4xLP WITH BLU-RAY

Bruce Springsteen is an artist who clearly values capturing the ideal moment for a song, even if it takes him months or years to find it, and in a roundabout way 1982's Nebraska is his greatest example of this philosophy. He had recorded a batch of acoustic demos on a four-track cassette machine at his home, planning to hand them over to his band as a first draft for his next studio effort (which would eventually become 1984's Born in the U.S.A.). After several attempts to record full-band versions of the songs, he realized he was incapable of recapturing the dark, slightly unsettling power of his cassette demos, and chose instead to release them in their original form, mastered from a mix-down tape made on a boom box. Springsteen began exploring the underside of the American Dream on 1978's Darkness on the Edge of Town and 1980's The River, and Nebraska took this storytelling from a gloomy twilight to the forbidding darkness of a moonless night. Nebraska's tales of crime, murder, desperation, and grim consequence took the themes of his previous two albums to their logical conclusions while filling them with a dread and grim poetry that was utterly unforced and all the more powerful for it. Though the occasional bits of repeated lyrics and similar melodies give away the fact this was not meant to be the final form for these songs, they make absolute sense for the characters, who speak with a minimalist eloquence about lives gone or going wrong and the forces outside their grasp that led them there. Nebraska is not an album without hope, but these songs come from a place where no one has any illusions about the odds stacked against them, and the finale, "Reason to Believe," speaks of the need to move forward while knowing what they may find might be even worse than where they are. Born in the U.S.A. would build on many of the same ideas in a less extreme and more artful presentation, yet Nebraska was the purest expression of the bleak core of Springsteen's songwriting, and it remains one of his most affecting works.

[In 2025, Springsteen issued Nebraska '82, an expanded edition of the album that, among other things, featured the first non-bootleg release of the scrapped electric versions of several of Nebraska's songs. While fans will be thrilled to finally hear these tracks, the minimalist arrangements of "Nebraska" and "Mansion on the Hill" are fine but ultimately inferior attempts to build on the gloomy brilliance of the demos, and while the hard crack of "Atlantic City" and "Open All Night" are effective, the best of the electric tracks are songs that didn't appear on Nebraska, hard-edged early drafts of "Born in the U.S.A." and "Downbound Train." The set also includes a disc of acoustic demos that mimic the sound of Nebraska but for the most part capture songs that were still finding their way, and a latter-day live recording of Springsteen performing Nebraska's songs in a solo acoustic presentation. Ultimately, Nebraska '82 shows Springsteen's instinct to release the original cassette demos was the right choice, though this set is a fascinating and often impressive study of how it came to be.]

Nebraska Outtakes 
A1 Born In The U.S.A. 3:11
A2 Losin' Kind 5:00
A3 Downbound Train 2:33
A4 Child Bride 5:32
B1 Pink Cadillac 4:33
B2 The Big Payback 1:59
B3 Working On The Highway 3:21
B4 On The Prowl 2:59
B5 Gun In Every Home 2:30
Electric Nebraska 
C1 Nebraska 4:45
C2 Atlantic City 4:47
C3 Mansion On The Hill 4:13
C4 Johnny 99 4:10
D1 Downbound Train 2:23
D2 Open All Night 3:17
D3 Born In The U.S.A. 3:31
D4 Reason To Believe 3:37
Nebraska (Count Basie Theatre, Red Bank, NJ) 
E1 Nebraska 4:28
E2 Atlantic City 4:01
E3 Mansion On The Hill 3:56
E4 Johnny 99 4:12
E5 Highway Patrolman 4:47
F1 State Trooper 3:02
F2 Used Cars 3:13
F3 Open All Night 3:11
F4 My Father's House 5:14
F5 Reason To Believe 4:06
2025 Remaster 
G1 Nebraska 4:32
G2 Atlantic City 4:00
G3 Mansion On The Hill 4:09
G4 Johnny 99 3:43
G5 Highway Patrolman 5:36
H1 State Trooper 3:17
H2 Used Cars 3:11
H3 Open All Night 2:58
H4 My Father's House 5:07
H5 Reason To Believe 3:11
Nebraska (Count Basie Theatre, Red Bank, NJ) 
BD-1 Nebraska
BD-2 Atlantic City
BD-3 Mansion On The Hill
BD-4 Johnny 99
BD-5 Highway Patrolman
BD-6 State Trooper
BD-7 Used Cars
BD-8 Open All Night
BD-9 My Father's House
BD-10 Reason To Believe