I’ve always felt a certain feeling of inappropriateness when discussing the events of September 11, 2001 and their aftermath. The events seemed too new, too real: how could I be learning about something that I’d lived through? Who were the authors of these books and articles? Who were these historians to tell me about an event that I’d lived through? There was a certain dualistic feeling in my mind (though I certainly didn’t call it as such at the time) when I would see such things. A child of only 12 years, I was excited to see something that I felt a part of (as a New Yorker) in print form[1], and yet there was that seemingly indescribable annoyance that I’ve already mentioned as well. I think perhaps the most appropriate term, inclusive of both feelings, would be “awkwardness.”
I’ve since grown up, and have come to the realization that culture simply does not work that way. Indeed, it is largely dependent on asking questions – Who? How? Why? – and making sense of the multitude of answers that come along, existing and seeking comfort in that space created by our answers and reactions. Of course, while government and the “real world” can make up parts of culture, a far larger portion of it consists of pop elements – books, movies, music, etc. More than any of the aforementioned “real world” entities, these artists have a keen ability to keep the American pulse, as it were. It is they who can take our feelings and put them into a tangible form to see, hear, and love. Of course, artists cannot represent every feeling about any particular event in America; such a task is inherently impossible. They can, however, try.
Bruce Springsteen was the first major artist to do so, releasing his album The Rising – which has been widely hailed as his/the “9/11 album” – on July 30, 2002. The album was wildly successful, topping charts throughout the country, with sales and a tour that netted somewhere in the range of $120 million. The natural question to ask here is “why?” Why was this album so successful? There are many valid reasons, among them the timing of the album’s release and publicity given to the album (included within that the hyping of the first album recorded with his infamous E Street Band in 18 years). However, it is my contention that much of the album’s success lies in Springsteen’s uncanny ability to speak not only for the American people, but also as them, embracing the imagery that has been most effective in their lives. Indeed, as A.O. Scott has put it,
Since Born To Run, the album in which he first discovered his prophetic vocation, Springsteen’s lyrics have often given a religious inflection to the durable rock ‘n’ roll themes of desire, frustration, and the longing for liberation, fusing [Chuck] Berry’s vocabulary of cars, guitars, and pretty girls with the language of apocalypse and salvation, purgation and redemption. And these are more than just themes: The dialectic of despair and triumph is built into the musical structure and aural texture of the songs themselves, which enact, and induce in their listeners, the very emotions their words describe. (Scott, no pagination).
That “religious inflection” is, I believe, responsible for much of Springsteen’s success, as it has allowed him to speak to and for the collective American soul – that intangible entity which has served as the backbone to American society and law – through a medium filled with “cars, guitars and pretty girls” (Scott).
Those things, however, disappeared almost entirely from The Rising, having been replaced with themes that seem to typify most, if not all aspects of the American psyche, and even those of our would-be enemies (more on that later on) after September 11th: destruction, loss and lamentation, longing for loved ones, rage, desire for revenge, etc. You’ll note that I haven’t declared the religious inflection to have disappeared along with the cars/girls/guitars, and for good reason: they didn’t. Instead, they changed. For many, the themes mentioned earlier in this paragraph signified an end of the world – or at least, the end of the world as we knew it, which led to heavy use of Biblical imagery, a la the Book of Revelation[2] – a natural choice, given the book’s status as the Bible’s concluding book, filled with impeccably detailed depictions of the second coming of Christ and the concurrent apocalypse.
Jonathan Kirsch offers an answer as to why Revelation-based imagery may be particularly effective in accomplishing Springsteen’s goals when he tells us that “like other expressions of religious true belief, which looks on the remarkable diversity of human faith and practice and declares all but one as error, sin, and crime, the apocalyptic idea may be hardwired into the human imagination” (Kirsch, 251). Which is to say, human beings may inherently believe in the end of the world, albeit in any number of manifestations – individual ends vs. a collective end for humanity, a God-caused or Godless apocalypse, etc. That being said, it becomes easy to imagine the reasons for the commercial success of The Rising: by making use of Revelation’s imagery, Springsteen had tapped into an idea inherent in every human being – the idea that the world might end.
