Back with the E Street Band and into the 21st century

In 1999 Springsteen reunited the E Street Band. They appeared with him when he alone was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in early 1999, and they then spent a year touring with him, resulting in a live album, Live in New York City (2001), but only a handful of new songs.

On September 21, 2001, Springsteen performed the national debut of his song “My City of Ruins” on a television special. It was written about Asbury Park, New Jersey, but took on a different tone in the wake of the September 11 attacks. That tone continued on The Rising, his 2002 album with the E Street Band and new producer Brendan O’Brien, which weighed the consequences of the attacks and their aftermath. Beginning on the Rising tour, Springsteen became an adamant critic of the U.S. government and the administration of Pres. George W. Bush, especially regarding the Iraq War. Those developments culminated in Springsteen’s participation in the 2004 Vote for Change tour in support of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Springsteen toured with the band, but he went solo on the plane with Kerry for the final week of the campaign. Springsteen’s 2005 solo tour, following the release of the Devils and Dust album and coinciding with a 30th anniversary celebration of Born to Run, explored the full depth of his song catalog—it was Tracks with a one-man band—and continued his opposition to the Bush administration’s policies.

We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (2006) took a turn unanticipated by even the closest Springsteen observers. He made the recording over a period of 10 years with a folk-roots band and a horn section. It features traditional American folk songs (“Oh, Mary, Don’t You Weep,” “Froggie Went A-Courtin’,” and “John Henry”) as well as songs associated with its inspiration, Pete Seeger (“My Oklahoma Home,” “How Can I Keep from Singing,” and “Bring ’Em Home”). Springsteen’s tour of the United States and Europe in 2006 featured a 20-piece band.

Magic (2007), another E Street Band album produced by O’Brien, speaks sometimes metaphorically and sometimes explicitly in opposition to the war and government intrusions on civil liberties. Springsteen continued his commentary through a worldwide tour with the E Street Band in 2007 and 2008. He ranks with that small number of artists whose work grew rather than remained static or regressed with the approach of the end of middle age. That continued to be true even after the April 2008 death of the E Street Band organist and accordionist Danny Federici from melanoma. The band’s playing acquired a darker urgency of tone. The later stages of the Magic tour featured arguably the most assertive, inspired playing Springsteen and the group had ever done. Their guiding principle, that the way to play was as if every night might be the last, was no longer an abstraction.

Springsteen seemed freed by that recognition. Working on a Dream, released in early 2009, concerns itself lyrically with thoughts of love and life, how fleeting both are and what it takes to stay the course. The music on the album is a much more sophisticated version of what Springsteen had done on his first two albums, with a greater emphasis on harmony, especially vocal harmonies characteristic of the later work of the Beach Boys. Springsteen’s use of a broader musical palette than he had allowed himself since becoming a star resulted in passages reminiscent of sound track composer Ennio Morricone as well as of the elaborate pop of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson and songwriter-arranger Jimmy Webb. In the lyrics, Springsteen’s knack for particular detail served him well. Strangely, on such a relatively elaborate production, his ties to the E Street Band seemed stronger than ever.

On February 1, 2009, Springsteen and the band were the featured entertainment at halftime of Super Bowl XLIII. With an average viewership of 98.7 million, the game was the most-watched televised sports event in American history up to that time. Many fans and much of the press criticized Springsteen for commercializing himself in that way, but in the aftermath it was generally agreed that he had managed to condense the structure, message, humor, and athleticism of his live show into the 12 minutes allotted. On the largest popular culture platform available, Springsteen established that some rock artists remain determined to sustain their vitality and creative ambitions all the way to the end. Later in 2009 he was honored by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, whose chairman, Stephen A. Schwarzman, observed that “Springsteen has always had his finger on the pulse of America.”