Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Warren Zanes: Author Of 'Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska' [REPLAY OF EPISODE 133]

Transcript

Warren Zanes: Author Of 'Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska' [REPLAY OF EPISODE 133] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We're totally bumming rock and roll.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: I think I'll leave you. You're reading little hands this,
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: It's time.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: To rock and roll. Roll up week I totally booked.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to book don Rock. This weekend, as you
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: may know, is the debut of the film Springsteen Delivered
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Me from Nowhere, starring Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: The film is based on a book written by Warren
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Zanes called Deliver Me from Nowhere. The Making of Bruce
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Springsteen's Nebraska, a phenomenal book. Warren was on the podcast
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: back in twenty twenty three when the book came out,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: so I thought i'd replay the episode for you as
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: you get ready to check out the film this weekend.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: So here it is, going back to episode one thirty
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: three for author Warren Zanes. Warren, welcome to the podcast.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: When did you first hear Nebraska and what was your reaction?
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: I first heard it when it came out. You know,
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: we were we were already among the converted, and you
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: know that probably I'm the youngest of three, so there
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: was the trickle down effect from you know, music that
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: both my brother brought into the house and my mother
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: already had. She had a good record collection that included,
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: you know, everything from Aretha Franklin to Pete Seeger, Josh White,
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: the Band, the Stones, Van Morris, and my uncle listened
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: to oldies radio, so we got our Chuck Berry, our
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Buddy Holly, Little Richard, and so my brother was set
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: up to be able to identify Bruce as something good
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: in the world. And I was the younger brother that
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: it was all filtering down.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: To my older brothers.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's when I teach, I teach it, m yu.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: And you know, with my students, it's either parents or
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: siblings who are the determining factor that give you know,
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: in my classes, give them a huge advantage if they
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: they've kind of gotten that transmission. But while the end
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: is in the East Street Shuffle were we were on
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: board in a complete way by that time. And then,
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: as I mentioned in the book, when my brother was
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: in had conquered high school in New Hampshire, he covered
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: his school books with the Time and newsweek covers when
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Bruce was at his big media week as a young man.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: So by the time Nebraska comes, we're we're just waiting
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: with open arms.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: So not surprised at what you heard.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Then, I don't really believe anybody who says they weren't surprised. So, yes,
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: we were surprised, but we were committed. And I think
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: this describes the majority of you know, Bruce fans. We
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: were committed enough to this guy to go, we'll follow you.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: We don't know where you're taking us, but we will
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: follow you.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Bruce told you that without Nebraska, there's no Born in
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: the USA. What did he mean by.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: That, Well, there, the two albums come into the world
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: at the same time, and then it's just a matter
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: of kind of differentiating between them. But he had two
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: thirds of Born in the USA in the can before
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Nebraska was officially released, So it's not that you know,
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: when we go into a record store, we see everything
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: kind of sequential terms. You know, there's the fourth record,
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: there's the fifth record. But behind the scenes it's much
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: sloppier for many artists. But the incredible thing to me
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: is that he had the strength of Born in the
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: USA right there, but he had some personal need to
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: follow Nebraska through and he did it despite what it
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: would mean for his career trajectory because he was on
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: this upward movement and Nebraska, you know, both in terms
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: of the marketplace and just spiritually it went way downward.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: And credit you go to John Landau, Bruce's manager and producer, right,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: because he supported Bruce.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you know that that book mentioned
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: on the Hill. To me, it's like the worst part
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: of the art commerce dichotomy. You know, the label guys,
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: the managers, they're kind of the bad guys. They're only
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: in it for the money. They're ruining the art. And
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: it's just sometimes that dichotomy holds true, but often it's
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: way too simplistic. And in the case of John Landau, look,
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: he stood by an artist who was making one of
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: the strangest career moves in the history of popular music.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: You know, we've had he had muddy, unfinished, very dark records,
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: but not from artists who just had their first number
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: one album. It's just not what anyone would expect, from
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: the fans, to the label, to the management. And John
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Landau was right there supporting his artist.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: And when he heard the songs, he was a little
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: concerned for Bruce, right.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when he first heard the songs his response was
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: you know is what he told me was that he
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: was quote concerned on a friendship level. So he was
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: hearing something happening with the songwriter, but he was seeing
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: some kind of trouble with the man. And then after
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Nebraska was released and Bruce took that trip west that
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: he talks about in his memoir, it was Landau who said,
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: you need professional help. So he's been He's like, you know,
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: I talk about John Landau's time in the book like
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: he knew when it was time to be a friend.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: He knew when it was time to be a manager.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: And that takes a kind of sophistication that I know
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: I couldn't do it. If I were a manager. Being
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: completely honest, I'd say, we definitely are not doing Nebraska.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: You know, it's just again, it's such a left turn.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: It can't be overstated. God, the way it worked. And
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you when I first looked at it, I
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: was I had a suspicion, and my suspicion was this,
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: it's all strategy. It's all strategy. Because Nebraska gets all
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: the critics on board, it's a kind of declaration of
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: this deep authenticity. And then Born in the USA comes
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: and it's just like, let's go deep into you know
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: the world, the hits and the commercial bid it and
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: it's not the case. But it worked out so perfectly.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: It was hard not to project strategy in hindsight, but
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: it wasn't the strategy. It was like one man following
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: a kind of deep need. There was some place he
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: had to go that was more important than career considerations,
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: and in the end it happened to benefit that career.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: There is an absence of melody on Nebraska, which was
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: intentional on Bruce's part. This leads us to a band
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: called Suicide. Who is Suicide and what influence do they
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: have on this album?
