Anthology of American Folk Music released on CD

Anthology of American Folk Music Various Artists

Released: 1952 (on vinyl) Released: August 19, 1997 (on CD) Recorded: 1926 to 1933 Peak: -- Sales (in millions): 0.5 US Genre: folk/blues

Tracks: Disc 1 (Ballads): 1. “Henry Lee” by DICK JUSTICE (1932) 2. “Fatal Flower Garden” by NELSTONE’S HAWAIIANS (1930) 3. “The House Carpenter” by CLARENCE ASHLEY (1930) 4. “Drunkard’s Special” by COLEY JONES (1929) 5. “Old Lady and the Devil” by BILL & BELLE REED (1928) 6. “The Butcher’s Boy” by BUELL KAZEE (1928) 7. “The Waggoner’s Lad” by BUELL KAZEE (1928) 8. “King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O” by "CHUBBY" PARKER (1928) 9. “Old Shoes and Leggins” by UNCLE ECK DUNFORD (1929) 10. “Willie Moore” by BURNETT & RUTHERFORD (1927) 11. “A Lazy Farmer Boy” by BUSTER CARTER & PRESTON YOUNG (1930) 12. “Peg and Awl” by THE CAROLINA TAR HEELS (1929) 13. “Ommie Wise” by G.B. GRAYSON (1929) 14. “My Name Is John Johanna” by KELLY HARRELL (1927) 15. “Bandit Cole Younger” by EDWARD L. CRAIN (1930) 16. “Charles Guiteau” by KELLY HARRELL (1927) 17. “John Hardy Was A Desperate Little Man” by THE CARTER FAMILY (1930) 18. “Gonna Die With My Hammer In My Hand” by WILIAMSON BROTHERS & CURRY (1930) 19. “Stackalee” by FRANK HUTCHISON (1927) 20. “White House Blues” by CHARLIE POOLE W/ NORTH CAROLINA RAMBLERS (1926) 21. “Frankie” by MISSISSIPPI JOHN HURT (1928) 22. “When That Great Ship Went Down” by WILLIAM & VERSEY SMITH (1927) 23. “Engine 143” by THE CARTER FAMILY (1927) 24. “Kassie Jones” by FURRY LEWIS (1928) 25. “Down on Penny’s Farm” by THE BENTLY BOYS (1929) 26. “Mississippi Boweavil Blues” by CHARLEY PATTON (1929) 27. “Got the Farm Land Blues” by THE CAROLINA TAR HEELS (1932) Disc 2 (Social Music): 1. “Sail Away Lady” by "UNCLE BUNT" STEPHENS (1926) 2. “The Wild Wagoner” by JILSON SETTERS (1928) 3. “Wake Up Jacob” by PRINCE ALBERT HUNT’S TEXAS RAMBLERS (1929) 4. “La Danseuse” by DELMA LACHNEY & BLIND UNCLE GASPARD (1929) 5. “Georgia Stomp” by ANDREW & JIM BAXTER (1929) 6. “Brilliancy Medley” by ECK ROBERTSON & FAMILY (1930) 7. “Indian War Whoop” by HOYT MINGAND HIS PEP-STEPPERS (1928) 8. “Old Country Stomp” by HENRY THOMAS (1928) 9. “Old Dog Blue” by JIM JACKSON (1928) 10. “Saut Crapaud” by COLUMBUS FRUGE (1929) 11. “Acadian One Step” by JOSEPH FALCON (1929) 12. “Home Sweet Home” by THE BREAUX FRERES (CLIFFORD BREAUX, OPHY BREAUX, AMEDEE BREAUX) (1933) 13. “Newport Blues” by CINCINNATI JUG BAND (1929) 14. “Moonshiner’s Dance Part One” by FRANK CLOUTIER & THE VICTORIA CAFE ORCHESTRA (1927) 15. “Must Be Born Again” by REV. J. M. GATES (1927) 16. “Oh Death Where Is Thy Sting” by REV. J. M. GATES (1927) 17. “Rocky Road” by ALABAMA SACRED HARP SINGERS (1928) 18. “Present Joys” by ALABAMA SACRED HARP SINGERS (1928) 19. “This Song of Love” by MIDDLE GEORGIA SINGING CONVENTION (1932) 20. “Judgement” by SISTER MARY NELSON (1927) 21. “He Got Better Things For You” by MEMPHIS SANCTIFIED SINGERS (1927) 22. “Since I Laid My Burden Down” by ELDERS MCINTORSH & ELDER EDWARDS’ SANCTIFIED SINGERS (1929) 23. “John the Baptist” by MOSES MASON (1929) 25. “John the Revelator” by BLIND WILLIE JOHNSON (1930) 26. “Little Moses” by THE CARTER FAMILY (1932) 27. “Shine on Me” by ERNEST PHIPPS & HIS HOLINESS SINGERS (1930) 28. “Fifty Miles of Elbow Room” by REV. F.W. MCGEE (1931) 29. “I’m in the Battle Field for My Lord” by REV. D.C. RICE AND HIS SANCTIFIED CONGREGATION (1929) Disc 3 (Songs): 1. “The Coo Coo Bird” by CLARENCE ASHLEY (1929) 2. “East Virginia” by BUELL KAZEE (1929) 3. “Minglewood Blues” by CANNON’S JUG STOMPERS (1928) 4. “I Woke Up One Morning in May” by DIDIER HEBERT (1929) 5. “James Alley Blues” by RICHARD “RABBIT” BROWN (1927) 6. “Sugar Baby” by DOCK BOGGS (1928) 7. “I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground” by BASCOM LAMAR LUNSFORD (1928) 8. “Mountaineer’s Courtship” by ERNEST STONEMAN & HATTIE STONEMAN (1926) 9. “The Spanish Merchant’s Daughter” by THE STONEMAN FAMILY (1930) 10. “Bob Lee Junior Blues” by THE MEMPHIS JUG BAND (1927) 11. “Single Girl, Married Girl” by THE CARTER FAMILY (1927) 12. “Le Vieux Soulard Et Sa Femme” by CLEOMA BREAUX & JOSEPH FALCON (1928) 13. “Rabbit Foot Blues” by BLIND LEMON JEFFERSON (1927) 14. “Expressman Blues” by SLEEPY JOHN ESTES & YANK RACHELL (1930) 15. “Poor Boy Blues” by RAMBLIN’ THOMAS (1929) 16. “Feather Bed” by CANNON’S JUG STOMPERS (1928) 17. “Country Blues” by DOCK BOGGS (1928) 18. “99 Year Blues” by JULIUS DANIELS (1927) 19. “Prison Cell Blues” by BLIND LEMON JEFFERSON (1928) 20. “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” by BLIND LEMON JEFFERSON (1928) 21. “C’est Si Triste Sans Lui” by CLEOMA BREAUX & OPHY BREAUX with JOSEPH FALCON (1929) 22. “Way Down the Old Plank Road” by UNCLE DAVE MACON (1926) 23. “Buddy Won’t You Roll Down the Line” by UNCLE DAVE MACON (1930) 24. “Spike Driver Blues” by MISSISSIPPI JOHN HURT (1928) 25. “K.C. Moan” by THE MEMPHIS JUG BAND (1929) 26. “Train on the Island” by J.P. NESTOR (1927) 27. “The Lone Star Trail” by KEN MAYNARD (1930) 28. “Fishing Blues” by HENRY THOMAS (1928) Total Running Time: 252:50

