Bruce Springsteen confirmed the long-rumored existence of an electric, full-band version of his celebrated acoustic record Nebraska — after insisting it didn’t exist during a new interview with Rolling Stone.
The electric Nebraska has become a mythical object for Springsteen fans over the years, and there’s been a lot of evidence suggesting the tapes do exist. For instance, in past interviews with RS, E Street Band keyboardist Roy Bittan and drummer Max Weinberg both separately recalled those sessions, with the latter even remarking, “It was all very hard-edged. As great as it was, it wasn’t what Bruce wanted to release.”
But when asked about the full-band Nebraska during a recent chat about Tracks II: The Lost Albums — Springsteen’s massive compendium of unreleased material recorded between 1983 and 2018, out June 27 — the rocker insisted, “I can tell you right now, it doesn’t exist.”
He added, “We tried to do a few songs with the band for a few minor electric versions of ‘Nebraska,’ maybe something else, I’m not sure. But that record simply doesn’t exist. There is no electric Nebraska outside of what you hear us performing on stage.”
After being told about Bittan’s and Weinberg’s memories of those sessions, Springsteen replied, “I have no recollection of it, but I can tell you there’s nothing in our vault that would amount to an electric Nebraska.”
About a month later, however, Springsteen texted Rolling Stone’s Andy Greene with a remarkable correction: “Just wanted to give you a heads up. I checked our vault and there IS an electric Nebraska record, though it does not have the full album of songs.”
Springsteen did not say which Nebraska songs were recorded, nor whether the collection would get a proper release at some point. There is another upcoming vault project, Tracks III, and while Springsteen said it’s already finished and “ready to be released,” it may not arrive for another few years because of all the other projects he wants to release, too.
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The musician also didn’t rule out the possibility of one day doing a full live run through of Nebraska. While he probably won’t do it in connection to the upcoming biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere, which centers around the recording of Nebraska, he didn’t dismiss the idea entirely.
“I could possibly go out and play that record straight through one day,” he said. “I think that would be fun to do, and the fans would get a kick out of it. That’s not off the table.”
