Released in 1982 when I was a junior in high school, Nebraska was Bruce Springsteen's follow-up to The River, a double album he recorded with the E Street Band. Nebraska on the other hand was recorded in his basement on a four-track recording machine and it features nobody but the Boss himself. I have owned this recording on LP, cassette, CD and audio download over the past 42 years. You can listen to it here.
I used to listen to it on repeat when driving north on Interstate 95 to see my children, several states away, after their Mom and I split up. The songs tell stories and some, like Highway Patrolman, convey an entire movie's worth of details in… More