Everyone knows Bruce Springsteen’s 1982 album Nebraska is not a set of 10 separate stories taking place in an elaborately inter-related and overlapping shared universe.
What this article pre-supposes is…maybe it is?
Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska is America in 1982.
It is an America of ghosts and blurred borders. An America where blue collar bewilderment is such a universal experience that it literally brings people together.
An America where space folds onto itself, where the shared working class experience physically pulls places together, putting Perrinville, NJ next to the Canadian border as a Highway Patrolman chases his brother out of the country.
From Bruce’s mystical use of geography we feel in our bones an America united, yet fractured; that New Jersey is Nebraska is Wyoming is Ohio, even if that which bonds us so tightly is our own desperation and despair, our shared, broken American dream. In Nebraska we see America: in constant, violent conflict with the individuality it breeds in its men.
Nebraska is a haunting work of acoustic folk-rock Americana. It’s been carved into stone on the Halls of Rock, it has been decreed a classic, and for good cause.
But what if you found the album 36 years later and have no one to talk to about it? What if it stirred something deep in your core being and that forever forth your life was divided into a “before” and “after” defined by it’s discovery?
Are you just supposed to leave it at, “great album” on the off chance you find a way to worm it into happy hour conversation? No.
You think about it for weeks and create a connected story line between all the characters before realizing you might be going crazy. Or not. Maybe this shared universe makes more sense than a lot of the things I’ve written about.
Like any universe Nebraska is hard to capture, hard to fit in one snapshot. It took Bruce an entire album, and like the best albums, it’s still foggy at the edges: there are decisions left to us. There is innuendo and impressionism just as much as there is stark realness and strong verbs.
With that in mind, the pieces of this article are overlapping and incongruous, at times a bit redundant, just like the universe of Nebraska. A universe that is America in 1982. And isn’t.
There will be words, maps, lists, and tables. So, so many tables. As I mentioned, universes are hard to capture.
The 5 Main Characters
First of all, Nebraska revolves around 5 characters and a narrator.
This is probably bullshit, but it’s a lot more fun to think of it as, hear me out, not bullshit.
Those 5 are,
- Johnny 99
- The Night Shift Worker
- Joe Roberts, Sherriff
- A Serial Killer, the likes of In Cold Blood
- Bruce Springsteen, as himself
- Narrator
There is no lyric explicitly telling us that Johnny 99 is the character in “Atlantic City”. There’s nothing that says Sheriff Joe Roberts or The Nightshift Worker ever cross paths, or that they even exist in more than one song.
Or is there?
Does Bruce repeat key lyrics?
Key lyrics that secretly point listeners towards a deeper, wider connection across Nebraska?
Maybe not.
But why pass up an opportunity to have all the fun of a conspiracy theory with none of the guilt?
This initial table (one of so, so many) will make more sense as the connections between the characters are explained further down, but needs to appear ahead of those connections for reference.
| Song | Song Name | Character |
| 1 | Nebraska | Serial Killer |
| 2 | Atlantic City | Johnny 99 |
| 3 | Johnny 99 | Johnny 99 |
| 4 | Mansion on the Hill | Bruce |
| 5 | Highway Patrolman | Joe Roberts |
| 6 | State Trooper | Nightshift Worker & Joe Roberts |
| 7 | Used Cars | Bruce |
| 8 | Open All Night | Nightshift Worker & Joe Roberts |
| 9 | My Father’s House | Bruce |
| 10 | Reason To Believe | Narrator |
Bruce, (we’re on a first name basis) repeats phrases across several songs throughout Nebraska. Maybe because he didn’t think he was recording an album, but rather, just demos, on his 4-track recorder, in his bedroom.
Yet when the band went to record the album, they couldn’t capture the magic of those 4-tracks with the live band and Nebraska was released as we hear it today.
Maybe Bruce sabotaged the Nebraska live band recording sessions just so he could keep his sneaky little secret lyrics on record.
