Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere

In 1982, Bruce Springsteen released a self-recorded, lo-fi album with no press called "Nebraska". In 2025, Jeremy Allen White starred in Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere and delivered a strong performance that chronicled the struggles Springsteen was facing while making the album. Co-hosts Jon and Mark ride through the highs and lows of this rocking biopic that ends up leaving a little gas in the tank.

The Boss might be lost, but do you know who you are?! That makes one of us.

Transcript

Jon 
Tonight on the Rock and Roll Theatre Podcast, the boss is lost. Deliver me from nowhere, Bruce Springsteen.

Hello everybody and welcome back to the Rock and Roll Theatre Podcast. My name is John, I'm joined by my brother Mark for each episode. We take a look at rock and roll movies, music, pop culture, all sorts of fun things. And today we're looking at Deliver Me From Nowhere, the film featuring Bruce Springsteen's making of Nebraska.

Mark 
Springsteen Deliver Me From Nowhere was released on October 24th, 2025. It's classified as a biography musical drama. It runs two hours in length, rated PG-13. It was written and directed by Scott Cooper. The movie had a budget of $55 million, but collected only $45 million at the box office, so it's not considered a resounding success.

It's based on the 2023 book called, Deliver Me From Nowhere written by Warren Zanes. I haven't read that as well as some elements from Springsteen's 2016 autobiography called Born to Run. I have read that. The film stars Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen and it chronicles Bruce Springsteen's personal and professional struggles during the writing and recording of the 1982 album called Nebraska.

Jon 
Nebraska is one of Bruce Springsteen's most important records. He wrote it right after the river and kind of the same time as he wrote Born in the USA. We'll talk about that a little bit later. And it's a very stripped down album from Bruce. It's basically just guitar, harmonica, and vocals. And it really stands out in Bruce's catalog as something different.

Mark
Bruce Springsteen was deeply involved in the making of the movie. He visited the set often and granted access to his archives, including his original Nebraska notebooks. 
The film also features some authentic locations as well. It was filmed across 14 different New Jersey municipalities and included locations like the Stone Pony Nightclub and the Ashbury Park Boardwalk. 
The lead actor, Jeremy Allen White, trained extensively in guitar and vocals for six months to embody Bruce Springsteen's physicality and voice.

Jon 
Jeremy Allen White was Bruce Springsteen's first choice to play him in the film. We also heard rumors that Nick Jonas might have been tied to this project at one point, but basically when Bruce met Jeremy Allen White, he thought this guy embodies a rock star, that's how want to play me. And Jeremy Allen White is best known for Shameless as well as The Bear, a show he created for HBO where he plays a chef in Chicago. So he's coming off some career highs here to play Bruce Springsteen. And we're gonna get into all that, all the other stuff coming up here, but before we do, just a little quick bit of housekeeping here.

out in the world if you could like, subscribe, share, come on our socials, make a comment, let us know what you're thinking. A small independent podcast like us really appreciates things like that. So without further ado, deliver me from nowhere.

Mark 
So when the film opens, we see a very young Bruce Springsteen in 1957, and we see text on the screen that we are in Freehold, New Jersey. Bruce Springsteen is driving in the car with his mom. It's the daytime, and they look like they're going to maybe the neighborhood corner bar. It's a little strange. And in the scene, Bruce has to get out of the car, go into the bar, and find his dad. Kind of weird.

Maybe we're hinting at some troubled past maybe. But things cut immediately to a modern day, well at least 1981 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Bruce Springsteen is on stage with the E Street band and they are performing Born to Run. The sound is good. The playing looks, it's a bit masked. It doesn't look totally authentic maybe compared to some other musicals. And we're told this is the final show of the River Tour.

Bruce Springsteen comes off stage and says, gotta get home, slow things down.

