Nebraska ‘82: Expanded Edition

Welcome to Nebraska ‘82: Expanded Edition release day!

We’ve already covered the myth of Electric Nebraska and the live Nebraska film, so now let’s do a deeper dive into the outtakes discs before getting into an overall discussion about the set as a whole.

Nebraska Outtakes

I'd love to know more about the decisions behind what they decided was a Nebraska outtake and what wasn't. The one track that's in a gray area for me is "Johnny Bye-Bye." I know it was on Tracks and Tracks II but it's part of this story, and there's a version that was recorded at the Power Station in April 1982.

The blurriness of these borders points to 1) the need for liner notes and 2) supports the existence of a larger box set that encompasses the entire Nebraska and BITUSA era.

“Born in the USA”

Of course, we know this arrangement already from Tracks. But I think it's worth mentioning that there’s a connection between the delivery and attitude of some of the tracks from this time period - BITUSA, the breakneck “Downbound Train,” and “On the Prowl” (later “Downbound Train”), all of which reinforce the “‘State Trooper’ borrowed from Suicide” theory . We know that Bruce was paying attention to what was going on downtown. We know he drank vodka with Alan Vega in the men’s room at the Power Station. We know he hung out with Patti Smith. We know about his cameo on “Street Hassle.” We know he wrote a song for the Ramones. At the first Springsteen symposium back in 2005, I presented a paper on “Bruce Springsteen and Punk Rock” and the one question I kept being asked was why you couldn’t hear the punk influence within his music. Here you go! 

“Losin’ Kind”

This is essentially a forerunner to “Highway 29,” and it’s an interesting example of where he’s got the thread of an idea and he’s trying to manifest it, but hasn’t quite shaped it enough. The striking elements in both songs are the small details and the specificity of them, but in “Losin’ Kind” they’re more pedestrian than how they get presented in “Highway 29”. The story here is also almost too linear, except when they go to the motel and then go commit the crime, which kind of doesn’t make sense. “Highway 29” is more impressionistic -- that last verse about the accident is just stunning -- while still highlighting the small details, with the added bonus that the narrator is less in denial. In “Losin’ Kind” he survives; in “Highway 29” you’re not entirely sure, and while it’s not as neat of an ending, the ambiguity gives the listener more to think about. It lingers.

“Downbound Train”

It’s kind of amazing that this version went from this breathless, urgent, punk-rock-adjacent reading into the forlorn, heartbreaking BITUSA rendition. The reason that it doesn’t work is that it doesn’t match the emotion of the lyrics. It’s clear that the narrator is agitated but we don’t believe him, nor do we actually understand why, because there’s no emotion behind it.

Compare that to how every time I hear this song live it breaks my fucking heart, even in the middle of another unannounced “surprise” full-album show, “Downbound Train” is always a highlight in its current form. In this form, we would have already forgotten it existed, because you don’t feel anything in either version, except maybe annoyed.

“Child Bride”

He took the best parts of this song and flipped it around into “Workin’ On The Highway,” which was the correct decision, because in its current form, it’s both gross (jokes about the Mann Act and jailbait were never funny) and uninteresting. 

“Pink Cadillac”

Amazed that they didn’t try this in the Electric Nebraska sessions. This is just a wasted opportunity in this form.

“The Big Payback”

We already know this one as a b-side or as a track on Essential. Yet another song about a man doing manual labor before turning to crime, executed with a little more oomph. According to the notes for Essential, though, this was recorded after Nebraska. (I did not get access to any kind of liner notes with the advance so this may get updated once my [purchased] box set arrives.)

“Working on the Highway”

The minimalist intro, which is just Bruce, a harmonica, and light percussion on the body of the acoustic, is fantastic. The rest of the song is the same song we already know and…tolerate? It’s fine. But it definitely did not fit into the world of Nebraska.

“On the Prowl”

For an explanation of this track, the precursor to “Downbound Train,” let’s go to none other than the late Holly Cara Price, reporting for Backstreets from a Beaver Brown show at Big Man’s West on August 7, 1982:

“Tonight he might have surpassed any other small club appearance with two of the songs, “Lucille” and “Twist and Shout.” In the middle of “Lucille” he brought the band down and proceeded to close his eyes and relate a dream landscape in which he goes looking for his wild child but he can’t find her. It built in intensity until he finally plunged back into the song—this interlude soon grew into a whole song, “On the Prowl,’ on October 3.”