Connection #1: Johnny 99
Johnny 99 is the guy in Atlantic City.
| Lyric | Song |
| Now judge judge I had debts no honest man could pay | Johnny 99 |
| Well I got a job and tried to put my money away But I got debts that no honest man can pay | Atlantic City |
On first listen, Johnny 99 couldn’t seem further from sad-“Atlantic City” guy who sadly tells his girl to put her (probably, really sad looking) make up on.
Johnny 99 is fun! He gets arrested to upbeat, strumming guitar!
“Atlantic City” guy has to take a bus from Philadelphia. No one wants to be Atlantic City guy. Especially not “Atlantic City” guy himself.
That’s because he’s also Johnny 99
Johnny 99 is who Atlantic City guy wants everyone to think he is.
Proof: Both men have “debts that no honest man can pay” and they say so.
What if Johnny 99 was being himself in the song “Atlantic City”?
What if “Atlantic City” is the story, from Johnny 99’s perspective, before he commits the crime that gets him 99 years. You know, the crime-favor he tells us about when he says “I talked to a man last night and I’m gonna do a little favor for him”?
That would mean “Johnny 99” is the way Atlantic City guy explains his crime to all his cellmates.
I mean, it’s undeniable, that the howl in the opening of “Johnny 99” is the howl of a hurt man intent on hiding his hurt, and projecting his most wild-eyed self as far as he can, before the notes crack and his facade crumbles.
Atlantic City Guy is who Johnny 99 really is when he’s alone with his woman and his doubts, and Johnny 99 Guy is who he is around everyone he’s trying to impress, and/or on trucker speed.
Ah yes, trucker speed, another theme of Nebraska, and 1982 America.
Connection #2: The Trooper
Sheriff Joe Roberts is the State Trooper.
Sheriff Joe Roberts shows up across 3 songs in Nebraska arguably making him the most important character after Bruce himself.
#2a. We know Joe Roberts works for the State and State Troopers are in 3 songs.
| Lyric | Song |
| My name is Joe Roberts I work for the state | Highway Patrol Man |
| Underneath the overpass, trooper hits his party light switch | Open All Night |
| Mister state trooper, please don’t stop me | State Trooper |
#2b. We know North Jersey is the locale for this State Trooper
| Lyric | Song |
| My name is Joe Roberts I work for the state I’m a sergeant out of Perrineville Barracks #8 | Highway Patrol Man |
| Early north Jersey industrial skyline I’m a all-set cobra jet creepin’ through the nighttime | Open All Night |
| New Jersey Turnpike ridin’ on a wet night ‘neath the refinery’s glow | State Trooper |
Per Google: Perrineville is an unincorporated community located within Millstone Township in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States.
It’s just a half hour from the New Jersey Turnpike.
Sheriff Joe Roberts’ family had a farm until “wheat prices kept dropping til it was like we was getting robbed” and Roberts had to take “this job”.
He’s the ghost of rust belt perseverance. And despite law enforcement’s historic propensity for violence towards people of color, we only see Roberts trying to do right, whether it’s on the job,
I always done an honest job as honest as I could
Sheriff Joe Robert, as sung by Bruce Springsteen
Or, taking care of Franky, his messy brother.
We get the feeling Joe always had to look after Franky, but the war certainly didn’t help.
Now ever since we was young kids it’s been the same comedown
I get a call on the shortwave, Franky’s in trouble downtown
Well if it was any other man, I’d put him straight away
But when it’s your brother sometimes you look the other way
The ghosts of Vietnam are all over Nebraska.
Franky “came home in ’68” just as the family farm was failing and Joe had to hold it together, turning to the state for work, which is certainly a hit to the do-it-yourself pride we assume he has.
We’ll get to the elusive “Michigan County” chase scene but for now, let’s circle back to the Nightshift Worker.
