Song Examination: State Trooper

A flexible, malleable, elastic Bruce Springsteen song with many excellent covers.

Bruce Springsteen has written some excellent songs for others. The Pointer Sisters’ “Fire,” and Patti Smith’s “Because the Night” might be the most obvious, but the entire “Nebraska” album was just supposed to be a demo four-track tape for the E Street Band to cover and flesh out. That was until Springsteen decided that these particular songs sounded better this way, and made more sense together in this pared-down collection.

“State Trooper” could arguably be called the best song on this 1982-released record. But I will go a step or two beyond that and say, of all the rock songs about listening to the radio in a car — and there are many — this is the best. It perfectly captures the paranoia of someone who may or may not have done something wrong, or could just look like they might, driving home, listening to the radio, when they see a police car in their rear view mirror. The single, repetitive guitar strum that opens “State Trooper” echoes the passing yellow lines the protagonist does not need to describe as he thinks aloud, “The only thing that I’ve got / Been bothering me my whole life.”

As the scene continues in the song, the chorus becomes the desperate entreaty, “Mr. State Trooper / Please don’t stop me.” Rock historians trace “State Trooper,” and Springsteen’s general approach on “Nebraska,” to the 1977 punk band Suicide, and this particular song:

In “Frankie Teardrop,” a 20-year-old husband, father, and poor factory worker is driven to insanity and, spoiler alert, murders his wife and child, and commits suicide. Then he journeys into Hell, backed by a simple keyboard riff, drum machine, and Alan Vega's vocals and dark, inhuman screams.

Wikipedia’s entry about this song has this particuarly hilarious and radio-centric story:

The frightening nature of the song gave birth to a recurring segment on comedian Tom Scharpling's long-running weekly call-in radio program “The Best Show,” which is named "The Frankie Teardrop Challenge". Beginning in around 2013, Scharpling challenged fans of the show to listen to the song on headphones as loudly as possible, at nighttime and while alone, in the most creatively terrifying situations that they can think of. Callers regularly phone in to recount their experiences attempting the challenge, with very few listeners completing all 10 minutes and 26 seconds of the song. Scharpling also often works elements of "Frankie Teardrop" into experimental improvisational sound collages that he regularly creates on-air.

I also quite like Drop The Lime’s much more electronic version of “State Trooper” that came out in 2012, and has a touch of Scharpling’s spirit.

I am not as big a fan of the more traditional, or what some call “faithful” versions of “State Trooper” such as by the Cowboy Junkies, Steve Earle, or Steve Wynn. I want to hear something different, as this particular song can be stretched all sorts of way. I was inspired to write this column because of the release this week of this excellent version by Queen Kwong:

I love how the radio reference in the original morphs into Trinitron video monitor static in this update version. The guitar strum becomes a simple programmed beat, but still evokes the yellow lines passing. This version stays utterly true to the original, while sounding all its own, with the electric guitar solo and minimalist synths. Enjoy the paranoia!