Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska

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Brilliant reading . . . For fans of American music, Deliver Me from Nowhere makes a great ghost story.”— The Boston Globe Finally, last month, homeowners in Long Branch, 30 miles south of New York, phoned the authorities when they noticed a scruffy figure ambling along a residential street and entering the yard of an up-­for-­sale house.

Deliver Me from Nowhere by Warren Zanes is a fascinating look at both this superb album and the creative process in general, with plenty of input from Springsteen himself. Where your father’s there, but he’s got no interest in you. If you’ve experienced abandonment, endings are really hard. Zanes considers “Nebraska” the way an art buyer might study a sculpture for sale — he eyes it from every angle, researches its creator, delves into the culture and the politics of when the piece was made.Spears’ vulnerability shines through as she describes her painful journey from vulnerable girl to empowered woman. What a talent, what a career, what a life, and what a treat to relive it all with this most down-to-earth of demigods.

The best part of the book is the closeness the author gets to Springsteen, (he was on board from the start ) they both eventually revisit t the rented house bedroom where the album was recored. While Deliver Me From Nowhere can function as a remembrance of the 1982 album Nebraska , I would gently remind the reader that this is but a tiny droplet in the tsunami of humanity that Bruce Springsteen was swimming with before, during, and after its release.You can waste your access by protecting your subject or trying to get too pretty. Warren Zanes does neither. He honors the access he gets to all of his central characters. If you’re a writer, his gift will make you jealous. But not jealous enough to stop reading. This is the Springsteen book we’ve been waiting for.” —Geoff Edgers, national arts reporter for The Washington Post and author of Walk This Way: Run-DMC, Aerosmith, and the Song that Changed American Music Forever

Here’s the fun part. As Springsteen wrote and recorded the songs, one after another, right there in the master bedroom of the house he was renting, he didn’t worry about any of the finer points of recording, because these were essentially supposed to be demos. For musicians that don’t read or write music in the formal manner, the demos are critical. How will you remember the song you came up with when it’s time to put the album together? You need a recording. So there was Bruce, perched on the end of the bed, with the water damaged Panasonic boom box nearby. He pops in a cassette and commences recording. He writes prolifically, practically vomiting up song, after song, after song. Sometimes you can’t feel better until you get it all out of your system, right? Bruce Springsteen Live in Edinburgh! The E Street Band make a triumphant return to the Scottish capital after 42 years, MOJO bears witness... I don't know...but this book just gifted me a new perspective, a new appreciation, and a renewed love for the Bruce who is a simple peasant in king's clothing (and I mean that in the nicest possible way---I admire that about him). To know the space he was in when Nebraska was produced, to know his heart and the place this one has in it....well, it is the diamond in the rough of his life. Zanes doesn’t just give us just the story of the record, or rather demo, but the story behind the inspirations behind it. Starkweather, Badlands, Robert Frank’s photography, etc. It gives a lot of info, but I’d still like to know why there’s extra synth on a Japanese release. I also wish there was a little more about the impact that record has had, especially on indie artists. I think Nebraska might be Springsteen’s most covered album. Not just songs from it, but the whole thing. And as much as people would want to hear the E Street Band version of the album, I think what became of the song “Born in the USA” from its Nebraska “sessions” demo to the overproduced mid-80s version tells me enough. Thankfully, the Boss saw where to stop with the other songs. Springsteen has lived with the joy and burden of people wanting his time. The intimacy of the music brings something out in people. He’s probably had to scrape off hundreds of us just to stay on schedule. But that day I was his guest, and he was as good a host as I could ask for. He got me water to drink and then asked if I needed more. Later in the afternoon he wondered if coffee was a good idea. I was at the family house and—as I think we both understood—his responsibility. Any mess I made he’d have to clean up.Maybe I was just in my own struggle, in my own head, and doing what I needed to get to the other side. It sounds like this was cathartic for you.