Often it's better simply to step away from the noise

EVERY so often, a film comes along that reminds us that the essence of creativity whether in art or in business comes not from scale or noise, but from honesty and quiet reflection.

- DYLAN JONES-EVANS

Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in Deliver Me From Nowhere

Released last month, Deliver Me from Nowhere based on Warren Zanes’ remarkable book about the making of Bruce Springsteen’s 1982 album Nebraska is one of those films.

It captures the moment when one of the biggest rock stars in the world turned his back on fame, pressure and expectation, and instead went back to his roots to create one of the most remarkable works of his career.

By the early Eighties, Springsteen had everything an artist could want. His fifth studio album The River had made him a global superstar and his iconic tours were sellouts but he felt lost with the scale of his success drowning out his sense of purpose.

So he went home to New Jersey, picked up a simple four-track tape deck and recorded an album by himself in the bedroom of a rented house.

There was no band, no studio and no producer, just the hum of the tape, the strumming of his guitar and the sound of his voice.

It was meant to be a set of demos for his next recording sessions at the Power Station studio in New York but instead it became Nebraska, one of the most influential albums of the 1980s.

As the film and the book show, the record company didn’t know what to do with what he had produced.

The songs were stark and haunting, full of broken dreams and moral darkness with no obvious singles or commercial hooks.

Yet in their simplicity and imperfection, they carried a truth that millions recognised and for entrepreneurs, there are few better metaphors for creativity, risk and authenticity.