What Springsteen did, however, is more complicated than that. He took Revelation and applied it to a catastrophic event (as we’ve already noted) that had been characterized as both God-filled (Jerry Falwell’s wondering if God was using 9/11 to punish America for what he [Falwell] perceived as our national sins) and Godless. It is the latter of these that may bring about complications, and if the reader would allow, I’d like to discuss the idea of a “Godless apocalypse” for a moment.
As the name suggests, a Godless apocalypse is an ending brought about not by the actions of a deity, but by those of mankind. More often than not, such an end would not be blamed on humanity as a whole, but on a specific group of people, though just who that group of people is depends on who the accuser is. That is to say, the idea of a Godless apocalypse and it’s inherent destruction depends upon the existence of a demonized other that is to be blamed and prosecuted for their attempts to destroy what is right. In the American environment after September 11th, one might have assumed this “other” to be Middle Eastern Muslims, as personified by Osama bin Laden and the rest of al Qaeda – a horribly incorrect connection made based upon a lack of information and understanding, hastily arrived at in the effort to find someone to blame. I’ll address this idea again in the next section of this paper.
Before moving on, it should be noted that Springsteen had other major goals for The Rising. One of these was to comfort and console both individuals and the community in the wake of the September 11th attacks, as is demonstrated by the following story:
Shortly after the attacks, Springsteen was driving near his home. As he pulled out of the parking lot at nearby Sea Bright beach, the driver of a passing car rolled down his window and shouted at him, “We need you – now!” The New Jersey county where Springsteen lived, Monmouth, had lost 158 people in the World Trade Center Attack – more than any other county in the state. His neighbors were in mourning. Springsteen discovered that many people were looking to him to help them find some meaning amid the tragedy. Within days of September 11, Springsteen was responding to the calamity by writing songs. (Symynkywicz, 138).
The question remains, however, as to how Springsteen’s writing, and, ultimately, the final product that was The Rising would serve as comfort. There are several possible answers, each one of which will now be thoroughly examined.
First of all is the idea that one might find hope in the story of Revelation. Such faith can be and often is based on the fact that after the tribulation, those believers that have survived through to that point will be rewarded with life in New Jerusalem – a perfect, golden city ruled over by the warrior-king Jesus Christ, where residents will be given eternal life. Alternatively, one might find comfort and hope in reading the story allegorically. That is, one might find comfort and hope in believing that the story of Revelation is simply a warning – that awful, horrific events might have taken place, but they can be overcome, that we can recover, that we might find redemption and renewal in ourselves and thus create our own New Jerusalem, as it were. Such a reading would put someone firmly in the millennialist camp. Both readings, however, can be found in Springsteen’s use of Revelation: the former in songs like “Into The Fire” or “Countin’ On A Miracle,” and the latter in songs like “Let’s Be Friends (Skin to Skin),” “Mary’s Place,” “The Rising,” and “My City of Ruins.”[3]
There’s also some comfort to be found in the album’s repetition. On a broader level, there’s a repetition of themes, words, and phrases, while the same might be found within individual songs, as well (both will be examined in the next section of this paper). The reason such repetition can be comforting is in it’s cathartic effect, due, no doubt, in part to the varying ways in which Springsteen has presented these repeated words and phrases over the course of the album’s 15 songs – “now sung in agony, now in resignation, now in hope” (Scott). As a counterpart to the repetition found there, one might think of the stories people told in the months after September 11th. It became instinct for people to exchange them, to tell where they were, what they were doing, who they had lost.[4] It was tragic, and it was painful, but it became easier over time, with each repetition, thus allowing those who would tell their stories to move on while keeping the memory alive in their hearts and minds.[5] “The Rising,” Scott tells us, “listened to repeatedly—the only way true Springsteen fans know how—has a similar effect. It neither assuages the horror with false hope nor allows it to slip into nihilistic despair.”
One might also find The Rising comforting in it’s reverence for the heroes of 9/11; there’s comfort to be found in paying tribute to those who so bravely laid their lives on the line that day. Springsteen’s most obvious tribute to these men and women can be found in “Into the Fire,” the second song on The Rising. He has as much as stated so himself, Of course, on a much simpler level, it might just be said that there’s comfort found in listening to aesthetically pleasing music, or to an artist who has meant so much to you throughout your life, or even at a particular moment in life.
