Bruce Springsteen to Release Electric Version of 'Nebraska'

If there was any doubt that 2025 is the Year of The Boss, perhaps today’s news will win the rest of the skeptics over: Bruce Springsteen will release a new box set that features an electric version of his 1982 masterpiece, Nebraska. You know how the story goes, that Springsteen recorded Nebraska with the E Street Band but liked his acoustic demos better. So, at his home in Colts Neck, he tracked the music across one winter before returning to the studio to make one of the best-selling rock albums ever, Born in the U.S.A.

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The buzz around Springsteen’s name is at an all-time high right now, as the Deliver Me From Nowhere biopic recently premiered at Telluride and will see a wide release soon. After releasing Tracks II this summer and unearthing seven “lost” albums and sharing the Born To Run outtake “Lonely Night In the Park” almost two weeks ago, he’s prepping Nebraska ’82, a 4-disc box set with previously unheard Nebraska outtakes, a Thom Zimny-directed concert film performed at the Count Basie Theatre in New Jersey, and, of course, all of those Nebraska songs performed by Max Weinberg, Garry Tallent, Danny Federici, Stevie Van Zandt, and Roy Bittan. “I think in playing these songs again to be filmed, their weight impressed upon me,” Springsteen says. “I’ve written a lot of other narrative records, but there’s just something about that batch of songs on Nebraska that holds some sort of magic.”

An early outtake of “Born in the U.S.A.” is out now, and it sounds harsher and angrier than the version that made the album in 1984. It’s loose and punky, perhaps a good look at the direction Springsteen would have gone had he made a full-band album after The River. The Nebraska ’82 box set arrives October 17 via Sony. Check out my essay about Born to Run turning 50 here and listen to the “Born in the U.S.A.” outtake below.

Bruce Springsteen to Release Electric Version of Nebraska

The Nebraska '82 box set arrives October 17 via Sony.