In the days following Sept. 11, 2001, a man in a car called out to Bruce Springsteen.
“We need you. Now!”
Springsteen, who could see the New York City skyline from a bridge near his home in Colts Neck, N.J., went to work on The Rising. The collection of songs largely inspired by the events of 9/11 was released July 30, 2002.
One of the final songs Springsteen wrote was the anthemic title track, which told the story of a firefighter climbing the stairs inside one of the burning Twin Towers.
Springsteen said “The Rising” was written as a bookend to another song on the album, “Into the Fire,” during an episode of VH1 Storytellers.
“When I wrote it, I didn’t think that much of it,” he said during the show. “Sometimes, you can’t hear them right away after you write them for some reason.”
The lead single off the album, “The Rising” was released July 16, 2002. It hit No. 52 on the Billboard Hot 100, Springsteen’s highest-charting single in five years, and won Grammys for Best Rock Song and Best Male Rock Vocal Performance.
“It is an anthem, but not in the sense you usually reference in regard to his work. This anthem is an invitation to share everything, to accept everything, to move through everything individually and together,” Thom Jurek wrote in his review for AllMusic, calling “The Rising” “one of Springsteen’s greatest songs.”
In June, CBS News included “The Rising” on its list of 250 essential American songs during the country’s first 250 years. Recently, Rolling Stone ranked “The Rising” No. 27 among the 200 Best Rock Songs of the 21st Century.
“These are the songs that you wait for. Did I think of any of this prior to writing the song? No. But I felt all of it while I was writing the song,” Springsteen said during Storytellers.