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: So Suicide, you know, they get a good amount of
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: space in the book because you can't understand Nebraska without them.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: So Bruce there a duo, drum machine, electronic. It was
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: really like the father of electronic music. But you know,
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: for listeners, the song I recommend people go to is
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: Frankie Teardrop, which is a very long song, around ten minutes,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: but it involves a guy coming home from a factory job,
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: you know, and at that point you're close to some
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: things we've seen in Springsteen's world. But then he comes home,
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: murders his wife, murders his child, kills himself, and it's
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: so dark and so not what you expect of popular music.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: And Alan Vega, who's in suicide, he's just on a microphone,
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: so he's not playing an instrument, but he does the
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: screams of that moment of infanticide, and it's it's just
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: you had to kind of strap your seatbelt on just
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: to listen to this stuff. And Springsteen felt this deep
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: connection with it. And when he described it to me,
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: he said his word was he heard it kind of
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: unforgivingness in suicide and he didn't know that music go
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: that far out, and so it gave him a kind
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: of license. And on the song State Trooper, you hear
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Springsteen do these screams that are almost like him signing
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Alan vegas name to that song. So their presence is
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: keenly felt, but it's they were the ones who kind
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: of gave him permission to go that low.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: And they didn't have an influence on just that song, right,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: it's the whole album.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: I think, like musically you hear the most in State Trooper,
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: but I think it's a cross it's spread across Nebraska
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: in the sense of these things can happen in popular music,
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: These things can you know in a way that I
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: would translate it to mean the whole of life, it's
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: absolute worst can be there represented in the stories we
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: tell through song, and you know, the bulk of what
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: you hear on you know, think back to nineteen eighty two.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Look at the top one hundred. You're gonna see songs
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: of romance, songs of longing, songs of loss. That's always
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: in American popular music, taking up the greatest amount of
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: the kind of geography of it all. But life itself
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: has these tragedies, It has this desperation, and Springsteen, because
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: of suicide, says I can bring that into the music.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: The complex characters too. You know, bad person can do
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: good things, a good person can do bad things. It's
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: not all black and white.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: The absence of redemption. You know, there are a lot
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: of people in Springsteen's songs prior to Nebraska who are
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: in really hard places. But there's some like sliver of
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: hope I think, you know he talks about you know,
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: he mentioned to me like stolen car off the River
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: that could have been on Nebraska. You can see him
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: like stepping toward these songs that don't resolve with that
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: trace of hope. You know, they go into a hopeless place,
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: which is where we sometimes go in our lives. So
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: why can't the music go with us?
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: That's what I think connects the fans so much to
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: his music. It just feels like there's a little bit
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: of you in his songs, in his in the characters
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: that make up his songs. There's just something so deep.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: What was it the julia to him when you first
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: heard his music?
