Springsteen had other ideas. Hiding away in a rented home in rural New Jersey with a four-track, a few guitars, and a lot of demons for company, he took the crucial artistic left-turn towards Nebraska, a sparse acoustic record that he, and many others, still consider to be among his best.

To say that Springsteen has a major discography would be an understatement, and many would surely argue that Born in the U.S.A. is his most iconic album. Considering that record’s popularity and subject matter,

Deliver Me from Nowhere, an adaptation of Warren Zanes’s book, opens on a sweaty, spent Bruce Springsteen in 1982 as he’s backstage, catching his breath after another herculean three-hour set, the kind that had already become legend on this tour.

Bruce Springsteen's 1982 lo-fi classic “Nebraska,” recorded in the bederoom of his former Lincroft home on a four-track home recorder, was written and recorded as Springsteen was in the midst of a deep psychological crisis.

The standout track in that latter mode is a previously unreleased version of Born in the USA, which wouldn't sound out of place on a Hüsker Dü or early Replacements record. It suggests an alternate reality where Springsteen abandoned his desire for mainstream success in favour of a major cult career à la Neil Young.

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere opened in multiplexes over the weekend following a worldwide publicity campaign, thorough fact-checks by the media, the official release of the fabled Electric Nebraska sessions,