I once sat next to a lovely woman who pointed to Jess and asked, "Is that your daughter?" I said, "Yes." She then pointed to the stage, where an on-the-cusp-of-fame Lady Gaga, dressed in a white tutu, was singing her first hit and said, "That's mine."

The ghosts of Nebraska were drawn from my many sojourns into the small-town streets I'd grown up on. My family, Dylan, Woody, Hank, the American gothic short-stories of Flannery O'Connor, the noir novels of James M. Cain, the quiet violence of the films of Terrence Malick and the decayed fable of director Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter all guided my imagination.

Wardrobe? The Born in the USA tour was notable for the sartorial horror sweeping the E Street nation. The band has never looked and dressed so bad. I'd grown weary of being a wardrobe Nazi, coordinating the men into what was supposed to look like an effortless, unified front. In '84, I abandoned everyone to their worst instincts and they came through glowingly. The eighties ruled! C's Gap Band box cut, Nils's bandana and satin jockey jacket, Max's perm, Roy's Cosby sweaters, and my soon-to-be iconic bandana and pumped muscles. Looking back on these photos now, I look simply ... gay.