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Bruce Springsteen - Volume 01 - Alone in Colts Neck - The Complete Nebraska Session1. Nebraska2. Atlantic City3. Mansion on the Hill4. Born in the USA5. Johnny 996. Downbound Train7. Losin' Kind8. State Trooper9. Used Cars10. Open All Night11. Pink Cadillac12. Deputy Later retitled "Highway Patrolman"13. Reason to Believe14. Child Bride Later retitled "Working on the Highway"Bonus Tracks15. Dream Baby (Roy Orbison)16. Precious Memories (J.B.F. Wright)17. Nebraska #118. Nebraska #2Bruce Springsteen, early 80's, from the Dave Marsh book "Glory Days":"...That's one of the most dangerous things, I think - isolation. "Nebraska" was about that American isolation:what happens to people when they're alienated from their friends and their community and their government and their job.Because those are the things that keep you sane, that give meaning to life. And if they slip away,and you start to exist in some void where the basic constraints of society are a joke,then life becomes a kind of joke. And anything can happen.""...I told Mike Batlan, the guy that does my guitars, 'Mike, go get a tape player so I can record these songs.'I figured what takes me so long in the studio is not having the songs wntten.So I said, I'm gonna write 'em and I'm gonna tape 'em.If I can make 'em sound good with just me, then I know they'll be fine... ""....So this time I got a little Teac 4-track cassette machine and I said,"I'm gonna record these songs and if they sound good with just me doing 'em,then I'll teach 'em to the band." I could sing and play the guitar, and then I had two tracks to do something else,like overdub a guitar or add a harmony. It was just gonna be a demo.Then I had an old beat-up Echoplex that I mixed through, and that was all.It was real old, which was why the sound was kinda deep.""And so, that was the idea. I got this little cassette recorder, plugged it in, turned it on,and the first song I did was 'Nebraska.' I just kinda sat thereyou can hear the chair creaking on 'Highway Patrolman' in particular.I RECORDED THEM IN A COUPLE OF DAYS. Some songs I only did once, like 'Highway Patrolman.' THE OTHER SONGS I DID MAYBE TWO TIMES, THREE TIMES AT THE MOST.""I put the tape in my pocket, carried it around a couple of weeks, 'cause I was gonna teach the songs to the band.After a couple of days, I looked at the thing and said, 'Uh oh, I'd better stop carrying this around like this.Can somebody make a copy of this?'"Bruce made the tape on January 3, 1982, and mixed it over the next few days. First to hear it was Jon Landau."He came up to the office one day - he'd let me know he was gonna have something -and he gave me a notebook and a cassette," Landau remembers. And it was all the 'Nebraska' songs,except for 'My Father's House.' And the tape had many other 'Nebraska'-style songs, performed in the 'Nebraska'-style.There were versions of 'Downbound Train,' 'Born in the USA,' and, I think, 'Working on the Highway' ('Child Bride').But basically, it was the 'Nebraska' album and other 'Nebraska'-style songs. That's what he presented to me at that time,with this notebook, saying, in effect, 'Here it is here's where I'm going with the next album.'"The tape described above is what you now hold in your hands, the original first incarnation of "Nebraska".As we all know, some of the songs were cast adrift and later electrified for the "Born in the USA" album("Born in the USA" and "Downbound Train"), released as B- sides ("Pink Cadillac")or evolved into something entirely different ("Child Bride" into "Working on the Highway").Only one has remained completely unreleased to this day, that being "Losin' Kind."The bonus tracks are released here for the first time anywhere - amazingly, the Roy Orbison classic "Dream Baby",two short practice takes of "Nebraska" and, oddly enough, an old composition by J.B.F. Wright called "Precious Memories"(Bob Dylan covered this on his "Knocked Out Loaded" album, and J.J. Gale has also recorded it).We feel that the sound Bruce describes as "kinda deep" is more honestly captured on this original tape but, of course,we'll let you decide for yourselves.One issue we feel needs to be brought up: Bruce himself says the songs were recorded in a couple of days.Marsh says that Bruce "made the tape on January 3, 1982, and mixed it over the next couple of days".Is it possible Bruce recorded the songs some days prior to Jan 3, 1982,and on that date he simply compiled the tape?We know that he recorded several takes of some songs because he says so himself,as does Chuck Plotkin. From "Glory Days" again - "Plotkin checked into the Molly Pitcher Inn in Red Bank (May 1982-ed),in order to be near the rehearsals. Exhausted, he slept for three days. Refreshed,he began listening to a cassette copy of Bruce's original demo tape.'I got ahold of these tapes and I was transfixed. They were Bruce's original home mixes of the demoshe'd do three or four different mixes of a thing and they were all on the cassette.The first thing I heard was four renditions in a row of the song "Nebraska."Evidently, there was only a cassette (singular) original demo tape, presumably 90 minutes,which contained 4 takes of "Nebraska", the songs you have here and perhaps multiple versionsof several other songs on the tape. Logically, this would mean that Bruce edited the original tape down.What remains a mystery is what other 'Nebraska" tunes were recorded multiple times?On what dates did Bruce actually record the songs, as he himself said they were recorded in a couple of days?Was January 3, 1982 simply the date he compiled the tape?Another question arises about when Bruce actually started writing the Nebraska material.It has been suggested that Bruce wrote "Mansion on the Hill" backstage during the European Tour in 81.It is also a fact that he at least partially wrote "Open All Night" in late 1980,as during one of the Madison Square Garden shows of December 1980 he changed key in the middle of"Ramrod" and sang 2 lines from it right before the final guitar solos.These facts confuse things even further as to the actual "beginning" of the Nebraska materialand lend an air of mystery to the entire project. Chances are the answers to these and otherquestions surrounding the Nebraska "sessions" will always remain a mystery.
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