Individual Analysis
Lonesome Day
The song begins with a man who feels he’s been betrayed, as the woman who once whispered to him and tenderly touched him is no longer there. Where she’s gone, we have no way of really knowing. It could be (and such is true for almost the entire album) that the song is simply about love – she used to be his, and now she’s left him. Or, should you choose to take the previously mentioned religious inflection, there are a couple options. Either she’s risen as part of the rapture, leaving him alone on earth (in which case the “joke’s on him” because he didn’t realize how holy she had been and is now forced to find his way “through this lonesome day” (Springsteen, 309).
In the first song on the album, “Lonesome Day,” we find “Hell’s brewin’, dark sun’s on the rise,” something clearly meant to indicate that Revelation is almost upon us. That is to say, it is meant to evoke that feeling. Whether the singer believes it to actually be true or not is immaterial – it is the feeling that he has deep inside, thanks to what has happened – a feeling echoed in those around him, no doubt. One might also note that a dark sun is an image borrowed directly from the last book of the Bible. He continues with
This storm’ll blow through by and by
house is on fire, viper’s in the grass
a little revenge and this too shall pass
this too shall pass, I’m gonna pray
right now all I got’s this lonesome day.
To me, this seems indicative of the struggle that has either started or is imminent, and the singer will make it through; he’s pure, and will make it through to the other side – the New Jerusalem that this new world is to be, so to speak. This seems to be finalized by the last line in the song, “Let Kingdom come, I’m gonna find my way, through this lonesome day.” There’s also references to earlier Biblical times, if you’re so inclined to believe them, where he mentions “deceit and betrayal’s bitter fruit / it’s hard to swallow, come time to pay / that taste on your tongue don’t easily slip away.” This to me actually seems referential to Revelation (“come time to pay…”), where they must account for their sins, while the part about the taste on your tongue could either be a reference to Adam and Eve having a further craving for knowledge, if that’s what you’d call it, or it could be a reference to Revelation – you try to erase all the sins from your body, but there are some that you can’t hide – the taste on your tongue don’t easily slip away – you crave more, even. You’ve been branded by the mark of the beast, and that’s not something you can easily lose. Isn’t it better, then, to live as a believer all along? Is the singer suffering through a “lonesome day” because he’s the only one he knows who’s holy? Or, could he be the only one left behind?
Into The Fire
It is much harder to find Revelation in the next song, “Into The Fire,” as it is very clearly a song written about and to pay tribute to the firefighters and various others who climbed into the towers to rescue people, only to perish therein. There are parallels to be found, sure, in that those brave young men and women may be compared to Christ – sacrificing themselves for the sake of their brothers and sisters in mankind, but that is not where I’d choose to focus here. If anything, the first line is the closest to imagery seen in Revelation: “The sky was falling, and streaked with blood.” That particular imagery ends there, however.
Springsteen’s commentary on the song is quite fascinating, and merits inclusion here:
Of the many tragic images of that day, the picture I couldn’t let go of was of the emergency workers going up the stairs as others rushed down to safety. The sense of duty, the courage. Ascending into… what? The religious image of ascension. The crossing of the line between this world, the world of blood, work, family… All that is this life and … the next… Renewed sight is the hero’s last loving gift to those left behind. (304 – 305).
The reader will also recall my having mentioned this song previously as demonstrative of Springsteen’s use of repetition. The content of that repetition, “may your faith give us faith,” etc, helps serve as a tribute to those lost on September 11th, but one might also see in it the desire of believers to gain in the powers of Christ, as it were.
Waitin’ On A Sunny Day
Here we find the singer and (presumably) his lover together at first. We can assume that times are sunny and good, as the singer indicates there’s a cloudless rain (his lover’s teardrops), and a sweet summer breeze, though the lover seems to be worried about troubles to come. This is perhaps akin to a person’s worrying about the coming rapture and her lover’s inability to move on with her, as the next moment the singer is alone, distraught, unable to function. The remainder of the song, then, would be one of two things. Either the singer is going to go out searching for his lover (perhaps in Christ, perhaps not), or he is going to wait for Christ’s second coming (the “sunny day”) so that he might see her again; this of course indicates that his efforts until that day will be devoted to living the life of a believer, the final result of which serves as his daily motivation to “chase the clouds away,” though he seems to be putting the chasing off. One might ask why, though to me, again, it seems he’s waiting for Christ’s second coming.
