Coming in Oct.: NEBRASKA '82: EXPANDED EDITION, w/ the long-sought "Electric NEBRASKA" trax & more!

September 4, 2025

No matter what one's feelings may be about the upcoming Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere biopic, today's biopic-related announcement is very good news indeed. On Friday October 17, one week before the film is released, Sony Music will release Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska '82: Expanded Edition box-set.

As per today's official press release, "Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska will be explored with more context and depth than ever before this fall, with the release of a five-disc [4 CDs/LPs plus a Blu-ray disc] box set featuring many never-before-heard and previously-undiscovered recordings. Nebraska ’82: Expanded Edition will... include The E Street Band’s fabled 'Electric Nebraska' sessions and solo outtakes from the era, as well as a newly shot performance film of Nebraska in its entirety - and a 2025 remaster of the original album. Together, they represent a wholly unprecedented look into the sonic world of this improbable lo-fi masterpiece turned enduring Springsteen classic."

Click the embedded YouTube links below to watch the official promo-video "trailer" for Nebraska ’82: Expanded Edition and to hear the first preview-track from the set: a previously-unreleased "Electric Nebraska" version of “Born in the U.S.A” (a song which originally was part of the batch of songs for which Springsteen recorded the demos that eventually became Nebraska,) featuring Springsteen backed by Max Weinberg and Garry Tallent, in a trio rendition from late April 1982. "We threw out the keyboards and played basically as a three-piece," says Springsteen in the press release. "It was kinda like punk rockabilly. We were trying to bring Nebraska into the electric world."

The “Electric Nebraska” material will feature eight previously-unreleased 1982 Springsteen versions of songs from the Nebraska demos in which he was accompanied by Tallent, Weinberg, Roy Bittan, Danny Federici, and Stevie Van Zandt, including two songs that were left off Nebraska and later released in different versions on Born in the U.S.A.: the album's title track and "Downbound Train." (Note: the screenshots below, taken from the official promo-video "trailer," include evidence of at least one unknown “Electric Nebraska” track that featured a saxophone part presumably contributed by Clarence Clemons, but apparently no recordings featuring Clemons will be included on the “Electric Nebraska” disc.)

"Over the years," says Springsteen in the promo-video "trailer," "I'd been asked about 'Electric Nebraska,' and I always thought the question was ridiculous. Finally I went back to the vault, and lo and behold, there it was." (Kudos to Rolling Stone's Andy Greene for his role in prompting Springsteen to head "back to the vault," as documented in Greene's Rolling Stone interview with Springsteen that was published last June.) "It's shocking," adds Springsteen, "because of how incredibly different it sounded from most of the other electric things I'd ever done."

The "Electric Nebraska" tracks "are not the songs you think they're gonna be," enthuses archivist/annotator Erik Flannigan in the trailer. "They're a hundred miles an hour; it's pedal to the metal... On top of that, we get Nebraska outtakes: nine solo-acoustic songs that are not featured on the original Nebraska album. The outtakes and 'Electric Nebraska' are joined by a 2025 remaster of the original album and then, a new live recording of Bruce playing all ten songs from Nebraska."

Of this new live recording, which will be presented in aural form as a CD/LP and in visual form as a Blu-ray disc, Springsteen says, "When the idea for the box-set came up, I said that's the one thing that I need to do: [re-]record the album from start to finish and then shoot it, let Thom Zimny shoot it as a film." Springsteen was accompanied by several other musicians for this project, but an official list of who was involved has yet to be released. The below screenshot of the box-set's liner-notes from the trailer, however, reveals the involvement of Charlie Giordano in the performance, filmed at Red Bank, NJ's Count Basie Theatre last April:

"I think in playing these songs again to be filmed, their weight impressed upon me,” says Springsteen in a quote from the press-release and liner-notes. “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."

"Nebraska ’82: Expanded Edition," concludes Flannigan in the trailer, "effectively gives us a window into the entire arc of the recording of Nebraska." And Springsteen himself adds in closing, "This box-set is gonna be lot of fun," and (with a clap of his hands,) "I'm super-excited about [these discs] coming out now for the fans."

Click here to pre-order Nebraska ’82: Expanded Edition. (Oh, and a well-deserved shoutout to Sony Music for a much more reasonable pricing scale for this box in all formats this time around, folks. Thank you, thank you, thank you! ...sincerely.)

photo by David Michael Kennedy - used with permission

Nebraska ’82: Expanded Edition tracklist

Disc 1: Nebraska outtakes (solo-acoustic recordings)

1. "Born in the U.S.A."

2. "Losin’ Kind"

3. "Downbound Train"

4. "Child Bride"

5. "Pink Cadillac"

6. "The Big Payback"

7. "Working on the Highway"

8. "On the Prowl"

9. "Gun in Every Home"

Disc 2: Electric Nebraska (recordings with E Street Band members)

1. "Nebraska"

2. "Atlantic City"

3. "Mansion on the Hill"

4. "Johnny 99"

5. "Downbound Train"

6. "Open All Night"

7. "Born in the U.S.A."

8. "Reason to Believe"

Disc 3: Nebraska (performed live at Count Basie Theatre, Red Bank, NJ)

1. "Nebraska"

2. "Atlantic City"

3. "Mansion on the Hill"

4. "Johnny 99"

5. "Highway Patrolman"

6. "State Trooper"

7. "Used Cars"

8. "Open All Night"

9. "My Father’s House"

10. "Reason to Believe"

Disc 4: Nebraska (2025 Remaster)

1. "Nebraska"

2. "Atlantic City"

3. "Mansion on the Hill"

4. "Johnny 99"

5. "Highway Patrolman"

6. "State Trooper"

7. "Used Cars"

8. "Open All Night"

9. "My Father’s House"

10. "Reason to Believe"

Disc 5 (Blu-ray:) Nebraska (performed live at Count Basie Theatre, Red Bank, NJ)

1. "Nebraska"

2. "Atlantic City"

3. "Mansion on the Hill"

4. "Johnny 99"

5. "Highway Patrolman"

6. "State Trooper"

7. "Used Cars"

8. "Open All Night"

9. "My Father’s House"

10. "Reason to Believe"