Rating: 4.843 out of 5.00 (average of 9 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: Author Chris Smith called this “the most important recording of the 20th century” CS-3 noting its “enormous footprint…on popular music.” CS-3 The set was compiled by the “notoriously eccentric musicologist” JB Harry Smith. He had collected several thousand old folk and country recordings and whittled them down to “his favorite hillbilly, gospel, blues, and Cajun performances” JB for this “quasi-legal set of three double LPs” JB originally released in 1952. It covered American folk recordings from “1927, when electronic recording made possible accurate music reproduction, and 1932, when the Depression halted folk music sales.’” WK This set reintroduced “near-forgotten popular styles of rural American music,” JB songs which, in some cases, “had languished in obscurity for 20 years.” JB Highlights included material from the Carter Family, Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and Uncle Dave Macon. The collection was integral to “the folk & blues revival of the ‘50s and ‘60s” WK influencing “a new group of folkies, from Pete Seeger to John Fahey to Bob Dylan.” JB Robert Hunter, lyricist with the Grateful Dead, said, “It radically informed and purified our tastes, as well as the tastes of a whole generation of folk performers.” CS-4 Smith divided the music into “three categories: Ballads, Social Music, and Songs. Smith sequenced the three volumes with a great amount of care, placing songs on the Ballads volume in historical order (not to be confused with chronological order) so as to create an LP that traces the folk tradition,” JB moving from English folk ballads through songs dealing with “the hardships of being a farmer in the 1920s.” WK The Social Music set gathered material likely performed at social gatherings or dances as well as religious and spiritual songs while Songs was just a gathering of regular songs. The liner notes written by Smith were “almost as famous as the music.” WK He wrote short pieces about each song, accompanied by newspaper-style headlines such as “Zoologic Miscegeny Achieved Mouse Frog Nuptuals, Relatives Approve” for the song King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O by Chubby Parker. “Smith also edited and directed the design of the Anthology, including an illustration by scientist/alchemist Robert Fludd on the cover…In the 1960s, Irwin Silber replaced Smith’s covers with a Ben Shahn photograph of a poor farmer.” WK Notes: Anthology first appeared on the Folkways label as three separate two-album collections. It was reissued by Smithsonian/Folkways after being out of print for over a decade. The new release was packaged as a six-disc box set with Smith’s original liner notes and “a separate book of new reminiscences by artists influenced by the original and a wealth of material for use in CD-ROM drives.” JB In 1997, the CD release of the collection saw each two-album set consolidated to one disc. The track listing on this page reflects that release. “In 2000, Revenant Records released a fourth collection (compiled by Smith) that includes union songs and songs recorded as late as 1940.” WK

Resources and Related Links: AMG All Music Guide review by John Bush CS Chris Smith (2009). 101 Albums That Changed Popular Music WK Wikipedia First posted 5/29/2010; last updated 3/15/2024.