Jon 
This is great performance right out the gate from Jeremy Allen White. He really nails being Bruce Springsteen. He looks great doing this live version of Born to Run. There's also a worn out telecaster he's using and I'm guessing that might be on loan from the boss because it sure looks like one of his guitars. But this is too short of a scene. I would prefer this for maybe two minutes, two and a half minutes, maybe I'll play the whole song. It looked great, sounded great, but it got cut very quickly. And we immediately moved to CBS offices in New York City and we reduced to John Landau, who's the manager of Bruce

Springsteen. He wants Bruce to stay in New York, keep going with the momentum they have from the tour, but Bruce, he wants to slow things down, he's going to New Jersey. So he's kind of ambling around New Jersey and decides to buy a Camaro. The sales guy totally recognizes that it's Bruce, he's totally sucking up to him, lets him know it has a cassette player in it, but the boss prefers vinyl to cassette, and the salesman says to hey, I know who you are.

And Bruce says that makes one of us. He doesn't really know who he is at this point. Doesn't seem very happy, even though it's a really nice car. Hungry Heart comes on, which was his big hit from the time from the River tour. And funny fact about Hungry Heart, it was actually written. Joey Ramone of the Ramones asked Bruce Springsteen to write him a song and Bruce wrote Hungry Heart. His manager thought it was such a strong song that they kept it for Bruce and himself. So it's kind of funny to picture what would the Ramones sound like playing Hungry Heart.

But Bruce not feeling it, he turns it off when it comes on. So we move back to the CBS buildings. They're concerned. They want more from Bruce. But Bruce is off jamming the Stone Pony. It's the first of several songs we see him doing the Stone Pony with the backing band. Cats on the Smooth Surface. That's the house band, the Stone Pony. I do believe some of Greta Land fleet are in the backing backing band as well, too. And then we meet the creepy dude outside after the bar, Joey Romano, introduces Bruce to his sister, Faye, in kind of a creepy way. And he's like, I know you from high school.

is like high school. was a bit of a blur. Someone yells out Bruce you suck and Bruce says hey another satisfied customer and then we get a flashback to Bruce boxing with his dad in a kind of really aggressive way you shouldn't box with a child.

Mark 
moving on from this and Bruce Springsteen goes to meet with his manager to decide what's next. Bruce is kind of maybe he's a little bit aloof. He's kind of evading some of the questions his managers trying to pin him down, you know, we're having all the success like, you know, we got to keep it keep it running. Like, what are we doing next? Bruce Springsteen begins to talk about some of his ideas for what he wants to do for the next album.

He keeps insisting that, you know, it's just about capturing ideas right now. He just wants to get some ideas. So he has a rental house, the Colt's Neck House as it's referred to, and he wants to set up a home studio there. So he's really interested in getting a four track and not wasting any time and capturing these ideas.

Jon 
I have actually recorded on a four track way back when in my life and it's a lot trickier than it seems with modern day recording now. It's relatively easy to record something but back then four tracks you only had the four tracks. So I guess Bruce's idea of just like hey one track for my voice, one track for guitar, one track for the harmonica and I have only one freed up and he wants everything to be transferred onto cassette. That's how he's feeling this, that's how he's hearing it and that also plays into the movie later on and he's kind of struggling for ideas and he's looking

looking around starts watching tv and there's a movie about the spree killer Charles Starkweather from Nebraska which gives him an idea for start to write in the title track and then we have a flashback to a rather rather intense scene where Bruce's dad might be on the sauce a little bit and Bruce is protecting his mom with a baseball bat and his dad's like that's great don't ever let anyone hurt your mom interesting scene okay

And then we see Bruce, he, Faye, who he met a couple days ago at the Stone Pony, he takes her out on a date, everything goes well, they go to the boardwalk at Asbury Park, and finally in the last scene, Bruce gets his four track and decides to set up in the bedroom.

Mark
He insists that the bedroom is going to be the best room for recording. He doesn't want an engineer. He doesn't want a producer. Again, he insists it's just for ideas. So we start to hear some of the songs that he's playing and everything is acoustic. It sounds very emotional and it definitely sounds slower paced compared to most of his other material up to this point.

Jon
We also see this relationship with Faye and her daughters progressing nicely. He's taken them out on dates. He's taken them around the town. We started to the song Atlantic City taking shape, which is a very, very famous song from that record. And we get a little peek at the track list and we see things that are definitely not in Nebraska. And any Bruce Springsteen fan or any music fan will know these songs. We also see that he has glory days written on there. I'm on fire, born in the USA. All songs that were on later on, born in the USA. At this point, he's considering doing a double album of sorts.

