Chords for Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska - The Story (From VH1 Storytellers)

_ _ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _
_ _ That was kind of one of the early examples of _ my narrative songwriting.
That's where I _ started [C] to take a different approach on the River album.
I wrote The River and Stolen Car, which were really two songs
where I took on a character and I tried to walk in his shoes
and I tried to get you to walk in his shoes also.
_ Songs were quite different. _
_ I followed this through on the Nebraska record and on the Ghost of Tom Jode record
and also on a good deal of Devils in Dust.
It kind of frees me to choose _ _ _ _ characters _ in some ways different from myself
_ _ to sing in those voices and to _ _ _ tell those stories along with my own.
_ _ This type of writing is _ _ _ often very detailed
_ _ [E] _ because you're creating a physical world _ that's not yours.
I'm in the desert.
I'm in Texas.
I'm in [D] _ _
Mexico.
_ _ _ So it involves a certain amount of research.
For this song, I remember I'd been moved by the Terrence Malick film _ Badlands
and I got interested in the story.
_ _ There was a book out at the time called Carol, about a girl that was a part,
_ _ Charlie Starkweather's partner. _ _ _
_ Just out of the blue, I decided to call the newspaper _ _ in _ _ Nebraska.
I called up and the woman who had reported the story was still there _ 30 years later.
_ So I got to speak to her. _ _ _ _ _
She was _ just friendly and helpful. _ _
_ _ The song is, you can put together a lot of detail,
but unless you pull something up out of yourself, it's just going to lay flat on the page.
You've got to find out what you have in common with that character,
no matter who they are or what they did.
_ _ _ _ So Nebraska is a song written with the premise that _ everyone knows what it's like to be condemned,
_ _ which they do, of course.
The body of the song, the first five verses, is basically _ repertorial.
_ _ It's information you can glean from researching the story.
_ _ It's spooky because _ I'm singing in the voice of the dead.
_ _ The music is very [G] childlike and mystical.
On the record, I used a glockenspiel.
_ _ _ _ [D] _ I think I was interested in an oral projection of,
I don't know if you're familiar with Robert Mitchum's film, Night of the Hunter, _
which is kind of this horror story told from a child's perspective.
I was interested in an oral projection of that idea.
[A] _ [E] _ _ _ [D] _
_ Now, the character in this song, he's very plain spoken.
He's just storytelling.
_ _ What he did, what happened. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [A] But the song takes place [Dm] in a place where it's quiet now.
It's after the violence.
[A] _ _
_ _ _ _ And [E] it feels like it's after his death.
[A] There's even a joke.
Make sure my pretty baby sits right there on my lap. _ _ _ _
_ And things kind of roll along until the end _
_ when someone or something else _
[G] steps forward.
_ [A] And that something else, that's me.
And that's you.
[D] And that's him.
_ _ And _ we all kind of meet on,
They declared [A] me _
_ [D] unfit to live. _
Everybody knows what that's like.
_ _ _ Set into [Am] that great void, [D] my soul be heard.
_ _ Yes, it will.
_ _ They want [Bm] to know why I did [D] what I did.
_ Sir, I guess there's just a [E] meaning in _ _ [D] this world. _
_ _ Oh yes, there is.
And everybody knows what it's like to be condemned. _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [N] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ There's _ _ _ _ _ people back here.
_ Somebody should have told me. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [F] _ Blessings.
Alright. _
How _ you _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ guys making out back there?
Can you hear what I'm saying? _ _
Want _ _ _ _ _ maybe a little bit more piano? _ _ _ _ _
That's too much.
_ I'm going to bring it back where it was.
_ _ _ _ Decisions, decisions.