Bruce Springsteen Nebraska released

Nebraska Bruce Springsteen

Released: September 20, 1982 Peak: 3 US, 3 UK, 3 CN, 8 AU Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.6 UK, 4.5 world (includes US + UK) Genre: folk rock

Tracks: Click on a song titled for more details. Nebraska [4:27] Atlantic City [3:54] Mansion on the Hill [4:03] Johnny 99 [3:38] Highway Patrolman [5:39] State Trooper [3:15] Used Cars [3:05] Open All Night [2:55] My Father’s House [5:43] Reason to Believe [4:09] Total Running Time: 41:02 Nebraska ‘82: Expanded Edition On October 24, 2025, a four-disc version of Nebraska was released. The fourth disc contained the original album. The other discs were as follows: Tracks, Disc 1: Nebraska Demos & Outtakes Born in the U.S.A. (demo) Losin’ Kind Downbound Train Child Bride (early version of Working on the Highway) Pink Cadillac The Big Payback Working on the Highway On the Prowl Gun in Every Home Tracks, Disc 2: Electric Nebraska Nebraska Atlantic City Mansion on the Hill Johnny 99 Downbound Train Open All Night Born in the U.S.A. Reason to Believe Tracks, Disc 3: Nebraska Live On April 22, 2025, Bruce Springsteen performed the entire Nebraska album live at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, New Jersey. Nebraska Atlantic City Mansion on the Hill Johnny 99 Highway Patrolman State Trooper Used Cars Open All Night My Father’s House Reason to Believe Other songs from the era: Lion’s Den My Love Will Not Let You Down A Good Man Is Hard to Find (Pittsburgh) Wages of Sin This Hard Land Frankie

Rating: 4.110 out of 5.00 (average of 24 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

How Not to Follow a #1 Album “Nebraska was one of the most challenging albums ever released by a major star on a major record label.” AM Bruce Springsteen’s previous album, 1980’s The River, took him to the top of the Billboard album charts for the first time, gave him a top-five single with “Hungry Heart,” and was a multi-million seller. It established him “as an arena rocker, born to mesmerize huge crowds with songs about the romance of the road.” EW’93 Demo Recordings When it came time to record a follow-up, Springsteen “asked Mike Batlan, his guitar tech from the last tour, to set up a basic tape deck…so the singer could tape all the new songs he was writing.” 33-26 Springsteen recorded 4-track demos “with a Tascam Portastudio and a couple mics in a modest Colts Neck, New Jersey house.” PM Instead of embracing the “grand ambitions, big stages and larger-than-life, arena-packing choruses” PM he’d become known for, he “discarded the histrionics entirely for sparse, heart-wrenching lamentations” PM “recorded with only acoustic or electric guitar, harmonica, and vocals.” AM Springsteen and Batlan mixed fifteen of the songs that were recorded on January 3, 1982. The big question, however, was, “Coud this music – which was recorded onto a cheap, jerry-rigged four-track tape machine and mixed onto a two-track cassette that Springsteen carried around in his back pocket without a case – be turned into a vinyl album that could be manufactured in the hundreds of thousands and be played on the radio?” 33-87 The answer was yes. Nine of those fifteen songs ended up on the eventual Nebraska album. 33-27 Springsteen took a stab at recreating the songs with the full E Street Band treatment, but opted instead to release the original, acoustic demos, thinking they sounded better. “These intimate confidences were the exact opposite of the over-the-top, declamatory singing he had favored on his first four albums, and they put the emphasis where it belongs in these songs – on the words.” 33-84 It was a bold move for a man who had come to be embraced for his stadium-rocker anthems. Instead, Nebraska was a model of “unconventionality…[for] its refusal so succumb to rock conventions.” JG “Springsteen would have to sell his fourteen-million-dollar house and get a real job if he kept putting out desolate records with no hit singles.” JG The Songwriting “It was really the content that dictated the approach, however. Nebraska’s ten songs marked a departure for Springsteen, even as they took him farther down a road he had been traveling previously.” AM The songs didn’t always “seem quite finished; sometimes the same line turned up in two songs. But that only served to unify the album.” AM “Most of these songs take place on some unknown highway at some ungodly hour, a lonely narrator begging for some connection to something, be it a woman, a job, a radio disc jockey, ora half-forgotten family.” SG This collection also found Bruce “branching out into better developed stories.” AM The songs are “haunting,” SG “brooding and intimate” EW’93 – “gifts to be treasured, rife with vulnerability, sincerity and, above all, humanity.” PM Nebraska “functions as a pivotal turning point in how Springsteen thought of writing and recording,” SG demonstrating “the extra depth that makes him great.” EW’93 It is an album that has “the guts to admit that for some people the world may never be a friendly place.” JG It “is a record about being alone, about being desperate, about being brave enough to admit that there’s no easy cure for desperation.” JG In addition, “Nebraska’s indie cred and lo-fi influence are long since established.” SG The Album Cover The cover of the Nebraska album was a “grainy, black-and-white photograph” taken by David Kennedy of “an empty Midwestern highway stretching to a cloudy horizon, seen through the windshield of a car with snow on its hood.” 33-87 The Songs “Many songs on Nebraska seem to essentially be flip-sides of each other, with shared themes and sometimes even lyrics. ‘Mansion on the Hill’ features a grown man reminiscing about childhood nights spent staring at the titular mansion, while ‘My Father’s House’ features a grown man dreaming of visiting his father’s house. ‘State Trooper’ is about trying to outrun a cop, while ‘Highway Patrolman’ is told from the viewpoint of one, and both ‘Atlantic City’ and ‘Johnny 99’ are about broken-down men who commit crimes for economic reasons. ‘Open All Night’ and ‘State Trooper’ share many lyrics, but the former is a fun rocker about driving to visit a girlfriend, while the latter seems to portray its singer as suffering a psychotic breakdown.” MM Here’s a breakdown of each of the individual songs.

