1982 Killer Ballad Inspired by a Cinematic Masterpiece Became a Surprise Multi-Chart Hit Decades Later
Film is often inspired by music. See: The Indian Runner and Bruce Springsteen's "Highway Patrolman," The Hitcher and The Doors' "Riders on the Storm," and Pretty in Pink and Psychedelic Furs' "Pretty in Pink." But the symbiotic relationship goes the other way, too.
Case in point: Springsteen's 1982 acoustic murder ballad "Nebraska," which was directly inspired by Terrence Malick's 1973 film, Badlands, starring Martin Short and Sissy Spacek.
The film, widely regarded as one of Malick's cinematic masterpieces, is a bleak yet beautifully hypnotic true-crime road movie cherading as a twisted fairy tale. Unfolding through the detached voiceover of a 15-year-old girl named Holly, played by Spacek, Malick's lyrical story follows Holly and her older "greaser" boyfriend, Kit, on a killing spree through the South Dakota badlands.
Loosely based on the 1958 crimes of 19-year-old Charlie Starkweather and his 14-year-old girlfriend, Carol Ann Fugate, the film Variety called an "impressive debut" is sitting pretty at a near-perfect 98% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. But its biggest fan? Might just be Springsteen.
"Springsteen has been quite open about the fact that the bleakly beautiful sounds of Nebraska were partly inspired by Badlands," MovieMaker magazine wrote. "When Holly first appears in the film, she is expertly twirling a baton -- just like the girl Springsteen describes at the start of his title track, 'Nebraska': 'I saw her standing on her front lawn just twirling her baton / Me and her went for a ride, sir, and ten innocent people died / From the town of Lincoln, Nebraska, with a sawed-off .410 on my lap / Through to the badlands of Wyoming I killed everything in my path.'"
Off Springsteen's sixth album, "Nebraska" is a chilling, first-person narrative song that helped its album climb the Billboard 200, peaking at No. 3 in 1982. The making of the album is at the core ofSpringsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, a musical biopic released last October. In conjunction with the film, The Boss released an expanded reissue of Nebraska, and it saw even more success.
According to Billboard, the set - reissued with 27 additional streaming tracks, as well as digital download, CD, and vinyl formats - re-entered the Billboard 200 at No. 26 "for its first week on the chart since 1985 and its highest rank since 1982."
The outlet added, "Further, Nebraska debuts on a host of charts that didn't exist in 1982: Americana/Folk Albums (No. 3), Indie Store Album Sales (No. 3), Catalog Albums (No. 4), Top Album Sales (No. 5), Top Rock & Alternative Albums (No. 6), Vinyl Albums (No. 6) and Top Rock Albums (No. 7)."
In other words, the song and the album made a killing.
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This story was originally published May 25, 2026 at 10:12 PM.