46th.... "Long distance salvation"

Nebraska.

This is dangerous music. 3 A.M. music. It is among the darkest, most haunting material I've heard, ranking with up there with Berlin and Pink Moon. It is not suited to casual listening - it's stark, makes no compromises and is uncomfortable to hear. It's also shockingly good.

Consider the facts: Bruce Springsteen in 1982 was a major phenomenon, an American rock and roller, a talented songwriter and lyricist, ambitious enough to tackle the "concept album" with Born to Run, and popular enough to be seized by the media as the latest hype.

He also scored major production values. Then along came Nebraska. Bruce had a 4 track cassette recorder and busily made the demos for his next album. He'd play guitar and harmonica, like the Dylan of old, livening it up with organ, mandolin, glockenspiel, tambourine and some well placed Echoplex. The sound was classic American folk, describing and protesting the hardscrabble lives of ordinary working class men, though cast in an almost unrelieved gloom.

Well, Bruce tried to develop the songs with his E Street Band in the studio, but the result just didn't seem right. He re-recorded the songs solo, but that didn't work either. The magic was on the original cassette; so started the hard work of cleaning up the tape and releasing Nebraska on vinyl.

It still sounds like a demo on CD, but don't worry about the sound quality - there's no distracting tape hiss or crackle and if it sounds a little obscure or rough at the edges, that is its glory. It is a demo. The music has nowhere to hide and neither do you.

With a tired out harmonica and exhausted voice, the album starts somber and unhurried. Nebraska is based on the true killer Charles Starkweather, who took his fourteen year old girlfriend with him on a killing spree. Asked why he did it, on his way to the electric chair, he says "I guess there's just a meanness in this world." Glockenspiel carefully steps into play, staying a respectful distance from the mike. It's not meant as a macabre song. It's simply honest.

Atlantic City is the vision of a confused young man watching the violence and chaos of the world and struggling to stay ahead of it, out of it, beyond it. Eventually, however, he can't get by honestly anymore... The pace quickens for this song, and Bruce sings his own backups in harried fashion, flubbing the chorus at the last second, giving a sense of urgency and messiness to proceedings.

Mansion on the Hill is a soft spoken childhood memory of a beautiful house overlooking a small town. But while the children can play in the road and listen to the music from the parties, the mansion's gates remain ever closed. Despite the evocation of class differences, the memory is peaceful rather than bitter and it makes for a necessary interlude.

Johnny 99 is a rarity on Nebraska, a rock song. As the story of a desperately poor man sentenced to 99 years in prison, it calls for immediate comparison with Dylan's protest ballads, against which it can hold its own as an excellent song. Oddly, by repeating a line from Atlantic City: "I had debts that no honest man could pay..." it invites other comparisons as a sequel to or companion piece - proof of how common the situation is.

Highway Patrolman is the story of Joe Roberts, an honest man struggling with the economy and his no-good brother Franky, trying to keep him in line and when he fails, having at last to choose between family and the state.... With quiet dignity, the story is told and it makes an unforgettable highlight.

However, it's why I call Nebraska 3 A.M. music. Its atmosphere is all pervasive in the nighttime and you may find yourself questioning the validity of life to music like this. State Trooper is an echo-laden meditation, driven by one endless, simple rhythm. The power it derives comes from the poetic vision of driving at night and by an almost suicidal fear creeping into the last lines. "Hey, somebody out there/listen to my last prayer/hi ho, silver-o/deliver me from nowhere," before vanishing in a beautiful but lunatic howl....

Used Cars is another childhood memory, far more bitter, as the boy (maybe the same one, who knows?) remembers the humiliation of his father buying a used car, though he "sweats the same job from mornin' to morn." The bitterness seems trivial by itself, but surrounded by the adult cast of Nebraska, this childish resentment is no relief.

Perhaps it all got a bit much for Bruce, since he threw in a rewritten State Trooper as the Chuck Berry car trouble tune Open All Night. The effect is delightful, as imagery from the former song indicate it's the same New Jersey turnpike seen from very different eyes, with plenty of new images to keep things interesting. Instead of howling, it ends with scat singing. Maybe Bruce had a sense of humour. I lifted this review's title from the lyric: "lost souls callin' long distance salvation."

My Father's House takes in a final child perspective, as a nightmare turns to comfort, a real life turns to failure and things which should have been resolved are left undone. It's about as sober and haunting as it sounds.

Reason to Believe seems to be attempting to sum up the album. The characters continue to suffer through their hard lives by futilely finding something to believe in - just to get them through another day. It's a dismal but honest ending that sits just as uncomfortably in the listener's mind as the first song did.

I can't compare Nebraska to any other Bruce Springsteen album, as I haven't heard any. It demands to be heard at night, preferably with lights out. In that way its true companions can be found among such disparate CDs as Berlin and Songs from a Room; The Idiot and The Boatman's Call; not to mention Tom Waits' early works. However, to listen to such songs in their element is to be absorbed in their moods, so proceed with caution. If you're not prepared, you'll be left devestated rather than in catharsis. Naturally, I recommend it highly.