Nebraska Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 12/17/1981 to 1/3/1982 in Bruce Springsteen’s room at Colts Neck, New Jersey Released: Nebraska (1982), Live 1975/1985 (live box set, 1986), Electric Nebraska (1982/2025), Nebraska Live (live, 2025) Covered by: Chrissie Hynde & Adam Seymour (2000), Bob Walkenhorst (2010) About the Song: Nebraska is based on the real-life tale of Charlie Starkweather, a 19-year-old who went on a ten-person killing spree in January 1958 with his 14-year-old girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate. Bruce saw Terrence Malick’s 1974 movie Badlands (after which he’d named another song back in 1978) about the events and then read the book Caril, upon which the movie was based. “The song offers nothing traditional in the way of a serial killer narrative.” MM “Springsteen slips into the role of a cold-blooded killer” UP who experiences no guilt or remorse and seems to have no motivation for his crimes. “It’s a shockingly bleak narrative, even for one involving a serial killer.” MM “Fans and critics went into contortions trying to explain why that fatalistic tune was in fact some sort of affirmation.” JG However, like the other songs on the album, it actually displays “remarkable pessimism and…refusal to romanticize that pessimism.” JG It “set the tone for a series of portraits of small-time criminals, desperate people, and those who loved them.” AM “The numbness of his vocal, and the stomach-churning harmonica wails that punctuate the verses, ultimately connect to a greater spiritual desolation that was pervasive in Reagan’s America, and each version of America that’s come after.” UP

Atlantic City Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 12/17/1981 to 1/3/1982 in Bruce Springsteen’s room at Colts Neck, New Jersey Released: 10/9/1982 as a single, Nebraska (1982), In Concert/MTV Plugged (1993), Live in New York City (2000), The Essential (2003), The Collection (2012), The Essential (2015), Best of (2024), Electric Nebraska (1982/2025), Nebraska Live (live, 2025) B-Side: “Mansion on the Hill” Peak: 10 AR, 49 CN, 3 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 5.5 video, 58.09 streaming Covered by: The Band (1993), Hank Williams III & Michael Penn (2000), The Hold Steady (2009), Bob Walkenhorst (2010), Natalie Maines with Ben Harper & Charlie Musselwhite (2013) About the Song: This was the closest the Nebraska album came to a hit. It reached the top 10 on the album-rock chart has become the signature song from the album. The album’s “themes of hopelessness and despair” MM is never “more palpable than on Atlantic City. You can feel the desperation in the voice of a protagonist who is at his wit’s end.” MM “Bruce plunges you into the action like the greatest film noir directors, instantly hooking you into this sordid tale.” UP “Of all the cinematic songs about two-bit criminals that Bruce has written, none is as gripping or evocative as ‘Atlantic City.’” UP The narrator has “learned that there is no comfortable, normal life in Atlantic City.” MM He has “’debts no honest man can pay,’ so he meets a mobster…and agrees to do a job for him.” 33-67 It “was inspired by Louis Malle’s 1980 film of the same name, but it could just as easily come from Mario Puzo’s The Godfather or Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather films.” 33-71 “Appropriately, there is a haunting, dirge-like feel to the song, with hints of Celtic sounds coming through on the mandolin. It may just be Bruce playing into a tape deck, but it’s a complete, fully realized sound.” MM

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

Mansion on the Hill Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 12/17/1981 to 1/3/1982 in Bruce Springsteen’s room at Colts Neck, New Jersey Released: 10/9/1982 as the B-side of “Atlantic City,” Nebraska (1982), Live in New York City (2000), Electric Nebraska (1982/2025), Nebraska Live (live, 2025) Covered by: Crooked Fingers (2000), David Gray (2007), The National (2008) About the Song: Hank Williams’ “A Mansion on the Hill” inspired this song. It “basically boils down to ‘You’re up there having fun, and I’m down here heartbroken.’ Bruce keeps this contrast and changes the subject from happy/heartbroken to wealthy/poor.” MM The song “describes a young boy and his sister hiding out in a cornfield, watching the rich people, who are laughing at a party in a mansion that sits above the town’s factories and fields. For the youngsters, it looks like Disneyland, but to us, the locked iron gates represent the kind of class divisions that have spoiled the American Dream.” 33-62 It is “a metaphor for the insatiable hunger that capitalism instills in the souls of Americans.” UP There’s a “wonderful nostalgic feel to the song” MM and it has “a gorgeous folk melody.” MM Bruce also “offers up some really nice harmonica work.” MM

Johnny 99 Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 12/17/1981 to 1/3/1982 in Bruce Springsteen’s room at Colts Neck, New Jersey Released: Nebraska (1982), Live 1975/1985 (live box set, 1986), The Essential (2015), Electric Nebraska (1982/2025), Nebraska Live (live, 2025) Charted: 10/9/1982 as an album cut Peak: 50 AR Click for codes to charts. Charted by: Johnny Cash (1983), John Hiatt (1997), Los Lobos (2000) About the Song: This is “a murder ballad in the country-rock tradition, but it subverts our usual expectations. Not only is it upbeat, but the murder happens in the first verse.” MM “The title character of Johnny 99 gets laid off from the auto plant in Mahwah, New Jersey, and soon accumulates ‘debts no honest man could pay.’ He gets drunk one night and shoots the night clerk in a botched hold-up.” 33-67 He’s sentenced to 99 years in prison, but instead of pleading for clemency the title character asks the “judge to be executed because he has even worse thoughts circulating in his head.” UP Author Brian Hiatt links the song to Jimmie Rodgers’ “Ninety-Nine Years Blues,” a 1932 folk song about a man serving a life sentence. “Springsteen nods to Rodgers with his mad-hatter yodeling throughout ‘Johnny 99,’ banging away on his guitar while dispensing the harrowing story.” UP