Connection #3: The Nightshift Worker
Is he Franky? Is he Johnny 99? Is he just any nightshift, blue collar worker in America?
| Lyric | Song |
| In the wee wee hours your mind gets hazy radio relay towers, won’t you lead me to my baby? | Open All Night |
| In the wee wee hours your mind gets hazy, radio relay towers lead me to my baby | State Trooper |
| Radio’s jammed up with gospel stations | Open All Night |
| Radio’s jammed up with talk show stations | State Trooper |
While “State Trooper” is all about a State Trooper, the trooper is also mentioned in “Open All Night”, further codifying our Universe.
Underneath the overpass trooper hits his party light switch
“Open All Night”
The Nightshift Worker in “State Trooper” is paranoid, a man of few words, his verses sparse, his prayers simple: “please don’t stop me”.
He does not have license or registration. We do not know where he’s going to or from.
He may have been up before, but he’s certainly down now.
The Nightshift Worker in “Open All Night” is the hopped up, early-in-the-binge version.
Yes, what I’m presupposing is that this Nightshift Worker loves their car, enjoys their baby Wanda, and really enjoys getting high on trucker speed.
In “Open All Night” he’s wordy, mouthy, giving us specific detail after specific detail.
I had the carburetor cleaned and checked
“Open All Night”
With her line blown out she’s hummin’ like a turbojet
Propped her up in the backyard on concrete blocks
For a new clutch plate and a new set of shocks
Took her down to the carwash check the plugs and points
I’m goin’ out tonight I’m gonna rock that joint
Wow. We get it, you have a car. You’re a car guy.
You’re also the amped up guy at the party who is overbearing in conversation.
Across “Open All Night”‘s six wordy verses (“State Trooper” has three, short verses) we can see our night shift hero losing his grip, falling into the paranoia that will engulf his “State Trooper” self.
Verse 1
Took her down to the carwash check the plugs and points
I’m goin’ out tonight I’m gonna rock that joint
Verse 2
I’m a all set cobra jet creepin’ through the nighttime
Gotta find a gas station gotta find a payphone
This turnpike sure is spooky at night when you’re all alone
Verse 3
In the wee wee hours your mind gets hazy
Radio relay towers won’t you lead me to my baby
Verse 3 is also where we see the trooper turn on his sirens, as our hero is determined to outrun him, “one two powershift”.
Verse 5
5 A.M. oil pressure’s sinkin’ fast
I make a pit stop wipe the windshield check the gas
Verse 6
Your eyes get itchy in the wee wee hours
Sun’s just a red ball risin’ over them refinery towers
Radio’s jammed up with gospel stations
Lost souls callin’ long distance salvationHey Mr. DJ won’t ya hear my last prayer
Hey ho rock ‘n’ roll deliver me from nowhere
A Brief Aside for Radio Relay Towers
Now, initially I didn’t think much about the term “radio relay towers”.
I figured, of course, they’re towers that radio stations use to broadcast their signals.
But that word “relay” made me second guess.
And here is where I show my age.
Radio relay towers are, as Wired puts it, The Abandoned Microwave Towers That Once Linked the US.
AT&T MADE HISTORY 63 years ago when it launched the $40 million microwave radio-relay skyway, a network of 107 microwave towers designed to transmit telephone and television signals nationwide. The system took three years to build, and the first call was placed on August 17, 1951. But just as microwaves replaced wires, fiber optics eventually replaced microwaves, and AT&T’s giant towers were abandoned.
Wired
Radio relay towers used microwaves and line-of-sight to communicate. Their remnants are strung across America, like the so many forgotten factories, abandoned steel mills, and vacant towns that, in Springsteen’s Nebraska are still alive, but whose final days – from the haunting prayers of “State Trooper” to the somber laments of “Highway Patrolman” – we feel we are watching, as pryingly as Springsteen will allow.
Nebraska captured America at the end of the industrial revolution, where the coming information revolution, and the rise of industrialization – aka cheaper labor – in developing countries, would replace so many jobs, as fiber optic cables replaced so many, once helpful, radio relay towers.
