The Rising (album)

While most of the songs were written after September 11, 2001, a few pre-date the attacks. Springsteen got the inspiration for the album a few days after the 9/11 attacks, when a stranger in a car stopped next to him, rolled down his window and said: "We need you now."[2] Springsteen also told this story to journalist Mark Binelli in the August 22, 2002 issue of Rolling Stone.The song "The Rising" tells of Firefighters going up in the towers, while others tried to escape going down, then it invokes the image of peoples' spirits rising up together,through the air like angels,with a "dream of life". "My City of Ruins" was originally performed in, and written about, Asbury Park, New Jersey. After its performance by Springsteen on the post-September 11 America: A Tribute to Heroes telethon, however, the song took on an expanded meaning. "Further On (Up the Road)" was performed live in Madison Square Garden during the summer of 2000 at the end of the Springsteen-E Street Reunion Tour, and was professionally recorded, although it was not included in the HBO, DVD, or CD versions of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band: Live in New York City. "Waitin' on a Sunny Day" was originally written in the early- or mid-1990s and played during at least one soundcheck during the Reunion Tour. Springsteen has commented that "Nothing Man" was originally completed in 1994 but re-recorded for this album. "Worlds Apart," the most experimental song on the album, features a heavy Middle Eastern influence along with Qawwali singers in the introduction.[3] "The Fuse," another experimental track, features a subtle hip hop beat and vocal looping. A re-recorded version of the song, with an orchestral backing, features in the Spike Lee-directed film 25th Hour.

"Mary's Place" is directly inspired by Sam Cooke's "Meet Me at Mary's Place";[4][5] The gospel-like "My City of Ruins" is organized around the melody line of Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready".[6]

Helped by a substantial marketing campaign — pre-release promotion was the biggest of Springsteen's career [7] — and the concurrent Rising Tour, The Rising went on to become Springsteen's sixth #1 album on the Billboard 200.

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	82/100[8]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[9]
Blender	[10]
Entertainment Weekly	A−[11]
The Guardian	[12]
NME	7/10[13]
Pitchfork	8.2/10[14]
Q	[15]
Rolling Stone	[16]
Spin	8/10[17]
Uncut	[18]

The Rising received widespread acclaim from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 82, based on 21 reviews.[8] In Rolling Stone, Kurt Loder said it was a triumphant and cohesive album that possessed a "bold thematic concentration and penetrating emotional focus".[16] Thom Jurek of AllMusic called the record "one of the very best examples in recent history of how popular art can evoke a time period and all of its confusing and often contradictory notions, feelings and impulses."[9] David Browne, writing in Entertainment Weekly, felt that Springsteen's message has a renewed relevance, while his occasionally overburdened lyrics are overcome by lively and vivid music.[11] Keith Phipps of The A.V. Club wrote that the musically confident album showcases Springsteen's strength as an empathic songwriter.[19] Uncut magazine called The Rising "a brave and beautiful album of humanity, hurt and hope from the songwriter best qualified to speak to and for his country ... A towering achievement."[18]

In a mixed review for The Guardian, Alexis Petridis found the music awkwardly old-fashioned and said that its best songs are highlighted by good melodies rather than lyrics, which he felt are generally simplistic and unambiguous.[12] Keith Harris of The Village Voice found most of the songs too vague and unworldly, and lacking in real-life characters "responding in their idiosyncratic ways."[20] In his consumer guide for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau cited "Paradise", "Nothing Man", "The Rising", and "My City of Ruins" as "choice cuts",[21] indicating good songs on "an album that isn't worth your time or money".[22] He felt that The Rising is unmistakably patriotic to the point where it is "dragged down, with a few magnificent exceptions, by the overburdened emotions and conceptual commonplaces of the great audience that inspired it."[23]

The Rising was voted the sixth-best album of 2002 in the Pazz & Jop, an annual critics poll run by The Village Voice.[24] Kludge included it on their list of best albums of 2002.[25] Christgau, the poll's creator and supervisor, ranked the title track as the year's tenth best single in his own list for the poll.[26] In 2011, Rolling Stone named it the fifteenth best album of the 2000s.[27] The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[28]

Although "The Rising" was a response to 9/11, many see it as a more universal anthem of resilience and hope. On the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Dan DeLuca of the Philadelphia Inquirer said: "The songs make contextual sense in the aftermath of 9/11, but the specific details that give them power are allusive. 'Lonesome Day,' 'You're Missing,' and 'My City of Ruins' are about the hollowing devastation of that day, but the language is universal, so the sentiments are by no means frozen in time." [29] The song "My City of Ruins" has been used in response to tragedies other than 9/11, such as the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. In 2006, while on tour supporting his We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions album, Springsteen performed the song at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. The song received an emotional response from the crowd given its refrain of "Come on rise up!"[30] "The Rising", given its message of hope in the face of adversity, was used by President Barack Obama as his official campaign song after Springsteen endorsed him in April 2008.[31] The song "The Rising" also featured prominently at the 2020 Democratic National Convention.

This album was published as a double LP. Track 1 - 4, 5 - 8, 9 - 11, 12 - 15 were recorded respectively on side A, side B, side C and side D (written on label as side 1, side 2, side 3 and side 4 respectively).[32]

All tracks are written by Bruce Springsteen.

• Bruce Springsteen – lead guitar, vocals, acoustic guitar, baritone guitar, harmonica
• Roy Bittan – keyboards, piano, mellotron, Kurzweil, pump organ, Korg M1, crumar
• Clarence Clemons – saxophone, background vocals
• Danny Federici – Hammond B3, Vox Continental, Farfisa
• Nils Lofgren – electric guitar, Dobro, slide guitar, banjo, background vocals
• Patti Scialfa – vocals
• Garry Tallent – bass guitar
• Steven Van Zandt – electric guitar, background vocals, mandolin
• Max Weinberg – drums
• Soozie Tyrell – violin, background vocals
• Brendan O'Brien – hurdy-gurdy, glockenspiel, orchestra bells
• Larry Lemaster – cello
• Jere Flint – cello
• Jane Scarpantoni – cello
• Nashville String Machine
• Asif Ali Khan and group
• Alliance Singers
• The Miami Horns

• The Rising, 9/11 attack memorial

• Audio and lyrics