Bruce Springsteen’s music has always had this beautiful sense of unease around it, a struggle of finding meaning in mundane circumstances, and explored the difficulty of keeping the flame of hope alive in trying times. It’s what makes him my favorite artist of all-time and one of the definitive musical orators of American history during the past 50 years. No one has seen this country through trying times as often as The Boss has.
The attacks of September 11th that claimed the lives of 2,977 innocent victims and brought down the Twin Towers in New York City was one of those times. I still remember being called into the gymnasium at my middle school the morning it happened. It felt like the entire school was there watching a single television monitor set up in the middle of the gymnasium, and feeling a sense of confusion at what was unfolding in front of our eyes– there wasn’t any clarity that morning on whether this was an attack or an accident, but things became clearer shortly thereafter when parents began spilling into the gym to get their kids and bring them home from school. As a parent of two I can’t even imagine the sheer sense of helplessness my parents and millions of other American parents felt that day and in the weeks that followed. As an 11-year old it was easy to retreat into my own world after that and occupy myself with other things, especially being an entire coast away from the events. As a parent, it must have felt like an anvil of anxiety attending any public event with your kids in the months that followed. For millions of Americans, it probably still feels like that way– it is a morning that took 2,977 lives, and robbed countless more lives of their feeling of safety.
In his own way, Bruce Springsteen helped America get through that moment. As the story goes Springsteen was driving in his hometown of Asbury Park, New Jersey a week after 9/11 when he was spotted by a passenger in the car next to him. The man rolled down the window and yelled out “We need you now.” And in that moment The Rising was born. What followed was an album that saw the E Street Band come together for the first time in two decades to record an album and helped the country heal in the wake of September 11th.
No song better represents this album than “Into The Fire”, which was inspired by firefighter Joe Farrelly. On the evening of September 10th Farrelly left a love note on his wife’s pillow before heading out for his standard 24-hour shift in Manhattan. It was the last time the 47-year old would see the woman he had been together with since they were teenagers. Farrelly was one of the brave first responders who rushed up the stairs into the fire as the North Tower burned before it collapsed. Springsteen would place numerous calls to the widows of those first responders in the months following the attacks, including Stacey Farrelly, and found himself moved by the nobility that can be found in everyday life. Speaking of their sacrifice he said “That goes to some deep central point about how people experience their duty, their very selves, their place in the world, their connection to the people alongside them and to complete strangers.”
There is beauty in this world, even a world marred by tragedy and pain. It’s oftentimes easy to forget that. And sometimes it takes an artist like Springsteen to remind us that hope, however faint it may feel at the time, can bring us together to overcome anything life throws at us.
Standout Songs: “Into The Fire”, “Nothing Man”, “The Rising”, “Paradise”
