Top 10 Spiritual Bruce Springsteen Songs

Recently Rutgers University offered a course on the religious themes in Bruce Springsteen songs. It’s just another sign that the spirituality in Springsteen’s songs is being taken more seriously.

Springsteen’s music can be spiritually interpreted in three ways:

• Community as spiritual goal: Being in community provides a religious-like sense of belonging, support and meaning. The opposite is the isolation, alienation and economic forces that tear people apart. It’s spiritual death when you’ve lost community.
• Catholic and Biblical imagery: “Once you’re a Catholic there’s no getting out,” Springsteen said in a VH1 special. And he’s been pretty consistent about using Biblical imagery in his music.
• American Working Class Liberation Theology: An updated variation of the Exodus story of Moses leading the Jews from the slavery to the promised land. It’s a white working class escape from the slavery of a modern day Egypt (dead end jobs and working class paralysis) to a New Canaan (a meaningful life and finding a place where you belong).

These are top 10 Springsteen spiritual songs which contain examples of all three of these interpretations:

1. “Jesus Was An Only Son” (2005)

In the garden at Gethsemane he prayed for the life he’d never live.”

This song works on two levels.

The first is the story of Jesus’ pain and loneliness as he went to the cross. It details the human side of his feelings as he walks with blood spilling “on the way up Calvary Hill.”

The song also shows Jesus’ emotions at that low moment in Gethsemane when he wishes his fate could be different:

“In the garden at Gethsemane
He prayed for the life he’d never live,
He beseeched his Heavenly Father to remove
The cup of death from his lips.”

The second level is the relationship between Jesus and his mother Mary. It’s about the agony of Mary losing her son. The line “there’s a loss that can never be replaced” is one of the saddest and most chilling of any of Springsteen’s lyrics. 

This is probably one of the most blatantly religious songs by a major pop musician. But aside from its religious meaning, it also applies to a more practical spirituality. Like Jesus we carry burdens, we must leave people behind, and we make sacrifices. Like Mary, we lose people precious to us and must somehow carry on. But rather than end the song in total loss, there’s hope because of a higher power Springsteen describes as “the soul of the universe”:

“Jesus kissed his mother’s hands
Whispered, “Mother, still your tears,
For remember the soul of the universe
Willed a world and it appeared.”

Here’s a solo live version from VH1 Storytellers with Springsteen playing it on piano that includes his commentary on the song:

2.”We Are Alive” (2012)

There’s a cross up yonder on Calvary hill.”

Starting with “The Rising” album, Springsteen has sometimes used resurrection as a spiritual theme for lifting people out of their unhappiness and oppression. In this song he uses it as both a physical reality where souls seem to live on in some way after death. Their spirits even aid the living. And like so many Springsteen songs there’s a movement toward community:

“And though our bodies lie alone here in the dark
Our souls and spirits rise
To carry the fire and light the spark
To stand shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart.”

The song lists people who died: someone fighting for labor rights, a girl killed in Birmingham in the midst of the civil rights movement and an immigrant crossing the border into America.

They may have thought “they left our bodies here to rot.” But they didn’t. They lived on. “We are alive” Springsteen sings — because “it’s only our bodies that betray us in the end.”

But to get that point it takes overcoming fear.

There’s a section where someone wakes from a horrifying dream. There is blackness with worms crawling around him. But then voices call out to him and he’s lifted out of the ground into the light into what appears to be a resurrection. Ultimately, we will be lifted out of darkness, fear and solitude, the song says.

Here’s a  live version of “We Are Alive” from London in 2012:

3. “The Promised Land” (1978)

Gonna be a twister to blow everything down that ain’t got the faith to stand its ground.”

This is a defiant song about wanting to transcend the bondage of working class life. The singer is trapped in a meaningless job that wears him down. It’s a new form of slavery:

“I’ve done my best to live the right way,
I get up every morning and go to work each day.
But your eyes go blind and your blood runs cold,
Sometimes I feel so weak, I just want to explode.”

