Thank you for allowing me this particular indulgence on the blog. Hopefully it's an easy one to skip, if you don't like to read and/or identify as female. This is PoYB's quarterly check in on Boys/Beers/Breakfast/Book Club, which, as of this publishing time (9:30 AM on 10/17/26), is convening for their 32nd meeting. I think I do it this way for two reasons. The first is that I find that documenting the art and entertainment that I engage with and document too my thoughts on it has a way of helping me remember that it happened at all. So much bullshit passes through our brains, and it's hard to remember the book or the album or the movie you read/heard/watched a couple months ago, let alone years ago. The second is that it's an easy reference for me during the book discussion, having my thoughts organized like this. So thanks. And if you identify as male or non-binary and can read and want to be part of our book club, hit me up!
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| spoilers for the book below!!! |
So I'll want to talk about the music too, which is tricky. Tricky because I feel like I'm gonna get called out on it. We've read books that have been adapted into movies and TV shows, and I usually get pretty defensive about this being a BOOK club, and can we please not talk about the fucking crime detective TV show that the author had a hand in creating, please, this isn't a TV club it's a book club, etc. etc. But this is different, right? The book is
about the music. You can't talk about the book without talking about the music. You are gonna react to the book differently depending on how you originally reacted to the music (or
if you reacted to the music at all, which will be interesting to hear, if someone doesn't listen to Bruce Springsteen but read this book). It's baked right in.
My Springsteen opinions are numerous and they are
already on this blog. My opinion of the book is that it did a great job at continuing the discussion as it was already happening in my head. I love thinking about music and so I loved reading a book written by someone who clearly loves thinking about music too. The basic thing that you can ask from this is that it gives you a different perspective on something you already knew and already had an opinion on. If it adds something new or changes how you think even slightly, then it's a success. I have never been the biggest fan of
Nebraska, but I've always liked it (it's Springsteen, after all). I think I like it slightly more than I did before, but I
appreciate it way more than I did prior to reading this book about it. That's the important part.
I love a good deep dive on a specific album, and the author here did a fantastic job at doing that. Deep dives usually go in both directions at once: inward and outward. What about the artist informed the art, and what about the art informs the audience. I thought both threads were easy to follow. I thought the best parts of the book were when these two paths intersected. E.g. when we hear from a few other musicians about their take on Nebraska (Steve Earle, etc.), and we are specifically asked, where was Bruce Springsteen while all his fans were being impacted by his album? Then it whips around and talks about the aftermath for the artist, and how it contrasted with the reaction from everyone else.
The reason I liked this book is that it didn't just tell me about an album. It told me about the world that I inhabit, through the lens of an album and the artist who made it. I think ultimately the author wants you to take the book out of the equation and think about the album as a way to connect with the world at large, and connect with yourself as you exist within that world. I don't know if I'm there yet with this album, but I appreciate Warren Zanes holding my hand and trying to get me there.
GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5 (everything about music gets a higher grade)
Discussion Questions
1. The book makes the argument that a song's greatest power is the ability to think about and talk about it afterward. Do you feel this way about Nebraska? Springsteen in general? Other music? None of the above?
2. Interesting to hear Springsteen talk about himself as "alienated," and the art as a way to combat that. Are all artists condemned to feel lonely?
3. Did the book do a good job handling the influences of this album? Like, was the discussion of Badlands handled appropriately, or did it distract?
4. Was the idea of making the demos into the actual album without changing it a good idea? Was it the defining idea that the book made it out to be?
5. I have to imagine that the movie that's based on this book made a huge fucking deal about Springsteen's relationship with his father, but it's not really touched on here at all. Most of that was touched on in Bruce's autobiography anyway. It feels weird to me that the movie would do that, to miss the point of this album being Bruce escaping himself, considering these characters to be their own thing and not some way to deal with the pain. Or were they? I dunno, I would be asking for general thoughts on the relationship between the artist and their family, their art, and their audience.
6. What do we make of the thesis that Nebraska is about the failure of the American dream? I thought this quote was good: "The American dream was always a brand that was sold to us."
7. I felt a kinship with Springsteen when they were talking about how he is weary of big hit songs because they distract from the album as a singular piece of art. I've always said that! What are your thoughts? And don't you think it's funny that Born in the U.S.A. sidesteps this issue by simple virtue of having so many hit songs on it that that becomes the entirety of the album instead of the distraction?
8. Are the other characters in this book served well? I'm talking about Jon Landau, Chuck Plotkin, etc.? Or is this the Bruce show?
9. I appreciated all the discussion about critical reaction to this album too. I liked the theory that Nebraska made it easy for critics to buy in, right before the commercial liftoff of Born in the U.S.A. I wonder what you, an amateur music critic (by virtue of being a member of this blog, whether you like it or not!), think about this theory, and what you might think about music criticism in general, and its role in music?
10. Is there a difference between being a songwriter and being a performer? I thought the comparison to James Brown was an interesting one, in this context. Lots of great comparison littered throughout this book. Springsteen/Landau as Lewis/Clark was another good one. Oh, and Springsteen's creation of Nebraska being his Odyssey!
