Chuck Plotkin, among Springsteen's producers and a key player in the last stages of Nebraska's creation, would talk about the anxious labor of trying to make the album conform to industry standards. Springsteen's manager, Jon Landau, recalled for me, over several afternoons at his Westchester home, the way in which Nebraska arrived. Nebraska was unfinished, imperfect, delivered into a world hovering at the threshold of the digital, when technology would allow recorded music to hang itself on perfect time, carry perfect pitch, but also risk losing its connection to the unfixed and unfixable. recollected in tranquility.' Quite differently, Nebraska came from the middle of that 'overflow,' was not a thing 'recollected in tranquility.' It came from the heart of trouble and led to still more, its stark character the lasting reward. Wordsworth defines poetry as 'the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. He described it to me as 'an accident start to finish' but also as the album that 'still might be best.' The recording came from a place and a time in which Springsteen was facing troubles in his life, troubles that had no name as of yet. It sat between two of Springsteen's most celebrated recordings, in its own quiet and turmoil. I wanted to know where Nebraska came from, what it led to. I was at the family house and-as I think we both understood-his responsibility. Later in the afternoon he wondered if coffee was a good idea. He got me water to drink and then asked if I needed more.

But that day I was his guest, and he was as good a host as I could ask for.

He's probably had to scrape off hundreds of us just to stay on schedule. The intimacy of the music brings something out in people. Springsteen has lived with the joy and burden of people wanting his time. I had a lot of questions, not all of which he should have to bother with.

I'd grown up listening to the guy's records. I was wishing I'd parked three miles away. When it was all over, he walked me back out. In the spring of 2021, Bruce Springsteen invited me to spend some time with him in Colts Neck, New Jersey, so that we could talk about Nebraska. When I arrived, he walked out to my car to meet me. Photography has something to do with resurrection.

Author i am legend