Nothing Man
Originally written in 1994, this song is about a man dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – the stressful event having originally been his service in Vietnam, but, given the context of the album, one might assume that September 11th is that event, and this man was a rescue worker that day and in the days that followed. Though it has no direct connection to Revelation, “it capture[s] the awkwardness and isolation of survival,” something seemingly opposite to the community of believers survivors of Revelation would have found themselves in (Springsteen, 305).
Countin’ On A Miracle
Then there’s “Countin’ On A Miracle.” There is no direct imagery from Revelation here, but the ideas of lost and found faith are quite obvious, albeit implicitly so. This is a man who’s lost his wife, or lover, or whatever you want to call her, and has thereby lost his faith in God. However, he is “counting on a miracle to come through,” in that he hopes God will bring her back – so he hasn’t lost his faith completely. He maintains this belief in God because he wants to believe that she’ll be coming back to him. The last verse in particular (before the four repetitions of the chorus that end the song) seems to be close to Revelation-like images, or rather, images that would have been seen in the lead-up to Revelation (thereby building on what’s been done in the first song, where the singer believes Revelation is imminent) – “I’m running through the forest / with this wolf at my heels / my King is lost at midnight / when the tower bells peal.” One might take this to refer to a people attempting to survive through the tribulations, waiting for Christ’s return. Indeed, they’ve put their fate completely in God’s hands. “If I’m gonna live / I’ll lift my life / Darlin’ to you,” while spoken to a lover, could also be an allusion to a believer giving his life to Christ; they’re counting on the miracle of the second coming to come through.
Empty Sky
In “Empty Sky,” we once again find Bruce mourning the loss of his lover, but here we see a different attitude – one that is mourning not only the emptiness of the home, but the emptiness of the skyline, as well. And here we see the first explicit statement of a lover’s desire for vengeance – “I want a kiss from your lips / I want an eye for an eye.” Revelation comes in via the second verse – “Blood on the streets / yeah blood flowin’ down / I hear the blood of my blood / cryin’ from the ground.” The imagery of a sea of blood has been transferred to what I’d consider (and clearly Bruce would consider, at least in this case) the modern sea – the roads – the roads, which have become in America this means of escape that has been found for others in societies past (and certainly as it would have for John of Patmos) the sea. So this is a purely American derivation of the imagery in Revelation.
Worlds Apart
In “Worlds Apart,” we find two people from “enemy” worlds (the West and the Mideast) in the middle of a forbidden love at the end of the world, separated by incredible distances. What’s more, they don’t give up in their search for ways to each other.
This is, however, the only song on the album that seems to lose faith, as it were, in Revelation’s promises of a world to come: “Sometimes the truth just ain’t enough / Or it’s too much in times like this / Let’s throw the truth away, we’ll find it in this kiss / In your skin upon my skin, in the beating of our hearts / May the living let us in, before the dead tear us apart” (Springsteen, 318). Either they have, as I’ve stated, lost faith in the promises of Revelation, or they didn’t believe to begin with. If such is the case, then they are searching for survival in each other; the world may be ending, the apocalypse may be here, but they’re driven by the need to find each other and be together. Alternatively, the language used here could once again be an allusion to giving one’s self to Christ, body and soul.
Let’s Be Friends (Skin to Skin)
I can only imagine “Let’s Be Friends” as a Revelation-esque song if we take the main theme of the song – “don’t know when this chance might come again / good times got a way of slippin’ / Let’s be friends, baby let’s be friends.” The feeling of the regular people at end times may be one of loss, but they don’t know when they might get another chance to repent, or if they ever will. That being the case, they’ll repent now and be friends – that is, find their way into New Jerusalem.
Alternatively, one might see the song as a reaction to the idea that “because Revelation is intensely symbolic and nonlinear it can readily be attached to a given cause, demonize an enemy, and apply to one’s own time” (Quinby, 125). It seems to be saying that this is not necessarily so, that it doesn’t have to be this way; Revelation does not have to necessitate the demonization of our peers, who you have deemed our evil enemy. Indeed, the song seems to lay out a plan for countering what academia has implied to be the policy of the Bush administration, in that we ought to respect each other. It is, simply, as the song’s title implies – we ought to all be friends, working together to create a lasting peace and thus defeating our collective enemies. This, perhaps, is where Revelation might come in – all of us believers must come together in friendship and fight against our collective enemies (though the song is certainly meant to imply such a relationship absent of emphasis on religious affiliation).