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: It was it was the full package, you know, I
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: think because you know, again in time about my mother's
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: record collection and the things that were coming into the
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: house through my brother. Van Morrison was there astraally, you know,
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: moon Dance, and then we got we went back to
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: them and we knew that he had done. Here comes
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: in the Night Glory like, Okay, you know, Van Morrison
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: is a singer songwriter from rock and roll, and I
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: think if you're listening to that kind of artist at
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: that level, you're ready for Bruce Springsteen. And you know,
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: we loved, we did. We were We were too young
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: to kind of see Dylan go electric. He was electric
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: by the time we came out of the womb, and
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: so ye Dylan progress for that and and but Springsteen
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: felt like somehow he belonged to us and not to
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: our mother or our uncle. Right, yes, and that matters.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Bruce. He gives you a great description of what it
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: was like recording the songs. This is chapter eleven. He
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: uses a teac one four track recorder. Is that that's
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: a It looks kind of like what I'm recording my podcast.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: I was like a little mix.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: I went falling on eBay. I just I found a
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: broken one. And when I do book events that bring
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: it with me, just because it's good to make contact
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: with the material history and to see this thing.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: You know, it was ahead of its time at that point, right.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Ahead of its time, and now it looks like just
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: this artifact of deep funkiness and it's cool for people
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: to see it. When we did the CBS Sunday Morning Piece,
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: I brought it out there and you know, it was beautiful.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Bruce kind of put his hands on it, you know,
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: but both his hands just like feel things like yeah, yeah,
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: But it's recording on a cassette that you could buy.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: You know, at the time, you could go buy them
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: that cvs and you know, little kids would use them
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: to tape their voice. Isn't play it back. The difference
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: with the TC one forty four was that it's for
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: track recording, and so that was the revolution. It had
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: been there for a couple of years, been out on
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: the market for a couple of years, but to put
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: it really simply, it was the first consumer multi track machine. Now,
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: multi track recording is a mundane thing. It's on everybody's laptop,
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: you know, if you choose to do it. But then
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: it was like, whoa multi track recording? And pretty soon
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: you see that shift where people are starting to take
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: it home. And in that respect, Springsteen's move was very
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: prophetic of what was coming. But he took it home
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: and it was still cassette recording.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, also it's where he recorded it too. Where
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: is this house that he records it in? And it's
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: just in the bedroom, right Yeah.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean I'll tell you if I maybe hitting
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: ahead of things. But when I finished the book, I
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: sent it to John Landau first, and you know, John
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: got back and it was you know, we had a
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: call that was really rich, deep memorable for me, and
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: you know, at the end he said, so, you know,
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: I want to send it on to Bruce, but I'm
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: not going to tell him anything. I'm not going to
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: tell him how I feel. Let's get a cold read
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: off of Bruce and he sends it. And then a
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: couple of days later, I got an email from Bruce
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: and you know, at the end of it, he said,
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: how can I help you? And I said, I wrote back,
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: I can't find this house. You know I'm not I'm
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: not a great There there Bruce fans who are better
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: at this kind of research than I am. But it
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: was you can find a lot of Bruce's homes, couldn't
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: find this one. And a few days later, Bruce, I
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: get an undisclosed number on my phone and it's Bruce
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: calling from the bedroom where he recorded Nebraska. And you know,
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: he says, Hey, Lauren, it's I'm in the room. We're
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: forty years ago I made Nebraska and I haven't been
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: here since. And the guy who rented it to me
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: still rents it, and he said, I can bring you out.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: And so Bruce gave me this last stop in my pilgrimage,
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: and I'll tell you to be working on a book
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: over a period of years, and then walk with the
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: artist into the bedroom where the record was made. Is
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: as you know, moving an experience as I've had, and
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: I think, just like I said that Tiac, I wanted
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: to buy one on eBay just to have the material
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: history in front of me. Bruce did a few things
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: along the way, like bringing me to that room. It
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: really helped me as a writer. Like when you're standing
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: in the room and there's some history breathing in those
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: walls and it relates to a project you've been working
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: on for a couple of years, it just matters. It
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: does something. And I think he knows that, you know,
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: he and so he made as much physical contact possible
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: for me, you know, with the the guitar that he used,
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: with the portrait of his aunt who you know, died
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: when she was six. Like he put these things in
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: front of me, and it's hard to say exactly what
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: that means to a writing project, but I know it
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: means something, you know. So when he knew, yeah, he's.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: He's really the producer at that point, he's getting the most.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's at That's a good way of putting it,
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: because then you know when we got into the room
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: that you know, there were a few minutes of like
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: I probably he probably saw on my feet slightly off
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: the ground, and after a few minutes of quiet, he
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: just handed me his cell phone and said, take my picture,
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: and that pictures in the book. And then he just
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: started going, Okay, in my bed was here, it was
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: turned this way, and then I had a wooden table
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: over there, and he just created a picture. You know.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: The room was a lot the same, but he wanted
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: to give me exactly how it was set up. And
