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CounterPunch
September
9, 2002
The Boss on
Bush: "A War Well Handled"
What's Missing from The Rising
by Alan Maass
My Heart sank when I heard that Bruce Springsteen
had praised George W. Bush's management of the "war on
terrorism." "The war in Afghanistan was handled well,"
Springsteen told the Times of London in July. "It was
deliberative, which I wasn't counting on. I expected a lot less
from this administration."
Damn. From the man who very publicly
stood up to Ronald Reagan in the middle of the Reagan decade,
admiration for a smirking, blue-blooded frat boy as far removed
from what Springsteen stands for as anyone or anything I can
think of.
True, it was a backhanded compliment,
and as far as I know, Springsteen hasn't gone any further in
celebrating Bush's "unexpected" talent for ordering
the fiercest military machine in history to bomb one of the
world's poorest countries into submission.
But he hasn't taken it back either. And
in the dozens of interviews and TV appearances during the super-hyped
release of his new album, Springsteen kept his political thoughts
on most every subject pretty quiet. That's a statement in itself,
because The Rising is directly concerned with the event that
defined politics for the last year and more to come--the September
11 attacks in New York and Washington.
There's no hint of jingoism or calls
for vengeance, of course. The Rising is a dignified and powerful
tribute to the victims of September 11 and their family and
friends who survived them. Springsteen has said that he thought
it was his duty to make this album--both to the victims of the
attacks, for whom his music had been a part of their life,
and to those left behind, as a way of helping them come to terms
with their grief. It's hard to think of an artist better equipped
to try.
But what looms over the result is what's
not there--the virtual absence of any reference to how the tragedy
of September 11 was exploited as an excuse for war, at home
and abroad. It's as if Springsteen censored himself out of
respect for the victims--that he decided to avoid the complexities
that went with trying to understand the wider issues in order
to stay focused on the main task of "healing."
This narrowness is uncharacteristic for
Springsteen. After all, here's someone who responded to having
his first top 10 single in 1981 (the party-all-night rocker
"Hungry Heart") by recording a solo acoustic album
called Nebraska that, rather than celebrate good times, magnificently
gave voice to people ground down by society and driven to desperation.
Springsteen isn't really a writer of
protest songs, but he knows how to get a political point across.
Thus, when Ronald Reagan tried to claim "Born in the USA,"
a song about the wrecked life of a Vietnam veteran, Springsteen
not only spoke out, but he responded musically. In concerts,
the song was stripped of its stadium rock anthem arrangement,
and instead played in a haunted musical setting that made it
impossible to mistake it as anything but a cry of anger.
Bucking the trend for millionaire rock
stars, Springsteen became more explicitly political as he got
older. His last studio album of new songs came out seven long
years ago, but it was a stunner--The Ghost of Tom Joad, another
mostly acoustic set that chronicled the lives of immigrants
and the working poor. Springsteen's skill in telling these stories
and the layers of understanding that he brings to them are
breathtaking--like nothing short of early Bob Dylan.
So is "American Skin (41 Shots),"
the song inspired by the police murder of Guinean immigrant
Amadou Diallo in New York City that provoked ranting from the
NYPD when Springsteen began performing it a couple years ago.
This is what's missing from The Rising.
It's still a very good album. Musically,
Springsteen and the E Street Band sound great, mining their
whole history together to incorporate a wider range of styles
than ever before (though it would have been nice if the careful
arrangements and production had let up a bit more often). And
Springsteen's lyrics are impressive as always at capturing the
emotions of people ripped out of their day-to-day lives by a
reality that overwhelms them.
The few clinkers come when the two things--music
and words--are out of step. On "Empty Sky," for example,
a story of inconsolable loss ("I woke up this morning,
I could barely breathe/Just an empty impression/In the bed where
you used to be") is strangely set to a generic country
rock shuffle.
On the best songs, though, conflict is
the theme. "Worlds Apart" is about an American in
love with a Middle Eastern native, maybe in Afghanistan, who
dreams of letting "blood build a bridge, over mountains
draped in stars/I'll meet you on the ridge, between these worlds
apart." To capture the tension, Springsteen uses Middle
Eastern Qawwali vocal music clashing with rocking guitars, his
own voice bouncing between the two.
Likewise, "Paradise" puts two
conflicting stories side by side to draw out the connections--one
about a Palestinian suicide bomber, the other about a survivor
of September 11 who considers suicide to join their spouse.
It's no coincidence that these two particular
standouts reach beyond the personal to grapple, in one way or
another, with the wider issues surrounding September 11. Springsteen
does powerfully capture the suffering of family and friends
after September 11. But this album is dominated by the feel
of a eulogy--the kind of thing you say to people consumed by
grief.
There's nothing wrong with eulogies.
But nearly a year has gone by--and with it, a U.S. war that
killed thousands in the name of "justice"; the detention
of more than 1,000 people in the U.S., most for no other reason
than that they happened to be young men of Arab descent; the
buildup for a new war on Iraq that will cause unspeakable horrors;
and the exploitation of 9/11 to serve every conceivable point
on the right-wing agenda. A lot more needs to be said about
September 11, and Springsteen, as much as any songwriter around,
has the skills to say it.
In listening to this album, I thought
about Judy Keane, whose husband was killed in World Trade Center.
A few days after the attacks, she organized a vigil of 5,000
people outside her home in Waterford, Conn.--to call, in her
husband's name, on Bush not to bomb Afghanistan.
That was "courage you can understand,"
too, but it's not a part of this Rising. And its absence is
definitely felt.
Alan Maass
works for the Socialist
Worker, where this article originally appeared. He can
be reached at: maass@socialistworker.org
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September
7 / 8, 2002
Bill Christison
A
Year Later: It's Happening Here
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Tenth Crusade
Susan Davis
Mr. Ashcroft's
Neighborhood
Bruce Jackson
When
War Came Home
David Krieger
Looking
Back on September 11
Mike Leon
Bush and War
Peter Linebaugh
Levellers
and 9/11
William McDougal
September 11 One Year On:
That's Entertainment!
Riad Z. Abdelkarim and Jason
Erb
How American Muslims Really Responded
to 9/11
Jeffrey St.
Clair
The Trouble
with Normal
Tom Stephens
Rise Up...Dump Bush
September
6, 2002
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Stolen
Trust
Gale Norton, Indians and the Case of the Missing $10 Billion
September
5, 2002
Ben Tripp
Jesus vs.
George the Second
William Hughes
McKinney's
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Gavin Keeney
Beaux
Reves, Citoyens!
Wayne Saunders
War
Begins; Nobody Notices
Irit Katriel
Drunk
with Power:
Israeli Chief of Staff Calls Palestinians a "Cancerous Demographic
Threat"
Gary Leupp
Who's Afraid
of Iraq?
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Lou Cohan
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Philip Farruggio
Labor
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Cuban Political
Prisoners
in the US
September
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Dave Marsh
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August 31,
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Alexander
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Days That
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By
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and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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