False Geography
The amount of geography in Nebraska is staggering.
- Lincoln, Nebraska (“Nebraska”)
- The badlands of Wyoming (“Nebraska”)
- Philly (“Atlantic City”)
- Atlantic City, New Jersey (“Atlantic City”)
- Linden Town (in New Jersey, “Mansion On The Hill”)
- Mahwah (in New Jersey, “Johnny 99”)
- Perrineville (in New Jersey, “Highway Patrolman”)
- Michigan County (“Highway Patrolman”)
- New Jersey Turnpike (“State Trooper”)
- Michigan Avenue (“Used Cars”)
- North Jersey (“Open All Night”)
- Highway 31 (“Reason To Believe”)
Only one song (“My Father’s House”) doesn’t name a specific location, be they real or imagined.
And while we, predictably, are in New Jersey more than any part of America, the geography of Nebraska is at times, magically realistic.
“State Trooper” is the greatest example.
Wikipedia makes my point pretty well so I’ll just paste this:
The story is set in an area where one can drive into Canada – presumably Ohio due to the lyric “Seen a Buick with Ohio plates, behind the wheel was Frank”; however, Ohio and Canada are separated by Lake Erie
The lyrics say Joe is “a sergeant out of Perrineville.” The only American city with that name is Perrineville, New Jersey. There is, however, an unincorporated community called Perronville in Harris Township, Michigan.
While the lyrics state, “I must have done a hundred and ten through Michigan county that night,” there is no Michigan County anywhere in the United States.
The refrain mentions a song called “The Night of the Johnstown Flood,” but the tune is probably fictitious. In the years after the Springsteen song was released, several groups would record songs with that title. [1]
In “Highway Patrolman”, time and space collapse in on themselves. All of America is New Jersey, all of New Jersey is America.
Lady Liberty in 1982
If Nebraska is a reflection of America, 1982 it is reflection off of a muddy, drizzling North Jersey puddle.
The justice system is as much a part of that reflection as the men in Nebraska who keep coming into conflict with it.
Our Nebraskan anti-heros share with us our courtrooms, our bailiffs, our handcuffs, our executioner lines. We share with them this language of consequence.
And why not? Americans are the most incarcerated people in the world.
There are more than 10.35 million people incarcerated throughout the world with the most being in the United States–more than 2.2 million.
World Prison Population
American incarceration rates began to spike dramatically with Nixon’s war on drugs (along with other factors) whose impact became startlingly apparent right around 1980:
References to the American Judicial system occur in every one of the six songs that our three fictional main characters (Johnny 99, Joe Roberts, and The Nightshift Worker) inhabit.
| Judicial System Role | Lyric | Song |
| Bailiff | Before the bailiff comes to forever take you away | Johnny 99 |
| D.A. | Now there’s trouble busin’ in from outta state and the D.A. can’t get no relief | Atlantic City |
| Judge | …and the judge he sentenced me to death | Nebraska |
| Judge | A fistfight broke out in the courtroom they had to drag Johnny’s girl away His mama stood up and shouted “Judge don’t take my boy this way” | Johnny 99 |
| Judge | Then won’t you sit back in that chair and think it over judge one more time | Nebraska |
| State Trooper | Mister state trooper, please don’t stop me | State Trooper |
| Trooper | Underneath the overpass, trooper hits his party light switch | Out All Night |
| Sergeant | I’m a sergeant out of Perrineville barracks number 8 | Highway Patrolman |
| Off Duty Cop | When an off duty cop snuck up on him from behind | Johnny 99 |
| Jury | The jury brought in a guilty verdict and the judge he sentenced me to death | Nebraska |
| Execution | And let ’em shave off my hair and put me on that execution line You make sure my pretty baby is sittin’ right there on my lap | Nebraska |
| Sheriff | Sheriff when the man pulls that switch sir and snaps my poor head back | Nebraska |
The judicial system is where America – and Nebraska – deals with men’s problems, be they brought upon by lack of opportunity, mental illness, or self-destructive individuality.