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: just like a writer can't ask.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: For more, the shag rug was still there, wasn't it.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I I wanted people to turn their backs so
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: I could cut a piece of that orange shag give
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: it to my sons.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Yes, oh man, is it a small house.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: Well, it's different than it was because they did some
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: They put a second story edition and they kind of
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: blew out the kitchen. So the house you see now
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: from the front doesn't look the same. But the room
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: where he made Nebraska, it's not just those orange shag rugs.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: It's like mostly intact. So it's this corner as you're
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: looking at the house, it's the rear left corner looking
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: out on the reservoir, and it's like it was wow wild.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: It's in Colts Neck, right yeah, Yeah, how did it
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: come about that he chose that house.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: It's some of his his road crew were living in
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: another place rented by the fellow who owns this, So
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: he's a realtor. He's you know, a man wears a
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: few different hats. But this was rented for Bruce when
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: he got kind of not a but I imagine they
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: were selling the house he had been renting, so somebody
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: just got him a place so that he could, you know,
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: in his words, it was an emergency landing at the
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: end of the river door.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: So mansion on the Hill. That's the first song that
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: came to Bruce, as far as he recalls. There was
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: a song with that title recorded by Hank Williams from
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: nineteen forty eight, Fred Rose credited as co writer. Rose's
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: theme is of a woman leaving the one she truly
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: loves to marry a man with money. Far from Bruce's version.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: His version is absent of judgment.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The Hank Williams version is a little bit like
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: the Eagles Lion Eyes, same theme, and Bruce's is much more.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: You know, he he it when he introduced it live.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it'd talk about taking drives with his father around freehold,
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: and he was like, we were like tourists in our
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: own town, like looking at the big homes, you know,
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: driving by them. You know, he was young enough that
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: it kind of filled him with wonder. It didn't give
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: him a sense of you know, class difference or anything.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: It was more how a child would see it and
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: his mansion on the hill really is it's not about
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: life's better if you have the mansion, or better if
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: you don't. You know, as you just said, it's it's
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: it suspends judgment, and it's more just about a child's wonder.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: And you know that that time when you're young enough
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: and you know, as I say in the book, romance
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: and class haven't yet organized life, and you're kind of
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: open in a particular way. And you know that that
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: point of view in that song brought Bruce to this
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: young age. That was the same age he was when
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: he was living with his grandparents, which was, you know,
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: roughly until he was aged six. And you know, he said,
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: in different ways, Nebraska is about that time of his
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: life and that time with his grandparents in that house.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: But this is when things go from mystical to dark
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: and troubled. According to Bruce, the next song is the
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: title track. It's based on a true story. Can you
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: talk about the film bad Lands from nineteen seventy three
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: and the nineteen fifty eight stark Weather murderspree, because that
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: is a major influence on Bruce.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: It's kind of incredible to me still. You know, So
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: he sees Terrence Malick's bad Lands on TV. You know,
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: he's spending quite a lot of time alone. Max Weinberg
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: is quoted in the book is saying, you know, for
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: a while there, we didn't know where he lived. So
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: Bruce is kind of cut off from his band after
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: being you know, very close on tour for over a year.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: And he's there watching TV by himself one night and
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: he sees Terrence Malick's bad Lands and bad Lands is
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: it's Martin Sheen and Sissy SpaceX their first big feature jobs.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: So there're these actors who are having a moment, and
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: it's Malick's first real it's a warnerber Brothers project, so
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: it's a significant outing. And the subject is these nineteen
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: fifty eight serial murders associated with Charles Starkweather and his
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: you know, accomplice. Whose role is you know, depends on
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: your interpretation. But caroly Anne Fugate and they killed eleven people,
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: and Malick makes this film that that kind of drifts
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: between an account of those killings, and then there's fantasy
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: in it too, almost like a Swiss family Robinson moment
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: where stark Weather and if you build this place in
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: the forest and you're completely untethered from the historical account,
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: But I feel like what you're really seeing is when
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: everyday life just rrupts with this pure violence and a
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: kind of violence that stands beyond reason. You can't explain it.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: And I think that's something that Springsteen was connecting to it.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: But he just says he saw this film and somehow
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: the story of these killings reminded him of his childhood,
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: which is just a really on paper, a wild statement,
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: and it's not a one for one correspondence. You know,
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: there's something he only he like saw that connection. But
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: you know he's so he helps me, you know, in
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: his interviews, he helped me to make the connections. But
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: the interesting thing that happens is he watches it, he
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: wakes up thinking about it still and goes to the
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: library to look for books on the Starkweather killings, and
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: he finds the book Carol, written by Nannette Beaver and
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: two other authors, and the Neette Beaver was working in
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: the Omaha television and radio station that first reported the
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: serial murders. And he reads this book and then he
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: calls that Omaha television station and the Nett Beaver's still
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: working there, so, you know, at that time, it's what
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty one, it's been since nineteen fifty eight, and
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: she's still there, and he gets her on the phone,
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: and you know, I said to Springsteen, like, what were
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: you up to? Like what was what were you doing?
