UKH

Hard to believe it's nearly 40 years since its release. A dark and moody album that is raw and cold and holds a mirror up to the American dream and suggests it is perhaps a little broken.

I had "The River" and loved it and then this came out and, ironically, my then American girlfriend bought it for me (I was living in Aberystwyth at the time and I was 18 yrs old).

The lyrics of many of the songs have remained with me since and I can play 3 of the songs from memory on guitar (Nebraska, Highway Patrol Man and Used Car).

The front cover remains, for me, one of the most iconic images of the US, bleak and stark and Springsteen has remained the voice of Blue Collar America.

Its not for everyone, I get that, but for those that understand, it might be one of THE most honest albums of the 20th century.

What, 40 years? Man, do you make me feel old!

I bought the album on vinyl when it first came out, but have not listened to it in years as I no longer own a record player. Guess I should order the CD today, it was my favourite Springsteen album when I was younger.

CB

Well now everything dies baby that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty
And meet me tonight in Atlantic City.....
 

It was the first song I thought of when I read the OP.

Great album. Band called the Cash Brothers did a nice song about somebody driving around and listening to it.

youtube.com/watch?v=Pycuwh1p4oo&

They declared me unfit to live/said into that great void my soul'd be hurled/they wanted to know why I did what I did/well sir I guess there's just a meanness in this world

That's always stuck with me just as much as anything from Dostoevsky or Camus. And Bruce was much better than them live. In fact, he gave the best rock concert I've ever seen, at Hammersmith Odeon in 1975.

"If you can take a man's life for the thoughts that are in his head"

So many observations on life's darker aspects.

I remember Springsteen being asked about another band's work with the suggestion that they were too dark and he just laughed. He said "I got my own darkness going on"

Possibly my favourite Springsteen album and has been from the first listening, though not typical from him and overlooked by most. Blimey 40 years, where did they go?

Thanks for reminding me to put the vinyl on tomorrow.

the story of how it was recorded and mixed down to boom box that had gone overboard from a canoe and was hosed down and left to dry out...

https://tascam.com/us/support/news/481

An amazing piece of music history. Thanks for sharing!! 

Simply the best Springsteen album ever. Perhaps the best album to come out of the states.  Forty years, start to feel old. 

 A write up of the song Atlantic City. Courtesy of genius.com.

Atlantic City is perhaps one of Springsteen’s most dour songs. It depicts a young couple’s romantic escape to the New Jersey seaside resort of Atlantic City, where the man in the relationship intends to take a job in organized crime upon arriving in the city.

The song wrestles with the inevitability of death and the hope of rebirth in various ways, especially in life and in the actual city of Atlantic City, which was going through an attempted mob takeover while the state government was trying to implement casino gambling within the city.

Atlantic City started as a demo recorded in early 1981 at Springsteen’s home studio at Colts Neck, NJ called “Fistfull of Dollars” (for the Clint Eastwood movie). He changed the title and the chorus to “Atlantic City” later that year, and on January 3. 1982, recorded several takes, along with other “Nebraska” demos that later made up the album of the same name. Take 3 was the one chosen for the album, released in fall 1982.