An Old Adage Says...

An old adage says (well, okay, it’s not really an old adage, but adages - old or not - are born at some point, so let this one be born here and now…there, now it’s old) that culture cannot define events, but rather that events find a way for culture to define them. It only makes sense that when tragedy occurs - particularly the epic, generation shattering kind that occurred on September 11, 2001 - that any effort to place the events into artful context post tragedy would endure the skepticism and cynicism of those who can only see such process as, at the least, opportunistic and, at its worst, a greedheaded money grab. That is why it is generally far wiser to allow history to seek its own artistic definition’s for those events that will forever be a scar in its diary.

So when word came down that Bruce Springsteen’s new record - the first he’d recorded with the E Street Band since 1984’s Born in the U.S.A. - would be a set of songs born of the horrors of September 11, I feared the worst: an opportunistic tug at frayed heartstrings, mild xenophobia, and a set of songs anchored in some sort of misguided jingoistic rhetoric.

But there’s nothing jingoistic about dying. Nil. Nada. Not a goddamn thing. No matter how many tear-stained flags they wrap around your coffin you’re still dead. Gone. Forever. Maybe you left behind a wife, or some kids, or a brother, sister, mother, father, girlfriend, boyfriend, friend, acquaintances, neighbors, co-workers - and with them you hope to have left behind some sort of legacy, memory, moment - whatever. Something they’ll always take with them. But whatever it is that gets left behind is just - left behind. A flag, bands, services, memorials, candles lit, and prayers spoken are - for the moment - for the living. They mean nothing to the dead. Patriotism don’t have a goddamn thing to do with any of it. It’s tragedy. It’s pain. It’s loss. It’s suffering. It’s darkness. All of which are immeasurable. It knows no borders, no race, and no creed. It’s death. Pure and simple.

I was more skeptical than hesitant as I placed a copy of Springsteen’s The Rising on a shop counter top and handed over the twelve bucks that I just knew would buy me into an experience that would not only disappoint me, but one that would flat out hurt me. I anticipated being stripped of a little bit of my beleaguered rockroll faith - pecked away at by the beak of opportunistic commercialism. It was the same sort of absolute emptiness that filled me after seeing a pair of Springsteen and the E Street Band reunion shows back in 2000. I, like many others, went to these shows seeking…seeking…what exactly, I probably couldn’t tell you, but I had little doubt it’d be there, down on that stage, like it had always been nearly two decades before. But it wasn’t. I found nothing. And I left those shows with the uneasy realization that Bruce Springsteen, whose iconic persona was mostly built on the premise that he was just like his audience, was now, as a rich man (“poor man wanna be rich / rich man wanna be king” he once sang, and again sang that night - the irony floating over the audiences heads in the ethers of nostalgic exaltations) far from the man we wanted him to be still.

That’s how I felt then - and I was firm on my opinion. Hell, Springsteen himself seemed fully cognizant of the notion - resorting to a scripted evangelical schtick to inject some of the revivifying power that used to come naturally from the rather obvious belief he had in the preternatural power of what he was doing. He was a rich man now. And singing about poor men’s concerns would never work again.

That wasn’t to say that I saw Springsteen as a phony. No sir, not at all. In fact it was quite the opposite. I found myself feeling uncomfortable for him (or with him, as I saw it), and I felt, or rather I knew that he knew there was another place - a better place - he would or could go with his talents. I just never expected it to be a record that seemed to smell so politically obvious from the git-go.

I don’t know when or where my skepticism turned inside out into first fascination, and then admiration, but it was likely while driving that first mile or two out of the record store parking lot, listening to “Lonesome Day”, but I didn’t recognize what was going on inside of me until “Into the Fire” - a song title that, while perusing the disc, made me jittery with the absolute fear that it would be exactly what I’d thought it would be. In the middle of “Into the Fire”, during its faith drenched refrain - “May your strength give us strength / May your faith give us faith / May your hope give us hope / May your love bring us love” - that it hit me like a ton of bricks: Springsteen was not a rich man, he was an older man. And it all made sense. And I felt relieved. And I realized that I too was older than I was before.

The Rising, without a doubt, was forged in many ways by the horrific loss of September 11, 2001 - subtle references are embedded throughout. But this is not a document about that one terrible day. It goes far beyond any such narrow focus as it reveals a sublime and thoughtful Springsteen, now reaching a middling age, grappling with mortality itself. His…yours…mine…all of ours.

And while most of the songs on The Rising deal, at face value, in the emotions of those left behind, these first person tales - “Empty Sky”, “Nothing Man” (and there are more) - say much, much more in the way the reflect upon those who have passed on. What could have easily become a record of vengeful woe-is-me/my-God-isn’t-it-tragic songs of loss and anguish finds its roots in the old gospel tradition of celebrating life’s light, even in the darkest shadows of death. These voices on The Rising refuse to give in to their obvious grief, and they bow to no set of sad, sorrowful circumstances - no matter how difficult, no matter how anguished. They refuse to become victims. Thus they gain a measure of vengeance the only reasonable way they know how - by defiantly pronouncing, with all of their hearts and minds, the wonder of lives that were lived so well before death arrived to take them in its somber roll call.

The Rising isn’t the best record this year. It’s probably far from it. It’s not even one of Sprinsteen’s best efforts. But it is a pretty good record that carries, and holds up very well under, the many heavy implications of its creator and his legacy. It’s a record that, at first, sounds even better than it truly is - none of which matters one iota. In its most affecting moments The Rising holds onto an unwavering honesty as it deals in the high fears of life, its longstanding anxieties, and the distressing uncertainty of our very certain mortality. And in the end there are no answers on The Rising - there are only people, and tears…and sorrow…and joy…and anger…and prayer…and faith…and so very much life. No, you won’t find any answers here at all, but you will find resiliency, and in that you might find yourself coming to a realization that above all - above your music, your writing, your art, your politics, your religion - above any and all of these sacred vices of our lives stand people. Human beings. Life. Precious, precious life.

It shouldn’t have to take something as simple as a rockroll record to remind us of these things - and it probably sounds maudlin of me to say - but art is life, and if this sort of music can get its sublime message through to any one else besides a calloused slug like me, well whose to say that ain't great rockroll music?

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