Bruce Springsteen-The Rising

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

Run time: 05:19 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNnB4dkVRJI   Posted on YouTube: June 24, 2008 By YouTube Member: Tonio19494 Views on YouTube: 700538   Posted on DU: September 11, 2011 By DU Member: Adenoid_Hynkel Views on DU: 410

 
The song was written late in The Rising's development, and was meant as a bookend to the album's "Into the Fire". Springsteen couldn't let go of one of the central images of that day, those who were "ascending into ... what? Thus, the song tells the story of a New York City Fire Department firefighter, climbing one of the World Trade Center towers after the hijacked planes had hit them during the September 11 attacks. The lyric depicts the surreal, desperate environment in which he finds himself:

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 60-pound stone
On my shoulder a half mile of line

The choruses are more upbeat, featuring a more pronounced drum part and "Li, li, li" vocal parts that suggest Hallelujahs, but as the song progresses the verses trace the ever more dire situation. Images of fire engines and the Cross of Saint Florian are introduced, and then, in the cemetery-like "garden of a thousand sighs" from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, a series of final visions: his wife, his children, and all human experience:

Sky of blackness and sorrow (dream of life)
Sky of love, sky of tears (dream of life)
Sky of glory and sadness (dream of life)
Sky of mercy, sky of fear (dream of life)
Sky of memory and shadow (dream of life)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rising_(Bruce_Springsteen_song)