Tuesday, May 26, 2015

CD Odyssey Disc 741: Bruce Springsteen

I’ve been on a bit of a housecleaning mission lately. This week I not only cleaned the shower, I also dusted all the wood surfaces in the house and I’m gearing up to do a bunch of vacuuming and floor cleaning this weekend. I’m not sure what’s come over me, but I will say it is much nicer to relax in a clean and tidy house.

Disc 741 is….The Rising
Artist: Bruce Springsteen

Year of Release: 2002

What’s up with the Cover?  A blurry-faced Springsteen greets us from around the corner of a brick building. Is he out of phase with our dimension? Trapped in a teleporter accident? Did he just need someone to say, “OK Bruce, one more, and stop moving around so much – this camera is old”? The answer is lost in the mists of time, along with the reason why this ridiculous cover was chosen in the first place.

How I Came To Know It: I didn’t know much about Springsteen’s more recent work, but I had recently bought the album that follows this one (“Devils & Dust” reviewed very recently at Disc 695) and I had liked it. I had heard good things about “The Rising” and it seemed a natural progression to give it a try.

How It Stacks Up:  I’ve got 10 Springsteen albums, and I’ll put “the Rising” sixth, bumping both “The River” and “Born to Run” down a peg, although all three albums are relatively equal. I think I favour each one of them when I’m under its spell, only to switch allegiances when I hear the next.

Ratings: 4 stars

Halfway through “The Rising” I was worried it wasn’t going to hit me emotionally like it had on prior listens. I began to think maybe it had lost its power to inspire, and was prepared to be embarrassed at how often I’d sung the praises of this record as a hidden gem in Springsteen’s later catalogue. It is true that at 15 songs and over 70 minutes, it is a little bloated but by the end of it, it was still shining with the same lustre I remember when I first heard it.

Coming out in 2002, this album is Springsteen’s reaction to 9/11. The same year Steve Earle’s album “Jerusalem” was leveling angry charges at the American system but Springsteen opted for a more conciliatory approach.

On “The Rising” Springsteen strings together a loosely connected series of songs about the tragic loss of life as a result of the collapse of the World Trade Centre. The songs tell the story of an emergency responder who dies in one of the towers and the grieving spouse he leaves behind to try to make sense of it all.

The songs that hit these themes the hardest, “Into the Fire,” “Empty Sky”, “You’re Missing” and “My City of Ruins” are spread evenly across the record and it is a good thing they are; when taken together are almost too much to bear. There are other songs on the album that touch on the events of September 11, 2001, but none do so as strong as these five.

Into the Fire” is a yearning track of heroism and the loss that comes with it, as Springsteen sings the tale of the firefighters that went back into the buildings, many of whom would not return. Instead of making this a political statement, he brings it down to the personal level.

“The sky was falling and streaked with blood
I hear you calling me, then you disappeared into dust
Up the stairs, into the fire
Up the stairs, into the fire
I need your kiss, but love and duty called you someplace higher
Somewhere up the stairs, into the fire.”

“The Rising” is a journey through every aspects of grief, from the immediacy of “Into the Fire” to the numbing disconnect of “Nothing Man.” “Empty Sky” alludes to the constant reminder of the crime whenever we look at the New York skyline, and “You’re Missing” is the bookend to it – a reminder that for each life lost there is a house somewhere with a bunch of abandoned clothes representing a hole just as vast.

Stylistically, the album has good range with “Lonesome Day” and “Mary’s Place” filled with joyful horn; proof that life will go on after tragedy as surely as it did before, if you’ll only let it. Our protagonist on the album’s first track (“Lonesome Day”) never makes it home, but “Mary’s Place” reminds us if you are lucky you’ll still be surrounded by friends to share the burden.

World’s Apart” tries to find a connection with the people in the desert far away, grieving their own love ones. With its overly obvious Middle Eastern rhythms I thought the song felt a bit forced, but I’m glad Springsteen explored this aspect of the story, particularly at a time when many Americans weren’t in the mood to hear any such thing.

There are weaker tracks on the album, among them the muddy “Countin’ On a Miracle” and the schmaltzy AM radio feel of “Let’s Be Friends” but they aren’t bad enough to pull the album’s overall impact.

With “The Rising” Springsteen was able to capture a tragedy in a way that walks the line between judgment and forgiveness, between anger and sorrow. It is a nuanced exploration of anguish, which is accented throughout with a resolute determination to rediscover joy. The music soars when it can, and sinks when it must, but stays close to the bone throughout. Throughout it maintains an emotional honesty in both song construction and lyrics that acts like a time machine to the heart, bringing you back to exactly how you felt the day you watched the towers fell.


Best tracks: Lonesome Day, Into the Fire, Nothing Man, Empty Sky, You’re Missing, The Rising, My City of Ruins

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