We also see Johnny 99 is on the list that was covered by the loved ones from Philadelphia. Bruce gets his offer to star in a movie and write a song about it, Born in the USA, but Bruce never quite gets around to starring in the movie or doing anything like that. He also has a session scheduled for Donna Summer, which is strange, Disco Queen Donna Summer, to do the song Cover Me, but he blows it off and the version we have today of Cover Me is The Boss and not Donna Summer.

Mark
So we get a little bit more insight to how things are sounding. Bruce Springsteen is very excited that he gets an Echoplex and that was used on Elvis's Sun recordings. So his sound tech friend is telling him, hey man, there's issues with this gear. Like this is not up to par, but Bruce insists that he likes it. He likes it like this.

Jon
I'm sure the boss could have afforded better gear by the time 1982 rolled around, but he is setting his idea and he's getting more pressure from the label. They want born to run part two and his manager hears the demos. Bruce sends a letter with him. There's no actual cassette holder for the cassette that just gets the actual cassette and and the letter with it. So if it got damaged, I don't know what he would have done. We hear a rough version of born the USA starting to take shape, but his manager thinks it should be harder.

Mark
Some of the things that are going on here with the recording, Bruce claims it's trying to break new ground, but the label feels that it's almost kind of dark and condemned.

Jon
He's just trying to get, John's really trying to understand what he wants, what Bruce wants.

And it's not clicking with either of them. So Bruce decides to ditch all of that. He goes back to the Stone Pony. This is a well done scene. They play the song Boom Boom. And Faye is now girlfriend is in the crowd. I guess his girlfriend is not really made clear. But he doesn't even know that Faye was there, but she still gives her a ride home. And Bruce breaks up with her and decides to go crazy speeding down the New Jersey Turnpike, whatever they would call it there, listening to Suicide's Frankie Teardrop.

Mark 
He later remarks that this is the most amazing record I've ever heard.

Then we go to Los Angeles, because there's problems going on with his dad. Bruce has to find his dad at a bar. And I guess he's not doing too well. He's off his medication. He's aging. He's much, much older. He offers to pay the bill, but the bartender denies the pay because he recognizes Bruce Springsteen. And he said, you know, any guest of yours can be here on the house anytime.

So we get a nice little summary at the end of this that Bruce was able to get his dad back to the hospital and back on his medication.

Jon 
But the boss is clearly losing at this point. He doesn't know what he wants to do, personal life, professional life, he's all over the place. But they decide to go down to the Power Station, which is a very famous recording studio in New York City, a million cool records have been recorded there, for their first Born in USA session. And John hypes him up, he's like, burn it down.

everything's on point in this performance. They do Born in the USA. It's an amazing song. You've all heard it a million times. And it's a great song. And I think it's a little bit fresher with Jeremy Allen White doing it as well. And I've always found Born in USA very similar to London Calling by The Clash, where at first it might sound like a friendly anthem like, hey, London Calling or Born in the USA. But if you read the lyrics, they're very dark and show the troubled sides of both countries.

Mark 
time for some of the more serious cuts now. So Bruce tries Nebraska with the street band, but things are not going well. He seems frustrated. He seems troubled. He really doesn't like it. We see a scene where he goes into the engineers booth and he just insists that doesn't sound right. And he's arguing with his manager. They're going back and forth and they decide to end things right there for the night.

Jon 
We're starting to see the huge difference between making Nebraska and making Born in the USA. And now they're basically trying to take the Nebraska songs and put them in the Born in USA style.

It's not working for Bruce and they're just not getting why he wants to record this in his house. But Bruce just kind of has his gut instinct and knows that this is going to sound better doing it my way. We hear the song Highway for Patrolman for the first time in the film. Faye's trying to get a hold of Bruce. He's not answering the phone. He wants it just be mastered from the cassette as it is. He doesn't want any studio tricks, no extra things done to in the studio. And the label is not feeling this. They're like, you made a folk album? What? In 1982, 83, I guess, at

point with what's on the radio at that point I could kind of see why they might have said that and they also John just knows how big Born the US is gonna be but he's worried for Bruce so Nebraska is essentially done and we hear a little montage of you know what Bruce went through with Faye and her daughter and what have you with I'm on fire playing on the background which of course is off the board in the USA

Mark 
So Bruce meets with his manager and the label heads once again and he insists no singles, no tour, no press. So I guess in his mind he just wants to let the album breathe. He doesn't want to go down the traditional routes of promoting things.

