I wasn’t going to write anything about 9/11 since I wasn’t sure what to say, and the concept of an anniversary just doesn’t quite feel right. But then I stopped by I Am Fuel, You Are Friends where Heather discussed some songs from the America: A Tribute To Heroes telethon that was broadcast 10 days after the event. The whole post is worth reading and has some great songs. But this one, Bruce Springsteen playing “My City of Ruins,” is one of the most haunting, emotional, and completely devastating performances I have ever seen.
“My City of Ruins” was already one of my favorite Springsteen songs, but it is even moreso now. Just watching the pain, the sense of loss, the determination all mixed together on his face…
The Rising is, without a doubt in my mind, the best response (musical or otherwise) anyone has come up with to the events five years ago. This song is a big part of the reason why. Perhaps even more because it was written a year before 9/11 and is more mundanely about the disrepair of Asbury Park. To me, that only adds to the gravity since the tragedy of 9/11 has always been the way it inflicted itself on us in the places that felt the most safe, the most personal.
That this song, about the loss of our homes, can translate so perfectly into a song about the loss suffered by a whole nation, demonstrates once again that Springsteen is a poet of amazing talent and empathy. As if we needed any more proof…