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: And he said, well, you know, I research my songs
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: in a number of cases like that. That's not that
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: odd for me. But I was onto something else, and
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: I'm you know, I'm not entirely sure what I was doing.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: But he felt like, you know, he needed to get
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: this right, and when Nebraska came, he saw it as
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: this this kind of entry point into the album as
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: a whole, like Mansion on the Hill could have led
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: to a number of different albums, but Nebraska, that song
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: led to this album.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: And that opening line about the girl twirling the baton,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: that's actually from the movie, right, that's a scene with
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Sissy's basic.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: That comes from the movie, and it was just by
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: chance that Terrence Malick, I don't know where they were,
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: but there was a baton and she started twirling it,
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: and he didn't know she could twirl a baton, and
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: he just kind of sewed the thing into the narrative
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: through line of the movie. So it has nothing to
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: do with Carolyne Fugate. It only has to do with
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: bad Lands. But you know, Springsteen migrated it in and
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: I feel like that's he exposes his source materials in
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: really interesting ways. That's one of them.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: Warren Zane's is here to talk about his brand new book,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Deliver Me from Nowhere, the making of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: which is out now. One thing I noticed about the
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: book is it's not a track by track analysis.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: I don't I don't do a kind of song by song,
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: I maybe that's the songwriter part of me that I
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: feel like that's a you gotta not go too far
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: into the listener's business.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: And so I don't do a song by song. So
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: I feel like you can read my book and there's
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: still all the mystery you want. I left intact with
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Nebraska but I think sometimes if his childhood when he
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: was living in his grandparents' home was kind of the
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: personal source material that he was drawing on. You can't
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: find easy one to one correspondences in the stories, but
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: I feel it's that part of his childhood is the
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: engine that fuels these stories. But the characters in those
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: stories don't derive directly from his childhood. These are stories
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: he's telling the thing I felt with Nebraska, and I
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: felt this pretty early on when I got it, you know,
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: I picked it up in eighty two and I brought
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: it back to boarding school. But he's telling really really
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: complax stories with a new level of economy. So like
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: highway Patrolment, to me, is still a wonder in terms
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: of the sophistication of just the narrative strategies. There. You
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: know those two brothers, you know, both of them dancing
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: with the same woman, and then the you know, the
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: brother who's a policeman letting the other brother go. Though
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: as a policeman representing the law, he should be bringing
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: his brother in, but as a brother he lets him go.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: That's such a complex move because he's both because he
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: loves that brother, he's letting him go free. At the
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: same time he's getting his brother out of his life.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: It's it's not some neat you know, story of love
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: between brothers. It's like, you can't be in my life anymore.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: And I feel like man to get all that done
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: in a three or whatever minute song is a writer
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: working at the height of his powers.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: One track that I always find interesting lyrically is Reason
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: to Believe. Is Bruce making a statement or is he
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: asking how do you find a reason to believe when
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: all this stuff goes wrong in life? Or is it
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: that he himself is saying you got to find a
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: reason to believe? Like he's encouraging the listener.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, you said to me, I don't see how
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: anybody finds anything hopeful in that song, he said. I
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: guess it's just the density of that title takes people
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: down that road. But I see no reason for it.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: But he's he's seen this effect take place in his
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: career at many times where people they see the title,
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: you know, whether it's you know, Born in the USA
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: or Hungry Heart Like, they see the titles, they feel
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: the song and they misinterpret it look hungry heart like.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: Hungry Heart is like a guy's leaving his family forever,
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: right first two lines.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: There's a quote in the book I want to ask
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: you about. It's from author D. C. Beard, and you
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: use it to start chapter eight. It's from eighteen eighty two,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: and the quote is, there will frequently occur gaps in
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: the long winter evenings that are hard to fill up satisfactorily.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Hours when tired of reading or study, a boy does
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: not know what to do. How did you come up
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: with that quote and what led you to using it
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: for the book.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: That might be my favorite epigraph in the whole book,
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: because that's from the American Boy's Handy Book. And Beard
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: played some role in the origin story of the Boy Scouts.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: But I just I just one of the musicians I
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: was doing a book event with. I just bought that
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: book for him because he pointed to that same epigraph,
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: and I said, that's from the American Boy's Handy Book.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: I used to look at that thing when I was
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: growing up. I have my brother's old copy and I
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: still do. But it was all about different things that
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: you could do, like you could make your own boat,
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: learn how to build a fire without matches, you know,
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: learn how to make a trap for rabbits, you know,
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: with all this stuff. And I would pore over this
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: book and I really wanted to build one of these boats.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: And I just go out into our barn, you know,
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: looking for like, can I use this? Can I use this?