Jon
especially the time period where there was very less avenues to promote as there are today, saying no press, no videos, none of that. That's like a death sentence for a record back then, but that turns out to not be the case. Anyway, the last track is recorded actually at a studio, My Father's House, not at Colt's Head. And the label thinks it's unfinished, they want hits, but they agree to put it out with a no promo.

So Bruce decides he's done with New Jersey and New York. He's going to LA. He goes to see Faye one last time and Faye kind of reads him the riot act and I kind of feel bad for her. She tells him the truth. She says, I hope you find what you're looking for. And his manager plays The Last Mile of the Way by Sam Cooke as they're driving out to California.

Mark
So we get a montage of this drive out to California. Bruce is looking out the window, he's looking troubled again. They decide to stop in Lubbock, Texas, which is the home of Buddy Holly. They're at a fair at nighttime. It's like a state fair at nighttime. There's a Ferris wheel, there's people playing games, people getting cotton candy. And Bruce starts to have this kind of almost psychedelic kind of trip where he starts seeing

scenes of the past with his dad and himself in a younger age and he just basically has kind of a guess a breakdown and they eventually do make it to LA but he ends up going to therapy.

Jon
If Bruce had that breakdown today in Lubbock, Texas at a state fair, it would have been filmed by hundreds of people and be all over the internet and going completely viral. I would love to know if that's an actual true story or not. can't remember. I read Born in the USA when it came out 10 years ago, so I'm not 100 % sure about that. But I thought it was an interesting scene, an odd scene, and they don't mention it's the home of Buddy Holly, but I got to think that that's why they use Lubbock, Texas there. So we fast forward 10 months later and the Born in the USA tour is rocking. It's a great performance piece.

Only the second full band performance are than studio stuff we've seen in the movie. So So enjoy the little bits you get here. They're doing born the USA

Mark
It does look good, it does sound good, it feels like a big event, great energy. One of the key lines here, Bruce comes off stage and he says, feels good to be back out there.

Jon
he should because he's killing it and he meets his dad backstage his dad's there he's very quiet very you know he's clearly his dad's gone through some stuff they make peace there's an odd scene where he makes Bruce sit on his lap I'm not gonna get into that one and very weird and then we see Bruce walk in the boardwalk Atlantic City plays as the credits roll

Mark
Yes, very weird.

Mark
Soundtrack for the film, Springsteen Deliver Me From Nowhere, original motion picture soundtrack, was released in 2025. Its genre is rock stage and screen. Its style is soundtrack pop rock. So let's go through these cuts and see what's going on here. What's important to note is that it's not actually Bruce Springsteen singing any of these songs. The main vocalist is Jeremy Allen White.

Mark
First up, we have Born in the USA.

Jon
Right off the bat I noticed the production sound is very clean. I've heard the original many many times. It sounds great. Sounds a little bit fresher than the version I've heard a million times in my life. And like you said Mark, Jeremy Allen White is doing all the vocals and he sure sounds like Bruce. He nails his dead-on imitation of Bruce Springsteen. The tempo is a little bit faster I remember of it, but it works. It sounds great. It sounds a little bit fresh like I said after so long. And I mentioned earlier, it's kind of showing off the dark side of the USA. At the time I remember when Born in the

came out many politicians most notably Ronald Reagan wanted to it as a campaign song and the boss was having none of it. Also it's not on Nebraska.

Mark
Up next, Nebraska.

Jon
Like I mentioned there, the title track about the Charles Starkweather spree killings in Nebraska. It's very much like the original, I listened to both. And it's a storyteller ballad type of thing. It's basically just harmonica, guitar, and blues. So it's a very stripped down song and just tells the story of Charles Starkweather.

Mark
Atlantic City.

