Fantastic article Alex. I am still hiding with shame about voting against Born to Run in Paul's album competition so I can't talk! Secondly if we in confessions then when I first played this album I didn't like it. And then playing it a few more times I reflected more on how good the songs were. However I am in totally agreement with you. This record would have been so much better with the E Street Band. It is a shame really especially as you point out so well when you hear the live versions of the songs. My ratings of the songs would be almost the same as yours. The Live version would be much higher than the album version. When it comes to Nebraska, live rules!