Highway Patrolman Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 12/17/1981 to 1/3/1982 in Bruce Springsteen’s room at Colts Neck, New Jersey Released: Nebraska (1982), Nebraska Live (live, 2025) Covered by: Johnny Cash (1983), Dar Williams (2000) About the Song: This is “one of the best folk songs Bruce has ever written.” MM “The classic story of the responsible brother and the irresponsible brother has been told a million times. It’s biblical and older than that, but it’s one that Bruce has only tackled once.” MM The narrator is Joe, a cop whose brother, Frankie, is drafted and comes back a heavy drinker. “We just know something bad is going to happen.” MM Joe is called to a roadhouse because of a man wounded in a fight over a woman. It turns out Frank is responsible. Joe “speeds after him and catches up, but eventually lets him go,” MM “caught between his duty to his badge and his soft spot for his brother.” 33-15 Joe insists, “’Man turns his back on his family / He just ain’t no good’ right until the end, but does he really believe it or is he just repeating it to justify his actions.” MM “The insoluable dilemma of that choice is echoed in the fatalistic sadness of the Woody Guthrie-like folk music.” 33-15 In 1991, Sean Penn adapted the song into The Indian Runner, his directoral debut. “It’s not hard to see why. The story…unfolds as a clear narrative with a neatly defined beginning, middle, and end.” UP The problem with the movie is that the image Springsteen crafts “is far better than anything Hollywood could ever create.” UP

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

State Trooper Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 12/17/1981 to 1/3/1982 in Bruce Springsteen’s room at Colts Neck, New Jersey Released: Nebraska (1982), Nebraska Live (live, 2025) Covered by: Deana Carter (2000) About the Song: Ths is the song “that best fits the stark landscapes” MM depicted on the Nebraska album cover. “Bruce has written his share of eerie, even scary songs…but no song in Bruce’s catalogue is as terrifying as ‘State Trooper.’” MM This is what it might sound like “if you could set a psychotic breakdown to music.” MM “The monotonous, maddening acoustic guitar riff just re-enforces the narrator’s own insanity, and Bruce sings the song as a man who is losing it, with the heavy echo and reverb just adding to the ghost-like feel of the song.” MM “We don’t know what the narrator has done, but…he’s not sorry about it.” MM “The narrative details are sparse – we know there’s a guy behind the wheel, and he seems a little crazy, and he’s teetering on the brink of violence. But what stands out more than the words is the intensity of Springsteen’s delivery. He’s in full-on Travis Bickle mode, staring at himself in the rearview mirror, and daring an unseen adversary to challenge him. It’s a wholly convincing and deeply unsettling act of evil transfiguration.” UP His “repeated cry of ‘please don’t stop me’ to the state trooper who is following him is less ‘I don’t want to get caught’ and more ‘Don’t make me kill you when you pull me over.’” MM

Used Cars Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 12/17/1981 to 1/3/1982 in Bruce Springsteen’s room at Colts Neck, New Jersey Released: Nebraska (1982), Nebraska Live (live, 2025) Covered by: Ani DiFranco (2000) About the Song: Musically this has a very similar melody to the title track. MM It also shares a narrator from “Mansion on the Hill.” He and his sister “resent their father for buying a boring used car instead of an exciting new convertible. They youngsters think it’s a failure of imagination, but we know the financial realities that dicate the choice.” 33-62 It captures that “critical moment in any young person’s life is when you first realize that your parents are flawed human beings.” UP In his book Songs, Bruce calls this “the exciting story of my own personal life.” UP “Bruce has written better working class songs than anyone” MM but this one is “pretty underwhelming.” MM It’s a “generic ‘We’re poor but we’re gonna get rich’ tale without anything really unique to distinguish it.” MM

Open All Night Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 12/17/1981 to 1/3/1982 in Bruce Springsteen’s room at Colts Neck, New Jersey Released: 11/22/1982 as a single, Nebraska (1982), Electric Nebraska (1982/2025), Nebraska Live (live, 2025) B-Side: “The Big Payback” Charted: 10/9/1982 as an album cut Peak: 22 AR Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 1.82 video, 5.49 streaming Covered by: Son Volt (2000) About the Song: This is “a Chuck Berry-style rocker” AM “car song about trying to get home to a girlfriend after the late shift at work.” 33-45 This is the only song on Nebraska to prominently feature electric guitar and “that is all fun.” MM “You can just hear the rock song waiting to break out.” MM However, it still “fits perfectly on the Nebraska album. There is still desolation on these open roads at night, no matter how much fun they are for this particular narrator.” MM The song “shares lyrics with ‘State Trooper,’ and while both are about a narrator driving on the turnpike alone late at night, they are incredibly different songs. The narrator in ‘Open All Night’ just wants to get his girlfriend Wanda who works at the Bob’s Big Boy.” MM Its interesting how the two songs “show how two people in very similar situations can have wildly different stories.” MM

My Father’s House Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 5/25/1982 in Bruce Springsteen’s room at Colts Neck, New Jersey Released: Nebraska (1982), Chapter and Verse (2016), Nebraska Live (live, 2025) Covered by: Ben Harper (2000) About the Song: Nine of the songs on Nebraska were recorded in January 1982. Months later, though, Bruce returned to his home studio to record this and “The Big Payback.” This one is “a haunting folk ballad that touches on one of Bruce’s favorite topics.” MM It is “right up there with ‘Mansion on the Hill’ as one of the most autobiographical songs on Nebraska.” MM “The narrator dreams that he’s a child again, running through the trees and brambles till he collapses in his father’s sheltering arms.” 33-62 “The singer seems to think the house itself holds some mystical quality.” MM “But when he awakes and visits the house in real life, the woman who answers says, ‘I’m sorry, son, but no one by that name lives here anymore.’” 33-62