Jon
This is a really good song. know Bruce was no promo, no singles, no nothing, but I can't help but feel that Atlantic City would have been a single off of it and it would have been a hit. I mean, it is a hit. Bruce Springsteen fans love it. It was also covered by Brian Fallon of the Gaston anthem from New Jersey. Fun little fact there. And it has the Atlantic City vibes for sure. I've been to Atlantic City and it it fits the mood of that city perfectly. It sounds good. It would also sound good with the full band, I think as well. It's probably the most accessible track on the record.

Mark
Track number four is Mansion on the Hill.

Jon
We do hear a lot of this in the film when Bruce's, I don't even mention this scene, Bruce's dad takes him and his sister driving around the town and points out there's where the rich man live on the mansion on the hill, which kind of a course in analogy about rich and poor. It's a very stripped down song as well. It's not one of my favorites on the record, but it does what it's supposed to do. tell you the story.

Mark
Highway Patrolman.

Jon
Same vibe as Nebraska the title track and mansion on the hill This one's more of a storytelling type of thing and what I like about though is it leads into state trooper? Sorry mark track number six and it gets a bit of a groove going and Kind of has that you know contrast of highway patrol man to your criminal basically and it's a good contrast I like it yet again Jeremy Allen White's voice is on point and it has of course state trooper has a line it deliver me from nowhere

Mark
Track number seven, My Father's House.

Jon
I'm starting to feel like this record's on repeat for me. I know Bruce Springsteen fans, hardcore fans, are not gonna like me saying this, but it's, don't know much else I add other than it's a stripped down version, storyteller type of song. It's a little different from the session that we hear in the movie, but yeah, I get it. That's the sound Bruce was going for.

Mark
Next is reason to believe.

Jon
This shakes the album up a little bit. It's more of a 12 bar blues type of vibe to it. It's a rather simple song, but it's a nice up tempo. It makes it a little bit of a hit on the record for me. I enjoyed it.

Mark
I'm on fire.

Jon
I'm On Fire is another humongous Bruce Springsteen hit off of Born in the USA. It could have been on Nebraska, I think maybe. It kind of would fit the vibe. It's a great song, but I think it fits better on Born in the USA. The video of Bruce driving around, I was played all throughout my childhood. I've seen it countless times. And what else can you say about it? It's an iconic song. At Night I Wake Up With the Sheets Soaking Wet, it's a pretty good song. Baby, you know the rest.

Mark
Lucille.

Jon
The first of the three Stone Pony songs on this album. It's a good scene from the movie too as well. It's got the full band, Greta Van Fleet members, what have you. It's of course a Little Richard classic song and the vibes are great on this one.

Mark
Boom Boom,

Jon
Boom Boom starts the classic Bruce Springsteen, one, two, one, two, three, four intro. And everybody knows the riff. If you don't think you know this song, you know this song. It's John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom.

Mark
Closing out the album, I put a spell on you.

Jon
the Screaming J Hawkins song you often hear around Halloween time. It's a great performance on all three of these songs from the Stone Pony in my opinion and a nice way to end the record. I think it's a different take on a soundtrack and I enjoyed this one.

Mark
Let's take a look at the critical reception for this movie. So we're seeing some mixed reviews here for sure. On Rotten Tomatoes, Deliver Me From Nowhere is currently scoring a 60%. On Metacritic, it has a 59. On Internet Movie Database, it has a 6.7 out of 10. So this isn't overly high. 

So my own opinion on this, I actually saw it twice. Once on its opening weekend in the theatre, and then again at home. I would say I liked it less after the second watch, so I do think 6.7 is about right, because I probably would have scored it around a seven or just above a seven after seeing it in the theatre. But after I sat through it a second time, I definitely felt that there are some weaknesses in the film. I think it's mixed reviews here that we're seeing, I think, are actually kind of accurate.

Jon
funny because I kind of got the same place as you only in the opposite way. I watched it both times at home. I think I liked it more on the second watch than I did on the first actually. I might probably have given it less than a seven just only watching it the one time. One of my biggest criticisms is the lack of music in the film. There's just not a lot of performances, not a lot for someone who, you know, we're doing the Rock and Roll Theatre podcast, we like to have a little bit of rock and roll here and there. And I felt there was just too long gaps where there was no music. So that kind of soured a little bit for me. I can get to about

seven on this one I think.

