Nebraska

This song is about Charles Starkweather, who was 19 when he went on a murder spree in 1958. Along with his 14-year-old girlfriend Caril Fugate, he killed 11 people in Nebraska and brought out fears that rebellious movies and rock music were creating a new breed of offenders. Springsteen considered "Starkweather" as the title. In a 1996 interview with NME, Springsteen talked about writing about unsavory characters: "You're not trying to recreate the experience, your trying to recreate the emotions and the things that went into the action being taken. Those are things that everyone understands, those are things that everyone has within them. The action is the symptom, that's what happened, but the things that caused that action to happen, that's what everyone knows about - you know about it, I know about it. It's inside of every human being. Those are the things you gotta mine, that's the well that you gotta dip into and, if you're doing that, you're going to get something central and fundamental about those characters."

The 1973 movie Badlands, starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek, was inspired by Starkweather's story. After seeing a poster for the movie in a theater lobby, Springsteen used the title for his 1978 song, but did not see it until 1980. He also read a biography of Starkweather's girlfriend-accomplice, Caril Fugate. "You can get to the point where nihilism, if that's the right word, is overwhelming," Springsteen said, explaining the song, "and the basic laws that society has set up - either religious or social laws - become meaningless. Things just get really dark."

This was the title track to the first album Springsteen recorded by himself. He recorded the songs at his house with a 4-track recorder, and after playing them with The E Street Band, decided they worked best as they were. Springsteen included four mixes of this song on the tape of demos he gave to his producer/manager Jon Landau, which would form the album.