Springsteen Deliver me from Nowhere

Springsteen Deliver Me from Nowhere is not a movie for everyone. I read the book and it is a slog. 

And before I even watched this thing I had my argument all worked out. That it is Michael Mann’s Ali all over again. That the creatives had picked the worst time in the famous person’s life and depicted that instead of giving us all the good times we really wanted. 

Making a movie about the most famous and entertaining boxer of all time and choose the three years where he doesn’t box because he is being persecuted by the federal government is a hard ask for an audience. 

Ali doesn’t work for me but this does. Would I have been thrilled with the usual assortment of music movie riffs where we see Springsteen leaving his poor background and becoming a superstar? A movie where his then girlfriend says something to him about an olympic athlete being a born runner and then it hard cuts to Springsteen writing Born to Run? You bet. Sign me up! 

But Springsteen would probably never authorize that movie. That’s too easy. Instead, we get a film where he is already a star and is going through an existential crisis as he creates one of the greatest albums of all time. 

I give it five stars with an asterisk. 

Here is a litmus test though for if it might be for you. 

Do you think The Boss is one of the greatest musicians of the 20th Century? 

Do you think Nebraska is his best album? 

Do you have all of his songs memorized and most of the lore behind each album and song catalogued in your head? 

Will you be satisfied with a movie where there is precious little conflict and is instead filled with tone poems that give you visual cues and signposts for various things that happen in the lyrics on Nebraska? 

Can you handle a movie that, just like its inspiration, isn’t designed to be a crowd pleaser? 

I mean seriously, which movie can you think of that gives you a relationship just to show it fall apart and in falling apart makes the titular hero of the piece look like a schmuck? There are certainly plenty of those kinds of movies but I doubt any of them made any money. 

My dad served in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam era. It was always important (to him at least) to note that he had not served in country in Vietnam. 

However, wherever the hell he was over there he managed to survive two helicopter crashes and come back alive. 

He married my mom, got a job at a factory, had me and ignored his PTSD for 40 years through a combination of Jesus and Bourbon. 

I’m not saying Bruce Springsteen has been singing about me and my father and our lives for his entire career. But I will say that I recognize all the people in his songs even if I have never set foot in New Jersey in my life. 

There is a song on Nebraska called Used Cars about a husband and a wife buying a new to them family vehicle. The song hints at a dark and troubled marriage. Something I watched myself in my own seat in the car as a child. 

“Now mister the day the lottery I win
I ain’t ever gonna ride in no used car again.”

There are certainly other joys here than personal connections. Watching Springsteen’s band and studio guys react to a rendition of the rocking version of Born in the USA is wonderful. Everybody hears it and understands how much money they are all going to make. 

Watching the horrified reactions to the Nebraska songs and Springsteen’s decision to put them out as is when any other artist would write them off as unreleasable demos is also a fine running joke. 

I’m not sure the movie conveys how much of Nebraska was also a smart marketing move. Springsteen knew what he had with Born in the USA and the rest of the songs on that album. 

He knew what that path would entail. From then on it wouldn’t just be stardom but superstardom. The kind of place where the President of the United States mentions you in his speeches as what is right with America and completely misinterprets your song. 

But if he released Born in the USA then it was probably it for him as an artist. When he did eventually release it, it basically took Bruce a decade to make something as creatively (though not commercially) successful as either Nebraska or Born in the USA. That was the very Nebraska-like Ghost of Tom Joad. 

Releasing Nebraska allowed Springsteen to take the different step before superstardom hit him like a freight train. He would always be thought of as a serious artist who made and released music that had something important to say to his audience. Springsteen was surrounded by a bevy of heartland rockers. Some of them were straight up imitators and some were real artists chasing their own sound and vision. 

But there is only one Springsteen and Nebraska is a big reason why he broke through amongst the critics and fans and isn’t considered just one of those guys. 

The Boss continues to make albums that range from good to great and recently released five albums that he had made but never unleashed. Critics, astonished, have said that many of these albums are as good or better than what was officially released over the decades. 

Springsteen’s response is simple. They didn’t convey what he wanted to say as an artist at the time. 

Nothing counts so much as your integrity. If you won’t keep your word (or in this case your bond with your audience) nothing else matters. 

Although the romantic side of the movie doesn’t have a happy ending Springsteen does make peace with his turmoil over his father. 

My father and I fought like hell towards the end of his life. But we did reach a mutual understanding. 

He called me crying and happy after my mom told him we were going to have a second child. I had planned to surprise him but my dad, forever the wheedler, had coaxed it out of her. 

The last conversation I had with him ended when he told me how excited he was for this second grandchild and that he loved me. I told him I loved him too. A few days later he he was gone. 

How did I feel about that? About him going before the baby got here but at least that our last words were of affirmation and love? 

“Struck me kinda funny
Funny yeah, indeed
How at the end of every hard-earned day
People find some reason to believe.”