Further On (Up The Road)
Here we find a world that seems to have existed under the thumb of the Antichrist for quite some time, in that it seems to be a world engulfed in darkness – a key feature after a certain point in Revelation. That darkness is both literal and figurative, however, in that for most of the world, there does not seem to be any hope. The singer, however, has got all he needs to feel confident as he begins his journey up the road that he’ll make it to his destination, or at the very least that he’ll meet his companion somewhere along the road. He has the fullest faith in his eventual meeting, his eventual salvation, but for now, the path is not so clear. No matter, though, he’ll keep soldiering on. Perhaps it’s all a metaphor to say that he’s doing his best to survive through the tribulation and make his way to Christ.
The Fuse
Here we find a world entering into the first stages of what will eventually become the tribulation – a world mired in confusion and feelings of imminent doom. Though most things in the song seem to indicate this (“Tires on the highway hissin’ something’s coming / You can feel the wires in the tree tops hummin’”), the very title of the song implies trouble growing closer, while the refrain “The fuse is burning” confirms this, as a fuse burning closer to it’s end means an imminent explosion. The “Blood moon risin’ in a sky of black dust” is lifted directly from Revelation (Springsteen, 322). Though there may be no redemption found in this song, we find the two lovers expressing their mutual love one last time in the face of impending doom, descending into sexual ecstasy as the world is ending around them.
Mary’s Place
In “Mary’s Place,” we have the repeated use of the number seven – “seven pictures of Buddha,” “seven days,” “seven candles,” etc. Also, there’s the idea of going to Mary’s place to have a party – one of redemption, of renewal, of new and everlasting life with other redeemed souls (though explicitly he means souls saved by music, there are those saved by the one who he mourns in this song, or those who are saved in religious terms). Surely New Jerusalem would be the proverbial “Mary’s Place,” whether this is because of the Virgin Mary, mother of Christ, ruler of New Jerusalem, or not, cannot be known, but the imagery seems to work together quite well.
You’re Missing
“You’re Missing” is sung from the point of a view of a widow who has lost her husband at the World Trade Center on September 11th. It deals with the daily reminders of her loss, the continuous pain of having to be reminded that her whole world has changed. At the end, she seems to be reflecting on the state of the world – both her own and the wider world. “God’s drifting in heaven” would seem to indicate feeling as if God is indifferent to her suffering, while “devil’s in the mailbox” seemingly refers to the fear many Americans had to open their mail during the anthrax scare, though it might also refer to a fear of what further bad news might be delivered to her via the mailbox. Finally, while she’s got dust on her shoes (indicating she’d been to the WTC site to search for her husband), she’s found only teardrops instead of her husband. Should one want to stretch this to relate to Revelation, it might be said that she is someone who is having trouble finding her way through the tribulation, though I’d doubt this, as every indication here seems to be that everyone she knows is still around.
The Rising
“The Rising” is, right from its title, a song derived from imagery at the end of Revelation. Nearly every part of the song is steeped in the book, as even the quickest perusal of the song’s lyrics will tell you. A quick listing, then.
Revelation in “The Rising”: the title, making his way through darkness and not feeling anything but the chain that binds him, suffering en route to salvation, the chorus – being and sticking together with loved ones and those around you for when the final salvation is here, bells ringing filled the air, cross of calling, wheels of fire, the entire third verse (“spirits above and behind me”), Mary, holy pictures of children, dancing in the sky filled with light, a dream of life (maybe a reference to the dreaming of John of Patmos?), and the entire “sky of” verse.
Paradise
Though it doesn’t seem as if there is very much, if any, Revelation imagery in “Paradise,” there is a wonderful description of the song in Bruce Springsteen’s Songs:
“Paradise” [is] a study of different impressions of an afterlife. In the first verse, a young Palestinian suicide bomber contemplates his last moments on earth. In the second, a Navy wife longs for her husband lost at the Pentagon. The absence of the physical, the smells, the human longing for a return to wholeness. In the last verse, my character swims deep in to the waters between worlds where they confront their lost love, whose eyes are “as empty as paradise.” The dead have their own business to do, as do the living. (306).
That really says it all, doesn’t it?
