“The Rising” by Bruce Springsteen

Selected by Rolling Stone magazine as the 35th best song of its decade, “The Rising” by Bruce Springsteen connects a number of resurrections. It had been seven years since Springsteen released a studio album — and over 18 years since he had recorded with the E-Street Band, his primary back-up since 1972. Indeed Bruce and the Boys in the Band (along with his wife Patti Scialfa) were back.

Yet, the band recorded again under sorry circumstances. The album mostly reflects upon Springsteen’s thoughts after the 9-11 attacks on New York City, which left close to 3,000 people dead. The song “The Rising” dives smack into the surreal, desperate narrative of an ill-fated New York City Fire Department firefighter, climbing one of the World Trade Center towers after the hijacked planes had crashed into them during the 2001 attack. He appears to be a man of faith who “wears the cross of (his) calling” on his last earthly mission.

Can’t see nothin’ in front of me
Can’t see nothin’ coming up behind
I make my way through this darkness
I can’t feel nothing but this chain that binds me
Lost track of how far I’ve gone
How far I’ve gone, how high I’ve climbed
On my back’s a sixty pound stone
On my shoulder a half mile line

As dire as the rescue worker’s fate is, “The Rising’s” chorus repeatedly offers an affirmation of something beyond the smoke and debris of imminent death.

Come on up for the rising
Come on up, lay your hands in mine
Come on up for the rising
Come on up for the rising tonight

The “Li, li, li, li, li, li, li, li, li – ” that follows has been likened to Hallelujahs or shouts of praise that accompany the speaker’s passage from a fraught temporal existence to eternity.

Spirits above and behind me
Faces gone black, eyes burnin’ bright
May their precious blood forever bind me
Lord as I stand before your fiery light

Christian imagery abounds as the song moves on. Catholic scholar Andrew Greeley maintains that much of Springsteen’s work “is profoundly Catholic…  because his creative imagination is permeated by Catholic symbolism he absorbed” from childhood memories that revolved around the Catholic Church. Greeley goes as far as calling the ballad writer a liturgist “because he correlates the self-communication of God in secular life with the overarching symbol/narratives of his/our tradition.”

According to many critics, this seems to be exactly what Springsteen does in “The Rising” with references to Mary Magdalene meeting the risen Christ on Easter morning in the next stanza.

I see you Mary in the garden
In the garden of a thousand sighs
There’s holy pictures of our children
Dancin’ in a sky filled with light
May I feel your arms around me
May I feel your blood mix with mine
A dream of life comes to me
Like a catfish dancin’ on the end of the line

Then comes a litany of images that intertwine despair and hope. The chant of sorts sounds almost like praying,

Sky of blackness and sorrow (a dream of life)
Sky of love, sky of tears (a dream of life)
Sky of glory and sadness (a dream of life)
Sky of mercy, sky of fear (a dream of life)
Sky of memory and shadow (a dream of life)
Your burnin’ wind fills my arms tonight
Sky of longing and emptiness (a dream of life)
Sky of fullness, sky of blessed life (a dream of life)

Music critic Eric R.Danton, who reviewed the album “The Rising” upon its release in 2002, recently reflected on it again — almost 15 years later. He sees an evolution in the song, saying it “has swung from tribute to triumph to remembrance.” In that way, he adds, the album” has become a living memorial.”

What better time for us to listen again to Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising” than this week, as spring flowers re-bloom, Christians celebrate the Resurrection, and each of us dares to embrace the possibilities of renewal.