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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