Bruce Springsteen took a trip down memory lane on CBS Sunday Morning and reflected on a moment in his career that he considers a “turning point.” The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer returned to Colts Neck, New Jersey, where he penned his 1982 record, Nebraska.
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With an acoustic guitar in hand, Springsteen brought CBS correspondent Jim Axelrod into a rundown bedroom, including the same orange shag run and bed it had 40 years ago. The singer recorded the collection on a 4-track cassette recorder between the four walls.
“If I had to pick one album out and say, ‘This is going to represent you 50 years from now,’ I’d pick Nebraska,” said Springsteen.
Springsteen considers the 10-track collection a “masterpiece.” While writing the eye-opening project nearly 41 years ago, Springsteen said he recognized his struggle with mental health.
“I just hit some sort of personal wall that I didn’t even know was there,” he explained. “It was my first real major depression where I realized, ‘Oh, I gotta do something about it.’”
The internal battle came on the heels of his triumphant tour for The River record, which includes his first Top 10 hit, “Hungry Heart.” Springsteen was 32-years-old at the time and was at the peak of his rock star career, surrounded by success. Once he took a step back to analyze his personal life, he saw a handful of desires that hadn’t been fulfilled.
“I think in your 20s, a lot of things work for you. Your 30s is where you start to become an adult,” he told the outlet. “Suddenly, I looked around and said, ‘Where is everything? Where is my home? Where is my partner? Where are the sons and daughters that I thought I might have someday? And I realized none of those things are there. So, I said, ‘Ok, the first thing I gotta do as soon as I get home is remind myself of who I am and where I came from.’”
The singer/songwriter did exactly that. He placed pen to paper to find himself again after being isolated from reality. While tucked away in his New Jersey farmhouse, he turned his negative emotions into a positive.
“This is all inside of me,” shared the vocalist. “You can either take it and transform it into something positive, or it can destroy you.”
The sixth studio album fascinated Warren Zanes, the author behind the new book, Deliver Me From Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Nebraska.’ The novelist pointed out that Springsteen came from a low-income family and had a lonely childhood.
“He felt that his past was making his present complicated, and he wanted to be freed of it,” clarified Zanes in the televised segment.
The “Atlantic City” singer and author flipped through old notebooks, evaluating the original lyrics of some of his biggest hits. However, he said that the album did not come to fruition until he stumbled across Bandlands on television, a Terence Malick film about a Nebraska killer named Charles Starkweather.
“I actually called the reporter who reported on that story in Nebraska, and amazingly enough, she was still at the newspaper,” said Springsteen. “She was a lovely woman, and we talked for a half hour or so. It just sort of focused me on the feeling of what I wanted to write about.”
The track list includes “State Trooper,” “Highway Patrolman,” “Reason to Believe,” “Johnny 99,” and many more. While several songs explored the unanswered questions from his upbringing, others described how it felt to be alienated as an adult.
“’Mansion on the Hill,’ ‘My Father’s House,’ ‘Used Cars,’ they’re all written from kids’ perspectives. Children trying to make sense of the world that they were born into,” he added.
“I knew what the ‘Nebraska’ record was,” he added. “It was also a signal that I was sending that, ‘I’ve had some success, but I do what I want to do. I make the records I wanna make. I’m trying to tell a bigger story, and that’s the job that I’m trying to do for you.’”
Springsteen is currently on a world tour with the E Street Band, performing tracks from the stripped-down collection. The hardcover Deliver Me From Nowhere: The making of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Nebraska’ will be available for purchase on May 2.
(Photo Credit: Rob DeMartin / Courtesy of Shore Fire Media)