In Nebraska no encounter with the judicial system is without violence (a fight break’s out in a courtroom on “Johnny 99”) and our very first song ends with an execution.
Speaking of which.
The Importance of The Serial Killer
In Cold Blood was released in 1965.
It’s hard now to understand how shocking the crime committed in 1959, and covered by Capote’s classic, was to it’s time.
I mean, I don’t understand it. I wasn’t alive then. But for some context, this is a world without the term Serial Killer.
By 1982 Truman Capote was “among a handful of authors who might be more famous than their actual work” as Letterman introduces him on his April 19, 1982 appearance.
“Nebraska”, the song that opens the album,
- and is the name sake of the album,
- and is told from the point of view of a serial killer
- and his young girlfriend/captive/co-conspirator
- who “went for a ride, and ten innocent people died”
feels like reading In Cold Blood.
It feels like the ending of No Country for Old Men: Tommy Lee Jones telling a story of a dream. A dream he’s not sure why he had, a story he’s not sure why he’s telling.
“Nebraska” probably feels like No Country For Old Men and In Cold Blood because it is a song based on the story of the Starkweather murders as depicted in Badlands, Terrence Malik’s debut film. A filmmaker often described as “moody” to say the least.
“Nebraska” is a song, about a film, based on a true story.
We know the song is based on Badlands specifically – and not just the murders in general – because, as pointed out on genius.com, Springsteen’s opening line (of the song and album) “is an exact description of the opening scene of Terrence Malick’s Badlands“.
There is no reason, satisfying to old souls, why young men commit the violence they do, with a senselessness that seems new, but perhaps, frighteningly ancient.
“Nebraska” casts a pall over the rest of Nebraska. Since it opens the album, every song after – also called, “the entire album” – takes on a new weight, an air more sinister.
We are not given the motives of Charles Raymond Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate, just as we are not told why the Nightshift Worker, in “State Trooper”, is so adamant about not being pulled over.
We are given the motives of the men in “Atlantic City” and “Johnny 99” (“I got debts no honest many can pay”), of Sergeant Joe Roberts (“turn your back on your family, well he just ain’t no good”), and of Bruce, as character:
Now my ma she fingers her wedding band
“Used Cars”
And watches the salesman stare at my old man’s hands
He’s tellin’ us all ’bout the break he’d give us if he could but he just can’t
Well if I could I swear I know just what I’d do
Now mister the day the lottery I win I ain’t ever gonna ride in no used car again
And though we are provided these motives, it is the dead-eyed senselessness of the Starkweather murders that haunts all the men of Nebraska, questioning their motives, positing that perhaps, under it all, the reasons they give for their actions, are simply that: attempts to explain to their consciences (us, the listener) why they’re doing the things they were always going to do, the choice not their own, their desperation pre-destined.
And Finally, Bruce
I don’t know if we’ve ever heard Bruce write so much about his childhood. I don’t know that he’s had another album with three songs that are so delicate, so specifically autobiographical.
Sure, he put “Hometown” on Born in the U.S.A., but Nebraska has three “Hometown”s:
- “Mansion On The Hill”
- “Used Cars”
- “My Father’s House”
Though I will admit they all feel like pieces of their more succinct successor.
The three Bruce songs on Nebraska make personal what would have been an almost entirely story-driven album. They are the softest parts of the record, and completely removed from the rest of it, as though Springsteen hid himself far away from the characters of his wild America.
Nebraska closes with an upbeat tune and message, “Reason to Believe”, which tells us, “at the end of every hard earned day people find some reason to believe”.
But like many things on Nebraska even “Reason to Believe” is haunted, in this case, by a dead dog along a highway and the man poking him with a stick, by a woman waiting, every night, at the end of a dirt road for the lover who left her, by the baptism of a child as a body is taken to a graveyard.
By Born In The U.S.A Springsteen seems to have purged his ghosts. Luckily for us, we got to hear all about them.