The singer wants liberation from these limitations. He believes in a new version of Canaan (“Mister, I ain’t a boy, no I’m a man, and I believe in a promised land.”) Like Moses and the exodus, the song’s location is a desert ( “a rattlesnake speedway in the Utah desert”).

It shows someone at the crossroads of life. One road leads to destroyed dreams and spiritual weariness. The other road is the pathway to something better.  There’s a battle ahead though. In the desert there’s a “dark cloud rising from the desert floor.” But he has the confidence to go into it (“I packed my bags and I’m heading straight into the storm.”)

What’s the goal? To do this:

Blow away the dreams that tear you apart,
Blow away the dreams that break your heart.
Blow away the lies that leave you nothing,
But lost and brokenhearted.”

Here’s a vintage concert clip of Springsteen performing “Promised Land” from his landmark 1978 tour:

4. “The Price You Pay” (1980)

Now with their hands held high, they reached out for the open skies.”

If “The Promised Land” was a journey to a better life, “The Price You Pay” is the resignation to a limited life. It’s what happens when someone doesn’t get to the Promised Land. And like “The Promised Land” there’s desert imagery reminiscent of the journey to Canaan in the Book of Exodus. The journey in this song starts when “you ride to where the highway ends and the desert breaks.”

One of the saddest moments in The Bible is when Moses dies before seeing the promised land. After showing him the land he promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, God tells Moses: “I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.” Springsteen sings about a modern version of not getting to the promised land:

“Little girl down on the strand
With that pretty little baby in your hands,
Do you remember the story of the promised land?
How he crossed the desert sands
And could not enter the chosen land
On the banks of the river he stayed
To face the price you pay.”

An even better version of this song than the one on “The River” album is on the unreleased but widely circulated “Ties That Bind” album. This was the single album that Springsteen scrapped to record more songs for the double album “The River.” It wasn’t the best decision. “The River” has too many pseudo-rockabilly songs that haven’t aged well. And some very slow dark songs that aren’t his best — Springsteen wrote much stronger songs in this tone for the stark and powerful album “Nebraska.”

“Ties That Bind”  is the third part of a stunning trilogy after “Born To Run,” and “Darkness on the Edge of Town.” “The River” is just too all over the place. The version of “The Price You Pay” from “Ties That Bind” includes a critical extra verse edited out of the official version. The mix is also somewhat different — with just a killer ending harmonica break.

Here’s the version of “The Price You Pay” from the original “Ties That Bind” album:

5. “Mary’s Place” (2002)

Your loving grace surrounds me.”

Don’t think this is a typical party song. 

It combines themes that are some of Springsteen’s most important: community as religious experience, music as a source of healing and transcendence through spirituality. Spiritual forces have congregated to create a sacred space where people bond together which uplift a troubled spirit:

“I got seven pictures of Buddha
The prophet’s on my tongue.
Eleven angels of mercy
Sighing over that black hole in the sun.
My heart’s dark but it’s rising
I’m pulling all the faith I can see.
From that black hole on the horizon
I hear your voice calling me.”

Music itself is an essential spiritual experience. “I drop the needle and pray,” he says about putting on some of his favorite records. With so many party songs in rock music, this is such a deeper one about community as healing. It’s not about a party as excess or escapist. But a gathering as spiritually rejuvenating.

The chant of “let it rain let it rain” sounds like a call for a baptism. And where is Mary’s Place? It’s a sacred space and place of comfort and community — named after one of religion’s greatest comforting figures.

Here’s a live version of “Mary’s Place” from Barcelona, Spain in 2002:

6. “Rocky Ground” (2012)

Jesus said the money changers in this temple will not stand.”

This gospel-tinged song is a world-weary version of “The Promised Land.”

It’s a difficult Exodus-like journey to a better place (“find your flock, get them to higher ground/The floodwaters’ rising, we’re Canaan bound.”)  Times are so tough that prayers appear unanswered and doubt rises:

“Where you once had faith now there’s only doubt,
You pray for guidance, only silence now meets your prayers.”

