Springsteen Delivered Me From Nowhere

After watching the Bruce Springsteen movie Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere directed by Scott Cooper starring Jeremy Allen White.

This is a biased review. Biased because my fondness of Bruce Springsteen is somewhat nostalgic by not mine but my father’s longtime fan-boy-hood for Bruce. So I assume some of my dad’s interest though I have certainly made it as my own. 

However, this does mean that despite identifying as a huge fan, I don’t know all the music or the story! It is fun to learn these things, while already knowing I’m going to love it. 

So today I review Bruce Springsteen’s artistic sensibility through the lens of the film Springsteen: Deliver me from nowhere which is the biopic focussing on his time recording the album Nebraska. 

The big thing I noticed about Bruce in this film is that he is very self aware, though he is not particularly self conscious. 

He is sensitive, though he isn’t embarrassed.

Nebraska is vulnerable, and he knows that is its charm. 

He is not simply a songwriter, he is a storyteller. 

Deliver Me From Nowhere is a story of guilt. It digs into the pressure points of Bruce’s hometown, his mum, and his dad, triggered by new responsibilities of fame and Faye (new girlfriend). The timeline jumps and skips with flashbacks and memories. The timeline warps and wefts with hallucinations and false memories. As Bruce records his new songs on the bedroom recording machine and adds the echo effect he loves it because it “sounds like it’s from the past”. Perhaps even more poignant is the scene of Bruce editing the lyrics for the first song on the list now titled Nebraska. The Song is written about the 30 year old case of killer Charles Starkweather who had killed 10 people while travelling with his girlfriend through Nebraska. In the film, Bruce first wrote the lyrics for Nebraska with third person pronouns: “He saw her standing on the front lawn” etc. but then, in reflecting on memories of the grit that he learned from his gritty father, changed He to I. 

“Well, they declared me unfit to live, 

Said into that great void, my soul’d be hurled 

They want to know why I did what I did. 

And sir, I guess there’s just a meanness in this world.”

This story of guilt is naked and on its knees in complete confession. 

I have so much respect for Bruce Springsteen in writing this song, identifying himself and his own guilt of some kind of meanness with that of a spree killer. The insight to Bruce’s emotional complex is intense. 

Deliver Me From Nowhere is a story of healing. In parallel scenes and subtle moments of reflecting Bruce’s father’s behaviour in himself, it is clear that he is drifting into and fighting his way out of the generational pattern of anger and abusive behaviour. His song My Father’s House on the Nebraska album tells the heartbreaking reality of his and father’s relationship. He surely loved him, but that tenderness he wanted was something only in his dream. Upon waking from the dream of his father’s comforting arms, he sings of the things that tear us from each other’s hearts. In the second last verse, as he reaches out for his father he is left wanting. 

“I walked up the steps and stood on the porch

A woman I didn't recognize came and spoke to me through a chained door

I told her my story and who I'd come for

She said, "I'm sorry, son, but no one by that name lives here anymore"”

One of the things I adore in Deliver Me From Nowhere is the critical scene where Bruce’s father meets him after a show. Shown in the movie and also described in Bruce’s Springsteen on Broadway acoustic storytelling show. 

In the film, his dad asks Bruce to sit on his lap and he makes his apology. With an invitation of tender physical closeness, he breaks this generational curse of anger with these simple words, “You’ve been very good to us, and I wasn’t very good to you”. Bruce holds him and kisses him on his forehead.

The profound-ness in this moment is described beautifully by Bruce in his Broadway show.

“To release them from the chain of our sins, my fathers of mine and our fathers before, that they may be free, to make their own choices and to live their own lives. We are ghosts or we are ancestors in our children's lives. We either lay our mistakes, our burdens upon them, and we haunt them, or we assist them in laying those old burdens down, and we free them from the chain of our own flawed behavior. And as ancestors, we walk alongside of them, and we assist them in finding their own way, and some transcendence. My father, on that day, was petitioning me, for an ancestral role in my life after being a ghost for a long long time. He wanted me to write a new end to our relationship, and he wanted me to be ready for the new beginning that I was about to experience. It was the greatest moment in my life with my dad, and it was all that I needed.”

I see that we (as artists) can learn from Bruce. Authenticity makes for rich art. To do something unusual but to stand by it is honourable. To do something, at great risk of public disapproval, for pride in your work is noble. To find the balance in telling a deeply personal story that resonates with all America and much of the rest of the world is genius. To work in discipline attentive to your pains (rather than in spurts of erratic inspiration) is productive.

I also see that we (as people) can learn from Bruce. Confession, honesty, and vulnerability, make for stronger relationships and some-kind-of deliverance. To speak openly of your unrequited love for your father is brave. To notice and treat your own symptoms of someone else’s sickness is important. To accept someone’s late apology without grudge or reservation is generous. To dwell in your guilt and loss and loneliness can be a place of fruitfulness. 

(Random final notes from the film that don’t go anywhere but I’d still like to say.)

Jeremy Allen White is very convincing. 

The female characters were all non-events. Faye was an unresolved story line and more of a type character than a real person, and John the agent’s wife (???) was almost robotic in her lack of personality. That was bizarre, but I’m not losing sleep over this because it seems the movie is simply more concerned with the male relationships. 

I’ve read reviews that this film was not ‘tortured artist’ enough… I think that’s plain stupid. I think the reality and nuance to Bruce is that he is not tortured, he has depression. This is where I see a lot of the self-aware but not self-conscious stuff. Bruce isn’t out of control, drugged up and drunk like other rockstars of his kind. He is kind of normal!

Anyway. 

Loved the film!

Love the music!

Love you Bruce!

In the mood? Try these!

When you want a pick-me-up: Watch the film Blinded by the Light.

When you are wallowing: Listen to Nebraska

When you want to feel like you are part of something: watch Springsteen and I

When you are on a road trip: Listen to Springsteen on Broadway

When you are either inspired or in-inspired by America: Listen to podcast Renegades: Born in the U.S.A by Bruce Springsteen and Barack Obama. 

When you just want to take your girl, get out of here and drive: listen to Thunder Road (full volume, windows down (learn the lyrics so you can sing along)).