Reason to Believe Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 12/17/1981 to 1/3/1982 in Bruce Springsteen’s room at Colts Neck, New Jersey Released: Nebraska (1982), Live 1975/1985 (live box set, 1986), Electric Nebraska (1982/2025), Nebraska Live (live, 2025) Covered by: Aimee Mann & Michael Penn (2000) About the Song: “The album closed with Reason to Believe, a song whose hard-luck verses were belied by the chorus – even if the singer couldn’t understand what it was, ‘people find some reason to believe.’” AM “Instead of just being one story like the other songs on the album, ‘Reason to Believe’ tells little snippets of stories and brings them all together with the narrator being struck ‘kind of funny’ that ‘at the end of every hard earned day people find some reason to believe.’” MM It is not, however, a judgment on the characters, just an observation that “there are more questions than answers.” MM The song “leans more towards blues than the other songs on the album, which are more from the folk and country traditions.” MM

Other Songs from the Era Here are other songs recorded during the Nebraska sessions which were released on various collections, primarily the 1998 Tracks box set.

Lion’s Den Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 1/25/1982 at the Power Station in New York Released: Tracks (box set, 1998)

The Big Payback Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: between March and April 1982 at Thrill Hill East, Bruce Springsteen’s room at Colts Neck, New Jersey Released: 11/22/1982 as the B-side to “Open All Night,” The Essential (2003), Nebraska: Demos & Outtakes (1982/2025) About the Song: 9 of the 10 songs on Nebraska were recorded in January 1982. Months later, Bruce recorded two more songs. “My Father’s House” became part of the album while this rockabilly-tinged number, “essentially a lesser ‘Open All Night,’” MM missed the cut.

My Love Will Not Let You Down Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: May 5-7, 1982 at the Power Station in New York Released: Tracks (box set, 1998), 18 Tracks (1999) About the Song: “This earnest pledge ranks among the very best to somehow not make [it on] record.” UP It is “a driving, glowing rock anthem…that could easily work as a single.” MM “Bruce’s raspy vocals are the perfect match to the guitar-heavy track, and the glistening keyboards add even more hope to the song.” MM After its release on Tracks it became “a central song of the reunion tours that Bruce played with The E Street Band for the next few years.” UP The narrator “is so dedicated to keeping the titular promise to his love that it’s keeping him up nights.” MM “He is committed 100%. Whether or not the girl will believe him is up in the air, but the song is so energetic and forthright that it would be hard to think she’d have second thoughts.” MM

A Good Man Is Hard to Find (Pittsburgh) Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 5/5/1982 at the Power Station in New York Released: Tracks (box set, 1998) About the Song: This song “describes the widow of a Vietnam soldier…The gently rolling country-pop music reinforces the lyrics’ evocation of domesticity, but that only makes the key lines bite harder.” 33-15

Wages of Sin Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 5/10/1982 Released: Tracks (box set, 1998) Covered by: Damien Jurardo & Rose Thomas (2000) About the Song: This is “another great moody ballad stuck between albums.” UP It “feels like it belongs in the Nebraska camp, though Springsteen gave it an arrangement that put it in the same ballpark as ‘My Hometown.’” UP

This Hard Land Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 5/11/1982; January 1995 at the Hit Factory in New York Released: 1982 version: Tracks (box set, 1998), 1995 version: Greatest Hits (1995), Live in New York City (2000) About the Song: “Bruce is known as a rocker first, but he’s written some incredible folk songs.” MM “With This Hard Land…Bruce makes his definitive entry into the American folk music canon.” MM This “galloping adventure tale” UP “should have been the signature track on the long lost country rock album that Springsteen hinted at making around the margins of Born in the U.S.A.” UP “The sound of ‘This Hard Land’ is so beautiful and clear, from the harmonica and guitar that start the song off to the full band arrangement that kicks in after the first verse.” MM This tale of “displaced farmers…from Houston to the Rio Grande” 33-63 is inspired by “John Ford’s 1940 film adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath.” 33-70 It is “a story about two friends who head out into the west and pledge undying loyalty to one another.” UP “Living on and farming the land is near impossible for these characters, but the narrator and Frank are prepared to fight as hard as they can.” MM “The Woody Guthrie influence is obviously here in the lyrics about hard work and western landscapes.” MM “Danny Federici’s organ plants this one firmly in the Jersey Shore. Meanwhile, Roy Bittan’s piano part sounds like something from a Gershwin piece, and its plinking sounds play perfectly against Little Steven’s mandolin. Max Weinberg counts this among his favorite songs the band has ever recorded, and his performance here is quite underrated.” MM

Frankie Bruce Springsteen

Writer(s): Bruce Springsteen Recorded: 5/14/1982 at the Power Station in New York Released: Tracks (box set, 1998) About the Song: The song turns “incidents from the Old Testament into comic sketches.” 33-71 This is “an old-school soul-music tune about a man telling his ex-lover that he’s been healing his broken heart as if he were Daniel testing his faith in the lion’s den, and now he’s coming back, stronger than ever.” 33-45

