Join Eric Church, Emmylou Harris, Noah Kahan, Lyle Lovett, The Lumineers and Lucinda Williams for an in-depth exploration of the 1982 album. Hosted by famed music biographer Warren Zanes, the program features performances of Springsteen’s songs with spoken word storytelling.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipHow to Watch Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska: A Celebration in Words and Music
Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska: A Celebration in Words and Music is available to stream on pbs.org and the free PBS App, available on iPhone, Apple TV, Android TV, Android smartphones, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Fire Tablet, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, and Vizio.
About The Show
Recorded in his New Jersey bedroom, Bruce Springsteen’s 1982 album Nebraska has proved to be one of his most enduring works, a raw, haunted acoustic record populated by lost souls searching not for salvation but simply a reason to believe. On September 19, 2023, at Analog at the Hutton Hotel in Nashville, famed music biographer Warren Zanes — author of Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska — hosted an in-depth exploration of the album and the musician’s process.
Springsteen’s songs were performed by multiple legends in their own right, with Zanes’s spoken word storytelling in between.
“I wrote a book about Nebraska because the recording stayed with me over decades,” said Zanes. “Every time there was trouble in my life I reached for Nebraska. When I started doing events around the book’s publication, I quickly realized the best of them had music. When I went to Nashville, I had a remarkable cast of musicians to help me tell this story."
Musical performances from Nebraska include Emmylou Harris (“The Price You Pay,” “Nebraska”), Noah Kahan (“Atlantic City”), Lyle Lovett (“Used Cars,” “My Father’s House”) and The Lumineers (“Mansion on the Hill,” “State Trooper”). Two additional songs from Born in the U.S.A. are performed by Eric Church (“Dancing in the Dark”) and Lucinda Williams (“Born in the U.S.A.”). Between songs, Zanes offers insights from his book, about which The Boston Globe wrote: “Anyone interested in how music gets made — both the inspiration and the process — will be fascinated by Deliver Me From Nowhere, an amazing chronicle of one of the most unlikely albums ever recorded. And for students of Springsteen, it’s an absolute must.”