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: Like I never got to a boat, but this book
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: just filled my imagination. And that quote, it was personal
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: that I wanted it in there, but it also felt
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: like just an interesting way to describe Bruce Springsteen there
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: in his rental and Colt Snack, not knowing what to
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: do with this free time, and he goes into Nebraska.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I love that. It's such a great quote.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: You can still get the American Boys Handy Book. It's
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: like it's just these you know, reproductions. Mine was a reproduction.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: Obviously I'm not I'm all, but I'm not over one hundred.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Yes. Well, this book also answers the question I always
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: wondered if Bruce wanted to use the original Born in
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: the USA for Nebraska, and he says he did, he wished,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: he decided to. There was also a moment when Bruce
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: considered making it a double album, one side of songs
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: that sounded like what Born in the USA would sound like,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: and then the other side tracks that make up Nebraska.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: How come that didn't happen?
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, I speculate, and you know, before this book
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: went to publication, you know, as I said, already Bruce
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: read it, and so he had a chance to say,
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: I know, actually, no, that's not right. But I did
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: my own speculation. And when you've just on a double album,
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: you don't want to do one again. Double albums are
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: often a solution to a problem, not an idea in
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: and of themselves. So and there's there's more labor, there's
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: more of a challenge to create cohesion. I think that's
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: why we celebrate double albums like Exile on Main Street, which, man,
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: it really works, but I think it's hard to make
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: it work. Having just done it with the River, that
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: was not what he wanted to go through again.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Another problem Bruce didn't see coming was getting the mixes
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: from the tape onto vinyl.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: You were all you know once he you know, they
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: try to look Nebraska is the only official release of
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: Bruce Springsteen's that was recorded without him realizing it was
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: going to be an official release. So there which you're
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: hearing as an artist who's thinking they're making demos. So
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: leaving mistakes in and continuing on, you know, not quite
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: comfortable with the lyrics. You know, they get jammed in
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: and places, not worrying as much about perfect pitch, tempo, a.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Little overmodulation at times.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like it's it's flawed, beautifully flawed. We need
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: more flaws if you ask me. And this this is
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: a testament to that. But they finally get to this
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: point they try to re record it, Bruce solo, Bruce
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: with the band, and he feels it's not working. So
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: that day comes when he makes that decision, let's put
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: put the cassette out, Let's put this what's on this cassette,
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: let's put this out as the official release. And the
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: thought is okay, And it's a whole nother set of
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: problems because of tape speeds, because the signal wasn't enough
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: for them to be able to master with they were
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: getting feedback, i mean distortion in the masters, and it
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: took four mastering facilities to finally get something that could
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: become a vinyl record. So it was this odyssey where
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: these you know, this music that had become attached to
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: just struggled to find its way into the world.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Hey, guys, we'll get back to the show, but first
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: I want to tell you about an exclusive deal for
• 36:41
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• 36:45
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  Speaker 1: old glory dot com. Make sure to use the promo code.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: Booked on Rock. Also find a link in this episode
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: show notes, or just go to Booked on Rock dot
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: com and click on my Deals. After Nebraska was released,
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: Bruce went on a road trip that he told you
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: was an epiphany of its own, which he never really
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: came back from. What was it about that trip that
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: affected Bruce so much?
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: This was really the doorway that Bruce's inadvertently cut in
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: the wall for me to walk through to write this book,
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: because it's in his memoir. You know, I was reading
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: the memoir and Nebraska goes by really pretty quickly, and
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: then there's right after meaning in the memoir it goes
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: by pretty quickly, and then there's this road trip West,
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: which is like the centerpiece of his memoir, and he
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: talks about having a kind of mental breakdown and needing
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: to get real therapeutic help. And it happens on this
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: trip west after Nebraska. And by the time, you know,
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: he's driving west to go to the first home that
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: he ever purchased for himself, and it's in Los Angeles,
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: you know, overlooking Hollywood. You know, before he gets there,
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: he has this experience that you know, he describes beautifully
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: and tragically in his memoir. And I just felt like, Wow,
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: I see a connection between what he went into that
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: moment in his childhood, at time in his childhood that
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: he went into, what it shook up inside of him,
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: and then this breakdown and this gap between Nebraska and
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: born in the USA, where Bruce is kind of somewhere else.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: I just felt like something happened that helps us to
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: understand Nebraska. And that was you know, that was his
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: memoir that gave me, really it gave me license to
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: go deeper. And then the interviews with Bruce were without them,
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: no book. He's the spine of this book in every way.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: He really felt like he was on the outside looking in.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's feeling radical detachment, just radical detachment and disconnection
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: from people who are living these simple lives, you know,
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: raising families, having jobs, and he's recognizing that he can
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: only observe that. And I think he says that I
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: was an observer, and you know, it's there's a crisis
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: there like this, a guy who comes from a family
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: and wants to have one, and he's going to have to.
