My Amazon Reviews: Bruce Springsteen "The Rising"

May Your Strength Give Us Strength

5 Out of 5 Stars

While many artists tried to pour their feelings about September 11, 2001 into song, few made it work. Alan Jackson, Yes. Paul McCartney, No. Toby Keith, double plus no. But only Bruce Springsteen answered his muse with an entire album built around his interpretations of the moment. Like his other American Epics "Born In The USA" and "Burn To Run," "The Rising" is an astonishing work. He looks for revenge ("Into The Fire," "Empty Sky"), redemption ("Further On Up The Road") and the return of hope at "Mary's Place," where the E Street Band bursts into the anthemic rock they're beloved for.

Yet unlike most performers who focused on the jingoistic aspects of the time, Springsteen, most controversially, looked into the souls of those who could perpetrate such a vile action and then wrote "Paradise." Like his look at the everyday people he has always championed, "Paradise" hits a bulls-eye in a sad and chilling way. On these shores, Springsteen also profiles the confused hero as he tries to sort out his part in the the morning his "life was forever changed in a misty cloud of pink vapor" in "Nothing Man."

While the population of "The Rising" have been dealing with this incredible sadness, Springsteen still makes it all feel cathartic. The title song is almost a call to gospel as it struggles to overcome the deep wound ("Let's Be Friends" tries, but doesn't meet the challenge.) They all still struggle with the shock and pain, but Springsteen managed to try and look forward even as each song's narrator dealt with the empty beds, homes and "the long black line of cars snaking through town." On "The Rising," Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band found a way to look into that "blood red circle on the cold dark ground" and hope that there could still be a future.