D. Malcolm Fairbrother

We boomers are now of an age when the best of our congregating occurs at those events which, no matter what else we try to pretend that they mean, serve mainly as concessions to the inevitable passing of time, and the unfortunate passing of people: seldom are we moved to be brought together under one sheltering sky unless we are called to a wedding or a funeral, a school reunion or a memorial service. We look sadly around at all those who attend these events, bearing witness to the passing of the years as evidenced on the faces of our fellow gatherers, muttering pleasantries about what a shame it is that we haven't kept in touch and uttering sincere yet impossible promises about our intentions of future contact. Then we turn back to the thousands of trivialities of which our lives are composed. In the end, be it a reunion or a memorial, the subtext is always the same: we seek less of an understanding of the events that have brought us together, and more of a reaffirmation that we are still on a valid road to somewhere of consequence; and ultimately, we seek to discover if others are as moved, or as terrified, or as saddened or perhaps even as invigorated by the living of this life as we ourselves seem to be.

So it is with Bruce Springsteen and the formidable E-Street Band, brought together on an album for the first time since 1984's Born In The U.S.A and largely adopting the role of filter through which we can collectively view the horrendous events of September 11 just over one year ago, try to make some sense out of the wreckage -- physical, patriotic or emotional -- and find that elusive closure that is seemingly denied to us by the magnitude of such acts of terrorism that have staggered us in our tracks and made the future seem to be all the more a slippery slope.

Bruce Springsteen has been the spokesman for a large segment of his generation, working class people with honest values and reasonable expectations, people just like us who, today more than ever before, need to feel less alone and more a part of something protective in the face of such unutterable horrors. On The Rising, Springsteen proves himself to be not only ready for but worthy of accepting such a challenge, of once more struggling to build images and meaning out of our inarticulate astonishment and rage, of once more being the spokesperson for his generation.

The Rising opens with Lonesome Day, a rocker of some substance that at one and the same time announces that The E-Street Band has lost none of its intensity and can deliver licks with a crunch when called upon; thematically, the song alludes to our capacity to draw from the toughness of one's inner strength in troubling times, the repetition of its mantra-like chorus, 'it's alright, it's alright' soothing us in the face of both microcosmic setback and macrocosmic cataclysm. More direct in its reference to the events of 9/11 is the hypnotic Into The Fire, a song that builds as powerfully and inevitably as our awe and respect for those who trudged into the fires of oblivion on that historic day. The song is never weighted down by its subject matter; instead, the jangled fusion of electric and acoustic sounds buoys the listener with the heroism it portrays.

Springsteen and crew are astute enough to break the somber mood at several points throughout the body of songs by creating islands of joyous optimism with songs such as Waiting On A Sunny Day and Mary's Place. Sunny Day finds the band laying down a solid-as-bedrock backing track that recalls their finest moments of two decades ago: a saxophone spirals up above the music taking our spirits with it as Springsteen exhorts us to reach out for the good times that lift the blues away. Mary's Place is as close to a party song, an invitation to a much-needed blow-out, a cathartic ritual of stepping out and away from the weather, both inner and outer. This song is a kindred spirit with Springsteen's earlier street-rocking epics from his Asbury Park days, songs such as Rosalita (Come Out Tonight), although there is now a touch of world-weariness about the newer number as befitting its place in the aftermath of upheaval, not to mention the fact that the singer's optimism has been filtered through years of personal experience. His grin is now less optimistic, more cognizant of some of life's harsher realities.

Two of the more haunting offerings on The Rising were actually written before 9/11, yet each song makes as important a statement as anything on this CD. Nothing Man is a hauntingly introspective piece that serves equally well as an insightful investigation of what happens to a person who disappears into his own life, or as an insightful exploration of the everyday people who went off to work one sunny September morning and disappeared into the pages of history, be they innocent office workers victimized by terrorism, or the courageous firemen and police officers who gave all in the line of duty. A plaintive voice is soon augmented by a building chorus that lifts the song out of melancholy and into inspiration, a catalogue of seemingly trivial acts and details that reveal at one and the same time the commonness of our daily lives and yet how exceptional every life is. My City In Ruins, originally a sad commentary on the wasteland that Springsteen's home state of New Jersey had become, takes on obvious heavy and wider significance in light of its inclusion as Springsteen's offering at the Concert For New York City. Yet the song turns our attentions away from the rubble, the crushed dreams, the horrendous psychic body-blow of terrorism; it tells us that we can rise up and rebuild not only our edifices but also our hopes. Distilled to one brief thematic statement, the message is simply that our lives are filled with infinite possibilities, and that the sunshine of hope out there if we choose to climb out of the pit and into the newborn day.

Whether he is musing on bereavement in You're Missing, a catalogue of the number of moments during a day when the bereaved recall the lost, or coldly commenting on the spiritually bereft reward that a suicide bomber faces in Paradise, Springsteen courageously explores many different aspects of the tragedy, its significance in the world, its impact on the individual; he is never less than honest, and avoids, for the most part, the flag-waving jingoistic patriotism that ultimately answers none of the hard questions and therefore remains meaningless in its shallowness. The band even makes its first foray into 'world music' on Worlds Apart, an artistic merging of Pakistani qawwali music that interweaves with, then is engulfed by, the more familiar thunderous guitar chords; it is as if we are being reminded not to be afraid of something in the world that at first seems alien and ineffable. Love serves as the connective tissue so that we are not really so far apart as at first it might seem.

Certainly the strongest statement on the opus, the anthemic title song, The Rising coalesces this 'concept album' by entwining those themes scattered throughout the other songs. A stark image of a firefighter climbing through the smoke into his unimaginable future gives way to an inspirational number that builds into a hymn-like outpouring of all of our hopes; the song is by degrees comforting, courageous, and confident.

In the hands of a lesser artist, The Rising would certainly amount to nothing more than a trite collection of patriotic blather; Springsteen accepts his role as spokesperson once again for his generation. His acceptance is underscored by his own personal wisdom and intelligence as he reminds us that there is always hope if we choose to look for it, and that we can remain strong despite how low we were brought by incomprehensible events. He tries to find our humanity in the rubble, and he succeeds. And so indeed we shall rise above that which has been inflicted upon us.

Was there ever really any other alternative?