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: You know, it's very hard to I've never experienced it,
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: but I've been around people who, you know, because of
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: their success as songwriters, recording artists and performers, their lives
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: have changed dramatically, you know, and often it's from you know,
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: rock and roll, a lot of people from lower on
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: than class ladder who become famous for their contributions to
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: this story and their lives start to look nothing like
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: what they come from. And I think that dislocation is
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: really hard to do, you know. I say that as
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: an as an observer, and I think he was coming
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: up against some of that, and I think he was
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: also coming up against some kind of unpros asked childhood
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: trauma and it and it slammed into him. But I
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: feel like making peace with the idea of success comes
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: after Nebraska, after the road trip, and that's where the
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: Elvis section in the book to Me is really important.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: Ronnie van Zenz said, it's it's not it's not me
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: that changed, it's the people around me that changed. Yeah,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: they thought I changed, You changed, you know.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's becomes very hard too. I mean, look, you'll
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: see people. I remember talking to Tom Petty about like
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: a party after a show that the Heartbreakers had, and
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: he felt like the other guys in the band didn't
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: want him to be at this party like they and
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: he was talking about how much it hurt, and he's like,
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: if I went to this party that everybody was going to,
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: there would only be one Tom Petty and they would
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: just be Heartbreakers second I came into the room. So
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: being Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers kind of put a
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: wedge between this guy and his childhood friends. But it
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: was the only way it was going to go down.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: So people have lots of experiences like that. If they
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: experience that type of success, it's hard to know if
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: what somebody's telling you is how they really feel, or
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: are they telling you because they feel You want to
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: hear that, and you navigate that stuff constantly, you know,
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: like Dylan has been a little you know, you hear
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: it in the song. It's a little more impatient with that,
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: you know, like why can't you just be yourself around me?
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: But I like the Ronnie van sand quote.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: There's an amazing moment in the book when you brought
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: up Homer's Odyssey to Bruce, and this really got his attention.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: I well, I love the Odyssey. I think Homer's Odyssey
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: is maybe still the best self help book available because
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: Odysseus goes through every kind of trial and what he's doing.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: It's like it's the end of the Trojan War and
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: he's trying to get home, and he goes through various temptations,
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: you know, various like physical challenges, you know, all of
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: the you know, de vices, gluttony, all the things that
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: could keep a man from being the man he wants
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: to be. Odysseus faces them all and it takes him
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: a long time to get back home. Not to labor this,
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: but the story really starts when Odysseus uses his cunning
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: to get out of the cave of the cyclops Polyphemus,
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: and he tells Polypemous is like keeping him captive with
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: his men in his cave and wants to kill him
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: and eat him and Odysseus. When Polyphemous asks him who
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: he is, Odysseus says, I am nobody, And then they
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: get the psyclops drunk and they gage out his eye
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: and escape, And when the other cyclops are going, who
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: did this to you, Polypemous says, nobody did it? Nobody
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: did it. You know that was Odysseus's cunning. So everybody's like,
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: what the hell's he talking about? Nobody did it? But
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: then Odysseus can't help himself. As he's escaped Polypemous and
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: he's getting back onto his boats, he declares, who did it?
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: He goes, it is I the Great Odysseus, so kind
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: of like ego Hubris makes him state his place as
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: the hero with that kind of cunning. Now, Polyphemus, who
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: he really just fucked up pretty good, is the son
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: of Poseidon. And Poseidon hears Odysseus say this and goes, wow,
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: you just gouged out the eye of my son and
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: you will pay now. And so it's Poseidon, because what
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: Odysseus did to his son, who keeps Odysseus from getting home.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: So when Odysseus goes through all these trials and when
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: he finally gets home, his home is he's been gone
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: so long. They're all these suitors who want to take
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: his home and take his wife Penelope, and so his
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: son is there, but the house is filled with these suitors.
