Nebraska - Bruce Springsteen

So what do you do as your career is finally on the right track and you have just had the first taste of success? Years of grafting is finally paying off and your hard work is at last getting the recognition it deserves? Obviously you release what is essentially a demo album; sparse recordings from a 4 track tape recorder with just your voice, guitar and harmonica. World domination is assured.

It might not sound like much of a plan but that it exactly what Bruce Springsteen did. And what an album it is - tales of ordinary working class people who endure difficulties, hardship and with little or no salvation. Characters that face a crossroads in their lives, choose the wrong path and ultimately pay the price. Stories about working for a living, struggling to make ends meet. Show me a recording artist that would be brave enough to pull the handbrake on their career in this way. But instead of halting his career it only added to enhance it and even this stark release reached number 3 in the US charts. The album has since been critically acclaimed, and deservedly so.

It's also created one of the Holy Grails of popular music - the album was recorded with the E Street Band but rather than release that recording, he elected to release the demo tape that proceeded it. I can't imagine that the electric version would have the same haunted tone as this low key masterpiece....

My Father's House

"Last night I dreamed that I was a child out where the pines grow wild and tall
I was trying to make it home through the forest before the darkness falls

I heard the wind rustling through the trees and ghostly voices rose from the fields
I ran with my heart pounding down that broken path
With the devil snappin' at my heels

I broke through the trees, and there in the night
My father's house stood shining hard and bright the branches and brambles tore my clothes and scratched my arms
But I ran till I fell, shaking in his arms

I awoke and I imagined the hard things that pulled us apart
Will never again, sir, tear us from each other's hearts
I got dressed, and to that house I did ride from out on the road, I could see its windows shining in light

I walked up the steps and stood on the porch a woman I didn't recognize came and spoke to me through a chained door
I told her my story, and who I'd come for
She said "I'm sorry, son, but no one by that name lives here anymore"

My father's house shines hard and bright it stands like a beacon calling me in the night
Calling and calling, so cold and alone
Shining 'cross this dark highway where our sins lie unatoned"