Anti-Climacus

QUOTE: From Salon.com:

"Sept. 21, 2001
It is but days after the nation has been shattered, and on every network, even the ones that don't matter, Bruce Springsteen is the first performer to appear on something that is called, with hushed tones of reverence, "America: A Tribute to Heroes," even though a lot of us still aren't sure whether this is political doublespeak because, hey, up until a few days ago, everything was. As a hardened music critic, guys like Sweeney bear a certain duty to be ready to chop their heroes at the knees in moments like this, when the portent is gooped like greasepaint. But as the screen goes from black up to churchy orange and Springsteen, surrounded by candles, black ladies and his wife, lurches into the first few bars of "My City of Ruins," Sweeney finds that he is a puddle.

This goes against everything writing about rock 'n' roll has taught him. This goes against everything one could reasonably assume in the rock world about a man like Bruce Springsteen and his relevance in the years 2001 and 2002. After all, the future of rock 'n' roll was made to be torn down by riot grrrls 10 years after the fact, in the sense that whatever used to matter is always torn down by trends whose most explosive, creative moments have already passed. Which is to say that the women-with-guitar bands of Ladyfest should be way more important than this white guy from New Jersey singing fake gospel -- with his wife, of all people.

But none of this matters because fuck you: Bruce Springsteen is healing a nation. Not the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Not Moby. Not even, since we are traveling in descending altitudes of coolness, the fucking Goo Goo Dolls. Bruce Springsteen is on the television -- every television -- and he is healing us. Because we have been hurt. And because Bruce Springsteen not only cares about America, he is America, and what's even better, he understands just how fucked up it is and has always been to be an American, the ridiculous mix of the grand and pathetic, the painfully self-aware and the mockworthy clueless spiritual state that has gotten us so far ahead and so sadly behind the rest of the world. Some sick mojo the man has is melting us on our couches, making us into puddles of microwave-popcorn butter and that nasty aloe shit they put on Kleenexes now. We are a tired, huddled mass, punch-drunk and lucky as fuck that it wasn't us. And as Bruce is so humbled to remind us, well, it wasn't us this time, at least. And hey, remember the mantra: It ain't no sin to be glad you're alive."