Reviews/Resources: AM AllMusic.com review by William Ruhlmann EW’93 Entertainment Weekly (10/29/1993). “100 Greatest CDs: A Love-It-Or-Loathe It Guide to the Essential Disc Library” JG Jimmy Guterman (1992). The Best Rock ‘n’ Roll Records of All Time. Citadel Press Book: New York, NY. Pages 30-1. 33 Geoffrey Himes (2005). 33 1/3: Born in the U.S.A.. Bloomsbury Academic: New York, NY. MG Philippe Margotin & Jean-Michel Guesdon (2020). Bruce Springsteen – All The Songs: The Story Behind Every Track. Cassel (an imprint of Octopus Publishing Group Ltd.): Great Britain. MM Movie Match-Up (5/4/2019). “The 250 Greatest Bruce Springsteen Songs” PM PasteMagazine.com (6/3/2024). “The 300 Greatest Albums of All Time” SG Stereogum.com (6/17/2025). “Premature Evaluation: Bruce Springsteen Tracks II: The Lost Albums” by Ryan Leas UP Uproxx.com (8/6/2020). The Best Bruce Springsteen Songs, Ranked” by Steven Hyden Related DMDB Links: Last updated 10/26/2025.

Grateful Dead released American Beauty

First posted 4/6/2008; updated 12/3/2020.

American Beauty Grateful Dead

Released: November 1, 1970 Charted: December 12, 1970 Peak: 19 US, -- UK, -- CN, 34 AU Sales (in millions): 2.0 US Genre: folk rock/jam band

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. Box of Rain (10 CL) Friend of the Devil (8 CL) Sugar Magnolia (2/3/73, 91 US, 5 CL) Operator Candyman Ripple (4/18/81, 50 AR *, 9 CL) Brokedown Palace Till the Morning Comes Attics of My Life Truckin’ (11/21/71, 64 US, 1 CL) * live version of song from 1981’s live album, Reckoning Total Running Time: 42:21 The Players: Jerry Garcia (vocals, guitar, piano) Mickey Hart (percussion) Robert Hunter (lyrics) Bill Kreutzmann (drums) Phil Lesh (bass, guitar, piano, vocals) Ron “Pigpen” McKernan (harmonica, vocals) Bob Weir (guitar, vocals)

Rating: 4.661 out of 5.00 (average of 22 ratings) Quotable: -- Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: American Beauty, the fifth studio album from the Grateful Dead, can be considered “a companion piece to the luminous Workingman's Dead,” AMG the album released by the group earlier that year. Both albums “were innovative at the time for their fusion of bluegrass, rock and roll, folk, and especially, country music.” WK “American Beauty is an even stronger document of the Grateful Dead’s return to their musical roots” AMG The sound was “focused more on folk harmonies and major-key melodies, showing influence from Bob Dylan and Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young.” WK Drummer Bill Kreutzmann said “the singers in our band really learned a lot about harmonizing” WK from CSNY. He explained that the two group’s “circles overlapped,” WK noting that singer Jerry Garcia had played pedal steel on CSNY’s Déjà Vu album that year and that Stephen Stills had lived at the Dead percussionist Mickey Hart’s ranch. WK “Thanks to the addition of subtle electric textures,” AMG this album sports “a more full-bodied and intricate sound than its predecessor.” AMG While the previous album was written solely by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter, this one is “more representative of the group as a collective unit, allowing for stunning contributions from Phil Lesh (the poignant opener, Box of Rain) and Bob Weir (Sugar Magnolia).” AMG Garcia is “at the top of his game as well…[as he] delivers the superb Friend of the Devil…and Ripple.” AMG Both songs also represent Garcia’s first collaborations with with mandolin player David Grisman, especially the latter. WK The album closes with Truckin’, “a blues/boogie-based rock tune with a shuffle rhythm.” WK While it only peaked at #64 on the Billboard Hot 100, “the autobiographical song became the one most associated with the band, and their track most commonly played on FM radio classic rock formats.” WK The album as a whole became iconic in the band’s live performances as eight of the ten tracks remained in their setlist throughout their history. WK “American Beauty remains the Dead’s studio masterpiece – never again would they be so musically focused or so emotionally direct.” AMG Notes: The 2001 Rhino reissue added eight more songs, mostly live, but also single versions of “Truckin’” and “Ripple.” A 50h anniversary deluxe edition added a two-disc live set from Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, New York.

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for the Grateful Dead AMG All Music Guide review by Jason Ankeny WK Wikipedia

Van Morrison released Moondance

Moondance Van Morrison

Released: February 27, 1970 Charted: March 14, 1970 Peak: 29 US, 32 UK, 46 CN, 20 AU, 13 DF Sales (in millions): 3.0 US, 0.1 UK Genre: folk rock/blue-eyed soul

Tracks: Song Title [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts. And It Stoned Me [4:30] (17 CL, 28 DF) Moondance [4:35] (3/14/70, 92 US, 91 CB, 94 HR, 2 CL, 1 DF) Crazy Love [2:34] (4/70, 18 CL, 21 CN, 3 DF) Caravan [4:57] (49 CL) Into the Mystic [3:25] (5 CL, 21 DF) Come Running [2:30] (3/28/70, 39 US, 30 CB, 33 HR, 18 CL, 21 CN) These Dreams of You [3:50] Brand New Day [5:09] Everyone [3:31] Glad Tidings [3:13] All songs written by Van Morrison. Total Running Time: 38:14

Rating: 4.559 out of 5.00 (average of 21 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

