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| Bruce Springsteen from the Born To Run shoot. |
A great friend of mine named John Budge, the man who got me started in radio back in the late 90s, sent me an email a couple of days ago reminding me of a Bruce Springsteen song I’d somehow forgotten about. It was a song Budgie – a fellow broadcaster – has been playing on the radio since the Christchurch earthquake and as a result, it has subsequently been picked up by New Zealand TV channels when they are showing footage of the damage done.
I used an uplifting Stevie Wonder song Heaven Is 10 Zillion Light Years Away as the song of the week a few days ago and Budgie suggested that this song would be even more appropriate. I was planning on waiting a little while, but with the latest news from Japan being of the seventh largest earthquake in history, of the resulting tsunami and of the loss of life, I thought I’d put it up today.
The song is called My City Of Ruins and featured on Bruce’s 2002 September 11 themed album The Rising. Most people assumed that this gospel-like song of praying to the Lord for strength was written about those attacks on America on September 11, 2001. In fact, the song had been written more than a year earlier and was about Bruce’s beloved but rundown Asbury Park in New Jersey, a place which has informed a great deal of his songwriting since his first album in 1973.
Much of My City Of Ruins has tinges of The Band’s defining song The Weight in it and while some have argued that song is less spiritual than its lyrics suggest, this song finds Bruce more openly affirmative of his faith than possibly ever before.
The video is below and I’ve reprinted the lyrics in full. Songs like this remind me of why Bruce Springsteen is for me in the same league as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon as one of the most important lyricists in American popular music.
There’s a blood red circle
On the cold dark ground
And the rain is falling down
The church door’s thrown open
I can hear the organ’s song
But the congregation’s gone
My city of ruins
My city of ruins
Now the sweet bells of mercy
Drift through the evening trees
Young men on the corner
Like scattered leaves
The boarded up windows
The empty streets
While my brother’s down on his knees
My city of ruins
My city of ruins
Come on rise up! Come on rise up!
Come on rise up! Come on rise up!
Come on rise up! Come on rise up!
Come on rise up! Come on rise up!
Now there’s tears on the pillow
Darlin’ where we slept
And you took my heart when you left
Without your sweet kiss
My soul is lost, my friend
Tell me how do I begin again?
My city’s in ruins
My city’s in ruins
Now with these hands
With these hands
With these hands
With these hands
I pray Lord
With these hands
With these hands
I pray for the strength, Lord
With these hands
With these hands
I pray for the faith, Lord
With these hands
With these hands
I pray for your love, Lord
With these hands
With these hands
I pray for the strength, Lord
With these hands
With these hands
I pray for your love, Lord
With these hands
With these hands
I pray for the faith, Lord
With these hands
With these hands
I pray for the strength, Lord
Come on, rise up!
Come on, rise up!