From: Arts and Lifestyle | Music |
Wednesday, June 26, 2002

The Boss' Single
Hits a Homer


Bruce is coming back with a bang.

The first song to be teased from Springsteen and the E Street Band's reunion studio album finds its narrator making the hard trek from disillusionment to deliverance with convincing power.

The aptly named title track of "The Rising" had its debut on the Web Monday over AOL Music. It's part of a sneak-preview program set to showcase three other songs from the full album in the weeks before its release, July 30. 

Though WPLJ leaked the first single last Friday, the song officially hits radio today.

"The Rising" couldn't provide a more promising trailer for the full shebang.

Beginning with searching guitar chords that circle around Springsteen's wounded vocal, the track coalesces slowly and never stops building. It's a rock ballad that bridges to a folk chorus, only to intensify into a gospel rave-up.

"Can't see nothing ahead of me," Springsteen murmurs at the start. "Can't see nothing coming up behind … can't feel nothing but this chain that binds me."

But what seems like a personal depression soon expands into what could be a public trauma. "Bells ringing filled the air/On wheels of fire I came down here," he sings.

Obviously, no one can hear those words and avoid thinking of Sept. 11. Springsteen has said most of the new songs for "The Rising" were written after that event and aim to capture "an emotional feeling … in the air at that time."

Yet "The Rising" doesn't deal with a literal collapse. Instead, it paints a kind of abstract rapture in which hurt souls find redemption in the air. 

"Sky of mercy/Sky of fear," he sings. "Sky of love/Sky of tears." 

It's a perfect extension of the artist's career-long connection between rock and religion, between emotional exhaustion and rebirth. The result raises goose bumps from the first listen.

Three other new songs, from the album's 15, will premiere over AOL. They are "Lonesome Day" (going online July 8), "Into the Fire" (July 15) and "Mary's Place" (July 22). After 48 hours at AOL, each will go to radio.

The full album includes two songs already well-known to Springsteen fans — "Further On (Up the Road)," which the band first played on its reunion tour two years ago, and "My City of Ruins," which the singer performed at the "Tribute to Heroes" telethon last September.

Material from the album will be featured on the band's upcoming tour, which kicks off in early August. Specific dates have yet to be announced.

E-mail: jfarber@edit.nydailynews.com