My City of Ruins
This song was originally written in the autumn of 2000 as a lamentation on the status of Asbury Park, New Jersey – Bruce Springsteen’s adopted hometown. However, in the aftermath of September 11th it is quite understandable that the song would be taken to refer to New York City. Indeed, Springsteen has called it at various times Asbury Park’s gift to New York, in that a song can be written with one meaning, but take on a whole new meaning as time and events march on.
The Revelation imagery can be found right at the outset – “There’s a blood red circle / On the cold dark ground / And the rain is falling down / The church door’s thrown open / I can hear the organ’s song / But the congregation’s gone / My city of ruins” (Springsteen, 329). My assumption is that this could be meant to represent the period in time after the rapture, and immediately before the tribulation. Further Revelation can be found in the third verse, where the singer declares “without your sweet kiss / My soul is lost, my friend / Tell me how do I begin again? / My city’s in ruins” (329). Though this is meant explicitly to refer to a lover who has left (either voluntarily or accidentally due to death by way of disaster) the singer, one might assume this to refer to the singer’s longing for Christ’s return, as they feel lost without Him here. Indeed, that very much seems to be the case, as it is the singer’s soul that is lost.
It also ought to be noted that the continual urge to “come on, rise up!” seems to be indicative of a spirit urging believers to rise up in the name of Christ and prepare the way for His second coming. Finally, the idea of folding one’s hands in prayer is repeated again and again near the very end of the song, with the singer praying for the Lord’s strength, love, and faith. This seems to definitively pin “My City of Ruins” as a song of faith, if not of Revelation.
Conclusion
And so we have seen how the apocalyptic imagery of the Book of Revelation may have led to a great deal of Bruce Springsteen’s success with The Rising. Not only did it play upon a theme that would so easily resonate with a large portion of American society, but it also provided comfort in using that familiar theme to explain modern tragedy. Indeed, “apocalyptic literature has traditionally been written to comfort people whose lives are, or who perceive their lives to be, overwhelmed by historical or social disruption” (Rosen, xii). Certainly The Rising fits this category, as it was essentially a response to and explanation of September 11th.
It’s clear to see, then, that Springsteen is perhaps the modern heir to those in the pantheon of American greats – the Walt Whitmans, the Woody Guthries, the Pete Seegers, the Bob Dylans, etc. – all of whom have made extensive use of Biblical imagery to make their points that much more powerful, whether they’ve directly used Revelation or not (though many of them have). Indeed, though I am a huge (perhaps “obsessed” would be the word) fan of Springsteen and greatly admire his work, I’m anxiously awaiting my generation’s answer to him – a band or singer that might take on that great American tradition.
[1] I was deeply saddened by the events of the day; my excitement was for my own familiarity, not the events themselves.
[2] For those who are not familiar with the Book of Revelation, it may be found in it’s entirety here: <http://bit.ly/BookOfRevelation>
[3] See Appendix A for lyrics to these songs and all others on The Rising.
[4] I still remember every single detail of my story, despite my not having lost any family or friends (I did, however, know people who had lost their lives that day, and quite a few families who had lost a relative).
[5] For a similar situation on The Rising, look to the song “Nothing Man.”
*****
Works Cited
Kirsch, Jonathan. A History of the End of the World: How the Most Controversial Book in the Bible Changed the Course of Western Civilization. New York: Harper Collins, 2006. Print.
Quinby, Lee. “The Unsettling of the Fundamentalist Mindset: Shifts in Apocalyptic Belief in Contemporary Conservative Christianity.” The Fundamentalist Mindset. Ed. Charles B. Strozier, David M. Terman, James W. Jones, Katherine Boyd. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. 120 – 135. Print.
Rosen, Elizabeth K. Apocalyptic Transformation: Apocalypse and the Postmodern Imagination. New York: Lexington Press, 2008. Print.
Scott, A.O. “The Poet Laureate of 9/11: Apocalypse and salvation on Springsteen’s new album.” Rev. of The Rising, by Bruce Springsteen. Slate: 6 August 2002. Web. 3 December 2010. <http://www.slate.com/id/2069047/>
Springsteen, Bruce. The Rising. New York: Columbia, 2002. Audio CD.
Springsteen, Bruce. Songs. New York: Harper Collins, 2003. Print.