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: If Odysseus walked in by himself, those guys would just
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: kill Odysseus off. So he decides to come in as
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: a beggar, so he gets another chance to be nobody.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: He's disguised as a beggar. The suitors just they're like
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: throwing scraps to him, and he doesn't let his ego
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: overcome him. He returns to being a hero by being
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: capable of being nobody. And you know, it's as a
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: beggar that he comes back to his family and to
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: his home and kills off these suitors. But had he
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: done the same thing where he says it is I
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: the Great Odysseus, he would have been killed. So he's
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: learned the lesson of being anonymous. Now that story stuck
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: with me. It was in my head. I'm like, Nebraska
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: is Springsteen being anonymous? He's being nobody and born in
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: the USA is the return of the to his home.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: But to be that hero, I'm born in the USA,
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: he had to first be able to be just a beggar.
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: You know, you don't see him on the record cover,
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: you don't hear him in perfect fidelity. You know, you
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: don't hear all the trappings of the heroic rock star.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: I was like, this, this maps on to Springsteen's story
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: right then, So I knew it was like a bold move,
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: Like when you're doing an interview, you're not supposed to
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: tell stories to the person you're interviewing. But I was
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: so convinced that I had something that was at least
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: worth a thought that I found the shortest version of
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: it that I could do. Your version was just longer.
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: But I gave it to Springsteen in that moment when
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: I'm telling him and I look up and he says,
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: go on. He's with me, and you know, for me
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: in what I do, it's one of the greatest moments
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: in my career as a writer. When he said to me,
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: go on. It was such a validation that this story
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: did map on. And there's something crucial about moments in
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: our lives where we need to be nobody, Like there
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: are times my biggest regrets in life, like I still am,
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: like dealing with some heartache that has been with me
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: for years. And if I could go back in time,
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: it would be to go back, like six years ago
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: to be nobody. And I needed to be nobody. And
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: I don't need to give you the details, but I'll
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: just say that's what was That's what I needed to
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: do as a man, and I was not the man
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: I wanted to be. My ego intruded, and so I
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: came into the The Nebraska project with this personal story
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: underneath it, with a kind of heartbreak, and I you know,
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: these long term projects are funny, like you learn from
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: them and if you go into them honestly, you can
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: heal a little bit. But I needed to. There's the
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: satisfaction of connecting Homer's odyssey to this moment in Springsteen's
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: career and a story of kind of humility and anonymity.
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: And then there's another layer beneath it where it's like
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: I'm learning because I'm I've been learning from Bruce Springsteen
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: since I was a pre teen, and I'm learning from
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: him again because he's confirming something that I saw in
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: Homer's Odyssey. Sometimes a man doesn't need to be the
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: big man. Sometimes a man needs to be the quietest
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: person in the room, let other people work their stuff out,
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: you know. And so that if I were to pick
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: my moment where the book is crackling more than any
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: other moment, that's the one for me as a writer.
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: I've been really lucky in my life and getting to
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: work with people who I've learned a tremendous amount from,
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: you know. And that's that's you know, Tom Petty, that's
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: you know, Jerry Wexler, That's I've been helping Garth Brooks
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: with the series of books. I've learned a ton from him. Bruce,
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: the way he showed up for this project, the level
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: of vulnerability and humility and curiosity and generosity, it's like
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: it's wild, you know. So again, no Bruce, no book.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, thanks so much for checking out the Booked
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: on Rock podcast. If you've just found the podcast, welcome.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: If you've been listening, thank you so much for your support,
• 51:36
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• 51:39
  Speaker 1: share on social media and let people know about Booked
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: on Rock. And if you do like the podcast, make
• 51:44
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• 51:47
  Speaker 1: listen to the Booked on Rock podcast, Run, Amazon, Apple, iHeart, Spotify, Spreaker,
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: tune in, and on YouTube music. You can check out
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: the full episodes on video, along with video highlights from
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: episodes on the Book Rock YouTube channel. Find it at
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back to
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: the show. Deliver Me from Nowhere, The making of Bruce
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: Springsteen's Nebraska. It is out now through Crown Publishing, available
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: wherever books are sold. Where can people find you online?
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: Warren, I got a website. My older son just redid
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: my website for me. He did it in like a night,
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: and my contacts on there, and you know, I'd love
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: to hear from people who've read the book. That's one
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: of the.
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: Treats Lawren Zan's. This was great.
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much. That's it's in the books.