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comment by tacocat
tacocat  ·  1316 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: I have no desire to reconcile with my father but this song devastates me anyway

Even the story behind it is unbelievable. You recorded it on a four track tape player in your bedroom? Get the fuck out





kleinbl00  ·  1316 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Nebraska is lightning in a bottle. Everybody knew it at the time. It's the album you point to when you need to say "I don't care if this take isn't technically perfect, this is the track."

tacocat  ·  1316 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'm pretty salty about Born in the USA being a Nebraska track but being turned into a stadium rock anthem. The Nebraska version is objectively superior. If your message gets lost by the addition of synths you fucked up

kleinbl00  ·  1316 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You can be salty about that but Born in the USA is one of the most rawkin' tracks ever made and it features a synth front and center. If synths weren't permanently degraded and held in disgust that would matter less.

I'm salty that this isn't the version of We Will Rock You that the world knows. It didn't even get released until 2016. Such is life.

tacocat  ·  1316 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Not like a memorable riff but that's about the definition of a pounding one. They should have done something with that

kleinbl00  ·  1316 days ago  ·  link  ·  

They played it on tour; there were live versions available via bootlegs for years. It got a better reaction without any music so the "without music" version made the album. Some of the guitar licks ended up on the Highlander soundtrack if I recall correctly.

b_b  ·  1316 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    If your message gets lost by the addition of synths...

Ask Reagan's people.

Really though, at least it has the distinctions, so far as I'm aware, of being the first in a long line of songs that songwriters futilely try to convince republicans they don't understand. The latest is Rockin in a Free World, which apparently Neil Young is actually suing over. Personally, I think Trump should use Ohio--it would fit his ethos a lot better.

mk  ·  1316 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I did not know that. Gtfo

tacocat  ·  1316 days ago  ·  link  ·  

He absolutely did that after spending some time in introspection after his success. It's almost pitiful how much I know about Bruce Springsteen's inner life

mk  ·  1316 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    So this time, I got a little Teac four-track cassette machine, and I said, I'm gonna record these songs, and if they sound good with just me doin' 'em, then I'll teach 'em to the band. I could sing and play the guitar, and then I had two tracks to do somethin' else, like overdub a guitar or add a harmony. It was just gonna be a demo. Then I had a little Echoplex that I mixed through, and that was it. And that was the tape that became the record. It's amazing that it got there, 'cause I was carryin' that cassette around with me in my pocket without a case for a couple of weeks, just draggin' it around. Finally, we realized, 'Uh-oh, that's the album.'

That's amazing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebraska_(album)

tacocat  ·  1316 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I lost a Twitter debate about this article because I approached it from the wrong direction. A bunch of Swifties who couldn't name three Springsteen songs thought they got the better of me after I was unclear about the number of horny boys in his oeuvre. I don't hate Taylor Swift but I hate this article

https://www.vox.com/culture/2020/7/31/21340926/taylor-swift-folklore-millennial-bruce-springsteen

kleinbl00  ·  1316 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Bruce Springsteen would be our Dylan if Dylan hadn't come around 15 years previously.

I personally feel he's worthy of substantially more praise.

b_b  ·  1316 days ago  ·  link  ·  

There's a scene in Walk Hard (an underappreciated comedy) where John C Reilly's character just decides he's going to start putting nonsense words together as lyrics. They accuse him of trying to be like Dylan, and he's retorts that maybe Dylan is trying to be like him.

I discovered Dylan as a kid, so I'll always love him in the way you can only love things you discovered as a kid, but the older I get the less I respect him in a lot of ways.

kleinbl00  ·  1316 days ago  ·  link  ·  

My parents hated Dylan for going electric at Newport. Oddly enough they were 100% okay with the Beatles.

By the time I could have discovered Dylan I was 100% disinterested in music that sounds like Dylan. Thus I've pretty much always hated him.

b_b  ·  1316 days ago  ·  link  ·  

That makes sense. I doubt I would have liked Dylan had I not started listening to him very young. My dad played a lot of Dylan and Cohen when I was a kid. I still love both, but I appreciate Cohen more and more the older I get. Can't say the same about Bob.

tacocat  ·  1316 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Didn’t he remember your name or one of your friends' years after doing some sound work for him? He seems about as grounded as you can be while being insanely wealthy

kleinbl00  ·  1316 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It's in your thread. Top comment.

_refugee_  ·  1316 days ago  ·  link  ·  

well looks like i'll be digging into that on the wikipedia

tacocat  ·  1316 days ago  ·  link  ·  

One time I wrote an essay about how much I like Bruce Springsteen. It's basically a disease