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Nebraska is arguably Bruce Springsteen's greatest album, and one of its strongest songs is "Mansion on the Hill." Taking a classic American image (both Hank Williams and Neil Young have written songs with the same title), Springsteen creates a pensive, almost dirge-like ballad, one which showcases Springsteen's "Woody Guthrie" persona to its best and most developed. The song comprises a series of simple verses. The first begins, "There's a place down on the edge of town, sir/Rising above the factories and the fields/Ever since I was a child I can remember/That mansion on the hill." The artist writes with the economy and tightness of a poet, and resembles Hemingway in style. As typical on this album, the backing is sparse and lean, with only Springsteen's acoustic guitar fingerpicking the chords and the occasional burst of harmonica. The song is successful in that it's both heartbreaking and defiant, and is arguably one of Springsteen's finest moments as a lyricist. The artist regularly performs the song in concert, augmenting the melody with a gorgeous pedal steel guitar line on his Reunion tour, although there have been no notable cover versions of the song.
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