Following Astral Weeks “Van Morrison had high expectations to live up to after” RV “the dreamy acoustic sound of Astral Weeks” TL and its “celestial poetry” RV made him “a cult hero.” RD The “Irish musician didn’t disappoint;” RV he responded by serving up “the brilliant,” AM “light, soulful, and jazzy Moondance.” AM It “is every bit as much a classic as its predecessor” AM yet the two albums “are so distinct they almost sound as if they’ve come from different artists.” EK More Commerical “Moondance is more firmly focused” PR and a “far more accessible follow-up.” EK It was Morrison’s first platinum album, reaching the top 30 on the U.S. Billboard charts. However, it is “no less essential than its somewhat rambling predecessor.” PR More Emphasis on R&B Any “debates about the authenticity of blue-eyed soul ring hollow when one listens to Van the Man.” VB On Moondance, he offers more “succinct shots of rock and jazz and healthy doses of R&B.” JM He “put more emphasis on the orchestrations of his bluesy melodies” RV by building “his arrangements around a powerful horn section.” TL “The songs are more tightly structured, less improvisatory.” RD Morrison veered “more toward the punchy, old-school R&B he loved than Astral’s jazzy meanderings.” TL “Ireland’s finest R&B acolyte” VB said, “That was the type of band I dig…Two horns and a rhythm section.” 500 Mysticism Moondance “retains the previous album’s deeply spiritual thrust but transcends its bleak, cathartic intensity to instead explore themes of renewal and redemption.” AM He continues to swing “back and forth between the mystical and the earthy. It happens musically, and…lyrically…He’s a dewy-eyed romantic and a cranky curmudgeon—sometimes within the same song.” EK He “move[s] away from the folk template and stream-of-consciousness lyrics into a more rock-driven arena with sharper storytelling and touches of Americana.” JM Moondance “married mysticism and mojo into a collection of sexual rebirth and redemption.” VB Themes “Morrison took that soul-band lineup and blended it with jazz, blues, poetry, and vivid memories of his Irish childhood.” 500 He “sings about fishing, swimming, rain and drinking, but his voice gives it an epic feel.” RV “Moondance showcases Van Morrison as a masterly songwriter and charismatic vocalist.” RD His “singing got more aggressive” TL as he delivered “a more precise blast of R&B energy, but he still wails himself into another consciousness in places.” EK Woodstock Moondance is “a product of Van’s residency in Woodstock and betrays the influence of his neighbours, The Band.” PR Morrison “was living in Woodstock’s rural paradise when he wrote many of these songs, although he left the area following the influx of people after the celebrated festival. Some of the musicians he assembled for the album remained with him for several years, including guitarist John Platania, horn player Jack Schroer, and Jeff Labes on keyboards.” RD Overall Impact The album’s “tasteful blend of Celtic folk, blues, jazz, and soul underscores one of the most expressive voices in modern music and enriches a strong set of songs that are pervaded by compassion and optimism.” PR The Songs Here are thoughts on the individual songs from the album. “And It Stoned Me” The album kicks off with the “lush, ethereal ‘And It Stoned Me’” RV which uses a “sweetly nostalgic” AM message and “pastoral imagery” AM to deliver what feels “like a fable of self-discovery.” RV Morrison “paints a vignette of adolescence with a storyteller’s eye for detail.” RD “Caravan” That song and “the glorious Caravan” TL “felt like lucid dreams.” 500 The latter is “an incantatory ode to the power of radio” AM that is the “heart of the record.” AM It establishes “the dominant lyrical motif recurring throughout the album – virtually every track exults in natural wonder.” AM “Moondance” On “smoky, jazz-infused title track” RD “Morrison turns the words over and over in his mouth, not scatting so much as searching for the sound of magic.” 500 He celebrates “nocturnal magic” AM which has become “a staple of prep schools and lounge acts to this day, and still none the worse for wear.” TL “Into the Mystic” “He kept his croony side, though, on the murmuring” TL and “majestic Into the Mystic.” AM It “is a moving meditation on the splendor of love; the shivering strings are a wonderfully appropriate complement to his vocals.” RD The song has “such elemental beauty and grace” AM that it could be considered his “greatest ballad” RV and “arguably the quintessential Morrison moment.” AM It is “a hauntingly sublime work that evokes feelings of extreme longing. When he finishes with the line, ‘It’s too late to stop now,’ music-lovers couldn’t agree more.” RV “Moondance seems to have it all.” JM Other Songs “Elsewhere, a celebratory air, bordering on spiritual joy, haunts many of the tracks – witness the closing trio of Brand New Day, Everyone, and Glad Tidings.” RD There’s “unlimited promise offered in” AM “the gospel-flavored ‘Brand New Day’” TL and “Crazy Love is his most romantic song.” RV Notes: A 2013 deluxe edition expanded the album to a four-box set with three discs of session recordings.

Resources: AM AllMusic.com review by Jason Ankeny RD Robert Dimery (2006). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Quintet Publishing Limited: New York, NY. Page 205. EK Eric Klinger, PopMatters’ Counterbalance series (2010-2012) JM Jason Mendelsohn, PopMatters’ Counterbalance series (2010-2012) RV The Review (Oct./Nov. 2001). “The 100 Greatest Albums of All Time” by Clarke Speicher PR Paul Roland (2001). CD Guide to Pop & Rock. B.T. Batsford LTD: London. Page 173. 500 Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time TL Time Magazine (11/13/2006). “All-TIME 100 Albums” by Josh Tyrangiel and Alan Light VB Vibe (Dec. 1999). “100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century,” pages 154-164. WK Wikipedia Related DMDB Pages: First posted 2/28/2012; last updated 12/7/2024.