Song of the Week – My City of Ruins, Bruce Springsteen

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All of the recent natural disasters – multiple hurricanes and a huge earthquake off the coast of Mexico – have caused me to think about Bruce Springsteen’s “My City of Ruins,” today’s SotW.

“My City of Ruins” was included on Springsteen’s album The Rising (2002). The Rising was The Boss’s answer to the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center although “My City of Ruins” was actually written a couple of years earlier about Asbury Park.

In Springsteen’s autobiography Born to Run, he describes “My City of Ruins” as “the soul gospel of my favorite sixties records, speaking not just of Asbury Park but hopefully of other places and other lands.”

“Soul gospel”… that’s just how I always heard it. Let’s call it a distant cousin to Curtis Mayfield’s (The Impressions’) “People Get Ready,” a long time favorite of mine.

Springsteen is one of the few artists whose later albums speak to me as completely as his early albums. There aren’t many.

Enjoy… until next week.

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