Mark 
movie though it is praised for Jeremy Allen's white performance and emotional depth. It does receive some criticism though because it's sort of a conventional you know rock stars going through hard time structure and some narrow scope there. I do believe his performance is really strong.

Jon 
I do as well.

Mark 
In terms of awards, it was nominated for a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Drama for Jeremy Allen White.

Jon 
And he deserves it. He we said he did an excellent, excellent performance. I have no issues with that. Just some other issues with the pacing maybe of the film. 

We have a tradition here at the Rock and Roll Theatre podcast, no matter what we're looking at, no matter what we're reviewing, there's always someone out there in the world that wants to give it a one star review. So every week my brother finds the worst one star review he can get and we dive into it. Let's go.

Mark 
We have one today from Internet Movie Database. This was on December 21st, 2025. It is from P. Carlssons hyphen 32546, one star out of 10. 

The title is depressing and joyless. I will do my best to read it in full, with grammatical errors included.

Mark
You want to see a movie about a guy that thinks nothing is fun? That buys a new car and don't even break a smile? A guy who goes around sulking, looking out windows? A guy who plays boring songs on a harmonica? That same guy looking at trees? And then looking out some more windows? And then the same privileged guy get a girl, but he's not happy? And when he hears his hit

hungry heart on the radio, he turns it off. Then we get the flashbacks, off course. And they are all in B slash W and shows us again and again and again how unhappy it was.

And some the quiet strumming on a guitar and the reading of a page in a book and recording on a Porta studio comes around. The only scene with some action with the man on stage playing what most fans love comes in the first minute to never return. Excited yet? Five people found that helpful. Five thumbs down.

Jon
Okay, I can't believe you read that with all the spelling mistakes you had to read, so good job, Mark. Normally, I never agree with the one-star reviews, but this guy makes a couple of points here and there that yes, okay, you see the boss right at start of the movie killing it on stage.

then don't see that again until almost the credits roll. That bothered me too as well. The scene with the Camaro, I mean, it does kind of wreak of rockstar privilege a little bit. Maybe the Ramones would have enjoyed getting a Camaro better. I don't know. But yeah, one star review. I wouldn't give it one star, but there may be some points.

Mark
Finally turning to the lasting legacy of this movie. It is considered a strong musical biopic, but I think it is a little stiff at times. It's almost like they wrote it and they were trying to be, you know, very award worthy, trying to cover serious topics, really emphasize the struggle, but I thought the delivery ended up being a bit stiff.

Mark
I think fans of Bruce Springsteen will love the movie though. think they'll definitely be fans, they'll definitely enjoy watching it. Others, like me, who are familiar with Bruce Springsteen but not necessarily a fan, will most likely just think it's okay.

And it does reinforce the importance and the popularity of the Lo-Fi Nebraska album. It's still talked about to this day. People are still checking it out. It's still carrying some importance.

Jon 
I did like the fact that it was a biopic, but it was basically based on like a year, year and a half of a performer's life. Normally most biopics cover right from the start, right to the end. So I thought that was an interesting concept to take on just one little piece of Bruce Springsteen's massive career. Although it's a very important piece. Nebraska is a very important album in Bruce's catalog. It would not have influenced a ton of different things. There's a whole entire Americana folk punk, whatever you'd like to call it genre, that really traces its roots right back to this record. So it is a very important record.

is an important time of Bruce Springsteen's life. However, think covering Born in the USA or The River would have been a more exciting movie on some level, but I don't think that's what they were going for. I agree with Mark when he said, I think they're trying to go for more award type, more serious type of movie. And of course, Nebraska fits the bill. I agree as well too, that I know Bruce Springsteen fans will like this movie. I like this movie too. But if you're not a fan of all of Bruce Springsteen, I would skip it. And that's Deliver Me From Nowhere.

Thank you so much for joining us today on the Rock and Roll Theatre Podcast. If you're anywhere you are in the world, if you could like, share, subscribe, comment, find us on the socials, whatever. It really helps a small independent podcast like us stay around. Thanks a lot for joining us. Until next time, the theatre is closed.