanzas, the dream becomes real as the narrator tells of visiting the house and realizing that not only is it behind a “chained door” and occupied by a woman strange to him, but that the guilt and remorse, the “sins” of his relationship with his father “lie unatoned” on the road, where the narrator can only look up to the house which calls him to forgiveness. In the end, the narrator is “cold and alone,” unable as an adult to expiate his adolescent actions, which remain and “stand like a beacon” in his psyche, and in his neighborhood, too. The guilt, anger, and pain that has filled the narrator’s life, expressed in the memories of phantom drives to look at mansions with his father, drives that Bruce has described in his introductory monologues (Marsh 371) and in the spaces of the house, which he has described over and over in his concert monologues in different, but always personal, contexts (302), are important elements of what Marsh has called his "father songs." In the end, one gets the feeling that the narrator of “My Father’s House” will drive his children by an unattainable place, recreating his childhood for the next generation.

Reason to Believe

Reason to Believe is the final song on Nebraska, the end piece to Bruce's dark, soul-searching journey and should give an indication of what he found at the end of the road. Perhaps this is why the interpretations of Reason to Believe are so starkly divided - critics and listeners are looking for one song to sum up the "meaning" behind an entire album. That is a lot to ask of any song, but Reason to Believe is an enigmatic powerhouse that lends itself to debate. Ultimately, the question is whether Reason to Believe is a pessimistic or an optimistic summation of the album.

The song features a very measured, symmetrical structure: four images an four repetitions of the chorus. The images are balanced as well, alternating between the death of the dog in the road, Mary Lou being abandoned by Johnny (Johnny 99?), the death of Kyle William and the Groom being abandoned by his Bride. Even the abandonments are meted out equally, one to a man, one to a woman.

The first image, that of a man poking a dead dog with a stick, is shockingly graphic, especially considering the laconic, conversational tone of Bruce's voice. The surprising nature of this image is effective. It strips away any romanticism or idealism behind the search for faith. A man poking at a corpse in a ditch is not a philosopher nor a poet nor a priest. He is one individual faced with and puzzled by inevitability of death. His response is to attempt to understand what is in front of him with his only tool at hand, a stick. Presented so plainly, mankind's search for meaning is almost laughably inept.

The third image, that of the life and death of Kyle William, is equally powerful, if not as immediately shocking. Bruce sums up Kyle's entire life in a mere four lines, so quickly that it is easy to miss "what passes in between the second line and the third - between life and death - is an entire lifetime, that the baby dunked into the water and the old man flung into the earth are the same person." (Marsh, p. 373). This image also works to strip away the noise of everyday life, all those quotidian details that seem so pressing. Birth, sin and death are the most important matters in life, the only ones we pray that someone will "tell us what does it mean".

The second and fourth images of Reason to Believe illustrate love offered and rejected. Mary Lou loved her man so much she would work for him every day. The Groom loved his gal so much he would marry her, commit himself to her for everyone to see. Offering love, offering yourself to another is perhaps one of the greatest acts of faith a person is capable of. Opening up to another person in this way requires faith that the person you love is not only decent enough to treat you fairly, but also has enough love and goodness in them to share it with you. When the offer of love is sincere and public, as are the offers of Mary Lou and The Groom, they render the offerer pitifully vulnerable. When these offers of love are rejected, there is no way to take them back or to erase them from the community's memory. The broken heart must stand.

Proponents of the pessimistic reading of Reason to Believe say that the unexplained death and rejected love in the four verses indicate that the chorus of the song is a dark joke.

Struck me kind a funny, seem kind a funny, sir,
to me
Still at the end of every hard-earned day people
find some reason to believe

In Two Hearts Dave Marsh says reads the chorus as staring down "all of Bruce's Rock n' Roll idealism and mocks it's certainty" (Marsh, p. 372). He argues that if the chorus is an affirmation, it is an affirmation of nothingness, since each of the song's images offer no explanations and no hope. The possibility of redemption - the idea and magic behind so many of Bruce's earlier songs - is symbolized here by a dead dog. Stripped of its romanticism the ideas of redemption and rebirth are ridiculous, bizarre and foolhardy. Faith in your fellow man is symbolized by the love offered by Mary Lou and The Groom, both of whom are burned for believing that this world and the people in it will treat them decently. They are wounded and publicly humiliated for believing that love is possible. In the pessimistic read of this song there is no reason to believe. For the lost souls of Nebraska "it's all over but the shrouding" (Marsh, p. 370).

The optimistic reading of Reason to Believe takes the chorus at its word and believes that it is an affirmation of mankind's relentless ability to find hope where there seems to be none. True, the four images in the song are dark and bleak, but they still embody faith. The man with the dog is still trying to understand death. He hasn't given up his search. The congregation at the graveyard is mourning the death of Kyle, but they are still asking for answers, praying and trying to figure out what is all means. Even the rejected lovers still believe that they will have love again. They haven't left the driveway or the riverside. They are keeping themselves open to the possibility that they can have their desires satisfied in this life. No one in this song has given up or accepted the nihilistic conclusion that life is pointless. The characters in this song still have clear dreams and desires.

These personal, improbable hopes are, in fact, what defines the characters in Reason to Believe. Of the seven characters mentioned in the song (man, dog, Mary Lou, Johnny,Kyle, congregation, groom, preacher, bride) Bruce gives only three of them proper names and gives none of them physical or social features like descriptions of their looks, their jobs, their cars or their homes. Four of the characters, - the man, the groom, the preacher and the bride - are almost archetypal in their simplicity. They could be anyone, even you at some point in your life. Springsteen's thrift with detail in this song points us to what is most important in it: that each character still possesses and is defined by their belief.