The song is directed at those who are in charge of the flock who are taking this journey. The flock has roamed and are traveling under harsh conditions.  There’s a responsibility of those in charge to help those in the flock and steer them in the right direction. And those who don’t help them will face consequences in the afterlife, the song seems to imply:

“Tend to your flock or they will stray,
We’ll be called for our service come judgment day.
Before we cross that river wide,
The blood on our hands will come back on us twice.”

Here’s the official music video:

7. “Adam Raised a Cain” (1978)

In the summer that I was baptized, my father held me to his side.”

Springsteen uses Biblical imagery to compare a contemporary situation to a Biblical one. It’s the story of Cain and Able from the Book of Genesis. But the story is recast in working class America. It’s rebellion by a son against a father’s life. But it doesn’t lead to murder. The son wants liberation from the pain and emptiness of working class life:  

“Daddy worked his whole life, for nothing but the pain,
Now he walks these empty rooms, looking for something to blame,
You inherit the sins, you inherit the flames.”

The son has the same feelings as the father. Both father and son have “the same hot blood pouring in our veins.” The son knows that he will not live the same life his father did. But he’s haunted by feeling the same anger as his father and going through some of the same suffering:

“In the Bible Cain slew Abel
And East of Eden he was cast,
You’re born into this life paying,
for the sins of somebody else’s past.”

This is a shattering rebellion against what America has done to the working class. Springsteen’s album before Darkness on The Edge of Town was Born to Run, a gritty but romantic escape from working class life. In the Darkness On The Edge of Town album it focuses much more on the limitations on small town life where people are more world weary. And it’s more difficult to escape.

There’s no vintage concert video footage of “Adam Raised A Cain.” So here’s a version from 2009 in Asbury Park where Springsteen performed the entire “Darkness On the Edge of Town” album. There’s some blistering guitar playing from The Boss here:

8. “My City’s in Ruins” (2002)

My soul is lost, my friend, Now tell me how do I begin again?”

Like the song The Rising, this song uses resurrection as a theme. In this case it’s about a town that’s deserted. The church is empty — maybe signifying that religion has left this town too. Men loiter on street corners in a town with boarded up windows and shadowy hustlers prowling the streets “while my brother’s down on his knees.” 

This ghost town needs to have life breathed into it again. Because community is so important it’s a town that must be lifted up. The song concludes with a prayer for renewal:

“Now with these hands
I pray Lord,
With these hands
For the strength Lord,
With these hands
For the faith Lord.” 

Here’s a version from the Hurricane Sandy benefit concert in 2012:

9. “Devils & Dust” (2005)

I’ve got God on my side and I’m just trying to survive.”

This is a soldier who is not only fighting a war, but battling spiritual warfare inside himself. 

He believes that God in on his side in a war he’s fighting a long way from home (Springsteen released this song during the Iraq War, so it must be referring to that war.)

In order to survive he’s doing things that torment him. He’s so scared in this place where he’s stripped of all he knows and all that’s familiar to him. It’s made him commit acts he feels guilty about. So guilty that he feels he’s filled with the devil as well as God. His faith isn’t enough to get him through the darkness, regret and confusion he feels inside himself. Things just aren’t so black and white anymore. And in that gray area is a deep spiritual crisis:

“Now every woman and every man
They wanna take a righteous stand.
Find the love that God wills
And the faith that He commands.
I’ve got my finger on the trigger
And tonight faith just ain’t enough.
When I look inside my heart
There’s just devils and dust.”

Here’s the official music video:

10, “Radio Nowhere” (2007)

” I want a million different voices speaking in tongues.”

This is an attempt to get out of spiritual limbo and paralysis. It reminds me of “Open All Night” from the Nebraska album with its call for “hey ho, rock and roll deliver me from nowhere.” Like “Open All Night,” the singer turns to the radio for inspiration and finds nothing. The radio seems to a symbol for the mainstream media and the alienation it produces when it doesn’t reflect the desires of the people.

“Is there anybody alive out there?” is the question he asks. This is someone looking for community, looking for inspiration, searching for something. He’s “dancing down a dark hole, searching for a world with some soul.”  But through it all this song points out how he wants connection  — a most spiritual of needs.

Here’s a live version from Hyde Park in London: