Bruce Springsteen
The Rising
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Bruce Springsteen
The Rising
Columbia, 2002
RiYL: Steve Earle, U2, Pearl Jam |
Time has always been the greatest judge of artwork. Elizabethan audiences went crazy for Marlowe; a few hundred years later, theatergoers watch "Shakespeare in the Park." It's impossible for us to determine which of the artists we celebrate today will be admired by future audiences, but that doesn't mean it isn't fun to wonder.
Bruce Springsteen's The Rising is an interesting album to consider in this sense. Many of its songs were written in the weeks immediately following the 9/11 attacks ("Into The Fire" was even written in time for the Sept. 21, 2001 "Tribute To Heroes" telethon). All of its tracks can be closely associated with the tragedy in one way or another. Therefore, the music's references are especially audible and meaningful to us now, while the hunt for justice is still unresolved. Yet The Rising has an incredibly timeless feel to it. And after listening to it again and again during the last six months, I am tempted to wonder if its simple language -- its universally understood imagery -- will stand the test of time.
Other artists have already taken on the subject of 9/11 -- Sleater-Kinney, Steve Earle and Sonic Youth, to name a few -- but none have been as direct in their emotional dissection of the tragedy's aftermath as Springsteen is here. Bruce has made a career of writing about normal people dealing with life's common struggles. A few of his most celebrated songs ("Backstreets," "The River," "Reason To Believe") are about characters mourning the loss of love and relationships that have recently fallen apart. So it's not surprising that he succeeds so well in his exploration of this ever-intimidating subject matter.
As a New Jersey native and someone who could actually see the World Trade Center towers from his town, Bruce might as well be transmitting from Ground Zero. But the emotions the singer is drawing out of his freshly injured heart are as old as mankind: frustration, anger, bereavement and the hopelessness associated with tremendous loss. He injects these common feelings into the songs and, as he's so effectively done before, finds the perfect personal details to give life to the songs' characters. He frames these subjects with his basic but effective set of standard chord progressions and song structures, presented ever so carefully by his E Street Band. And he makes a great effort to broaden the focus of the album's message beyond the realm of the 9/11 aftermath by pairing incredibly personal details with more lasting and timeless imagery.
The album's best track, "You're Missing," is a perfect example. Springsteen tosses out universal symbols, not unlike the "union card and wedding coat" of "The River," and takes a deceptively simple approach to unveiling one person's misery. The singer's delivery is painfully cold and tired, presented with downtrodden instrumentation to match, and the repetition of both the music and words reinforce this person's heartbreaking cycle of pain. Waking every morning to find "too much room in my bed, too many phone calls." Staring at empty coffee cups and unworn jackets on the nightstand. Turning off the lights, trying to fall asleep. "Everything, everything," he repeats again and again to himself and the listener, chanting it like a mantra for mourning. Everything is the same; everything has changed. "Everything, everything," he sings once more. "But you're missing. You're missing."
The equally potent tunes "Empty Sky" and "Into The Fire" work in much the same way, though their words provide a more clear connection to the World Trade Center attacks. In the first, Bruce centers his lyrics on the anger that bubbles from such a horrific event. The character wakes in the morning to find an empty sky, remembers a lost kiss, hungers for "an eye for an eye," searches for an answer to the dead who haunt him:
Blood on the streets
Blood flowin down
I hear the blood of my blood
Crying from the ground
On the flip side of the coin, the protagonist of "Into The Fire" sings a tender tribute to a firefighter lost in an unnamed conflagration. Again, repetition is key, especially during the ending. Here, Springsteen offers his listeners a prayer that he recites over and over as the music swells around him: "May your strength give us strength. May your faith give us faith. May your hope give us hope. May your love bring us love."
Springsteen considered performing "Into The Fire" during the aforementioned national telethon of September 21, 2000, and it's a shame he didn't. Ever the cautious man, Bruce instead decided to play "My City Of Ruins," an older song he had written and performed before September 11, and one with which he felt more confident. One wonders if the timely qualities of "Into The Fire" will ever be as powerful as they might have been that night.
One thing is certain: a few of the songs here here have already outworn their welcome. Maybe the fairy-tale imagery of the album's worst track, the overly sappy "Countin' On A Miracle," would have been more acceptable had it been released immediately after 9/11, but its magic certainly isn't working now. The Rising somewhat falters in its middle third, as Springsteen struggles to make this a cohesive record. He's said in many interviews that he's been trying to find his rock voice again, and here we plainly see him "trying on" sounds, rock genres and singing styles as if they were hats and gloves.
On "Worlds Apart," he sounds like Peter Gabriel; on "Let's Be Friends," Marvin Gaye; "Further On Up The Road," Steve Earle; "The Fuse," U2; and on "Mary's Place" he sounds like a 1974 version of himself. Keep in mind, those five songs run in that order, falling ungraciously one after another. And without question, all or most should have been cut. It isn't that they are bad songs per se; they just don't fit. They especially don't fit when one considers this album is a far-too-long 15 songs and 72 minutes.
Indeed, nearly all of this album's lasting moments come during either its strong opening or its spectacular finish. The first four tracks set the tone of The Rising, displaying Bruce's unmatched ability to explore the aforementioned serious themes via highly accessible songs. In opener "Lonesome Day," the songwriter pairs one person's self-doubt and fear with a human quality to persevere despite it all; then on "Into The Fire" he presents one person's intense bereavement as a touching tribute to courage.
With "Waiting On A Sunny Day," he offers his listeners a carefree celebration of the things that deliver us from sadness and pain. Its faux-Mellencamp instrumentation and poppy feel is a welcome relief from the album's more heavy side and reminds us of music's ability to lift one's spirits. The album's fourth song, "Nothing Man," written before 9/11, is an equally catchy tune, but of a far more dark sort. Highly reminiscent of Tunnel Of Love-era hits such as "Brilliant Disguise" and "One Step Up," the song blends lyrics infused with self-distrust and disgust with light-as-air melodies.
The album's four-song finale is equally compelling. The yawning violins and tender lyrics of "You're Missing" lead beautifully into marching triumph of the title track. "The Rising" doesn't play, as much it explodes. Here, we finally get a rock song out of this aging rocker, worthy of his Born In The U.S.A.-era anthems. He follows its thunder with the atmospheric "Paradise," a beautiful folk number with an opening verse that provides the listener a perspective from the vantage point of a terrorist. Slide guitars and hushed synths, along with Bruce's gritty delivery, lull the listener into a dream state. The song slows the adrenaline rush brought on by "The Rising" and prepares us for the album's perfect closer.
In the middle of "My City Of Ruins," Springsteen asks, "Tell me how do I begin again?" It's the single best line on The Rising, for it is the single biggest question one can ponder in the face of adversity. The song, written well before 9/11, was inspired by the gradual crumbling of Springsteen's Asbury Park, N.J., stomping grounds, and it resonates well with the rest of the material here. After woefully pondering the devastation that surrounds and emotionally engulfs him, the singer urges his audience to summon the courage and faith to move forward and to "rise up."
Ultimately, The Rising is all about transcendence, yet another theme that permeates Springsteen's best work. In classics like "Born To Run," "Racing In The Street" and "Thunder Road," he offers us a place in the front seat of his escape car. He gives us a promise of something better and grander down the road. "It's a town full of losers and I'm pulling out of here to win," he sings. Not unlike the protagonist of "My Hometown," the narrator of "My City Of Ruins," offers a different form of relief: he decides to stay with his downtrodden community, rather than abandoning it for a fabled "walk in the sun" or a "drive to the sea."
In the chorus of voices and instruments he brings together during the final push of "My City Of Ruins" and The Rising, Bruce finds a different type of transcendence: a power that is brought out when a singer connects with an audience, the imagined "magic in the night" he prayed for 25 years ago. It has always been suggested by Bruce that this intangible energy will metaphorically deliver us from the pains and fears that follow us in troubled times. And here, as the music grows and expands, giving way to his emphatic "rise ups," one can easily understand what he's talking about.
The Rising is definitely not Springsteen's best work, but it does have this one fantastic success: it sorts through the emotions of the here and now with startling clarity and it lifts its audience above it all. One is left to wonder whether future audiences will be affected in a similar fashion -- whether our great grandsons will find solace and spirituality in this music. It is possible the album's importance and meaning will fade with time, as future generations fail to connect with this "everyman" of an ancient art form.
But it's just as likely the intangible energy that propels The Rising will allow it to outlive the scars of 9/11. Maybe the obvious connection to such a massive historical event will make it Springsteen's most remembered work.
BEN FRENCH | Ben founded NATN in the winter of 1998-1999 with fellow IU alums Troy Carpenter and Jonathan Cohen. During the day time, he's working for Nielsen Business Media, publisher of Billboard. Ben's favorite acts include Bruce Springsteen, The Clash, Sonic Youth, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, Rolling Stones, and the Beach Boys.