Roll of the Dice: We Are Alive

“Is there anybody ALIVE out there?!?”

Bruce finally answered his own question on the last track of his Wrecking Ball album in 2012, in an adventurous olio that manages to deliver one of his most hopeful messages through his most macabre imagery–quite an impressive feat.

“We Are Alive” is dense and layered, and to fully appreciate it, you need to really hear it. If you can, put on a pair of noise cancelling headphones, and then press play:

Those scratches you hear in the beginning are intentional–not just to evoke the original Johnny Cash composition that “We Are Alive” samples and is preceded by, but to deliberately conjure up the voice from the past that narrates our journey through time. That voice sets the scene, although not the time. Because he employs religious imagery with ancient significance, we get the sense that we are somewhere outside of time.

There’s a cross up yonder up on Calvary Hill
There’s a slip of blood on a silver knife
There’s a graveyard kid down below
Where at night the dead come to life

That’s a remarkable first verse, conveying moment both earthly and divine. Perhaps that’s a shiver we feel, from the cool evening air, the implication of violence or the notion of being haunted.

The voice continues painting the scene, accompanied only by his guitar, mirroring the recurring “Ring of Fire” riff through infernal lyrics:

Well, above the stars they crackle in fire
A dead man’s moon throws seven rings
Well, we’d put our ears to the cold grave stones
This is the song they’d sing

And now Bruce delivers on his set-up with a chorus of the undead, faking us out by weaving a tale of horror… right up until the final three words, which throw us a curve ball, lift us up, and carry us aloft for the remainder of the song.

We are alive
And though our bodies lie alone here in the dark
Our spirits rise to carry the fire and light the spark
To stand shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart

Notice how Bruce holds Max in restraint right up until the first “heart.” Bruce uses that word–a symbol of life and love–along with “fire,” “light” and “spark’ to shake us out of our traditional notion of death as a cold and lonely place, and Max’s drumroll ushers in a celebratory stew of mariachi and banjo, revolving around the “Ring of Fire” riff, belying that song’s lyrics of descent with a song of rising.

Bruce runs with it: the voice is now a striking railroad worker killed in the B&O riots of 1877, then a little girl killed in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing, and finally an immigrant who perished in the desert. Greg Leisz’s banjo carries us along with Soozie’s violin warming the night air, and for a verse, we might almost believe we’re listening to a lost track from the Seeger Sessions.

A voice cried I was killed in Maryland in 1877
When the railroad workers made their stand
Well, I was killed in 1963 one Sunday morning in Birmingham
Well, I died last year crossing the southern desert
My children left behind in San Pablo
Well, they’ve left our bodies here to rot
Oh, please let them know

None are named directly, because it’s not their names that are important but rather their deeds, determination, and inspiration of generations to come. In life, they waged a fight for freedom that they neither began nor ended but in which they played their part. They will see that fight won someday, because they live on–they are live–in the hearts of their children and those they inspired to continue the fight.

We are alive
Oh, and though we lie alone here in the dark
Our souls will rise to carry the fire and light the spark
To fight shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart

We soar on that chorus, as the “Ring of Fire” motif emerges in full-throated trumpet.And if we still have the willies at the notion of all this death and decay around us, Bruce reassures us while Soozie lifts us:

Let your mind rest easy, sleep well my friend
It’s only our bodies that betray us in the end

…and none too soon, because in the final verse, the narrator’s body does indeed betray him in a most gory fashion, recalling Bruce’s earlier “Matamoras Banks,” but forgoing poetry for a frank and terrifying nightmare, belied by hand-clapping and a vocal laced with life and resilience.

I awoke last night in the dark and dreamy deep
From my head to my feet, my body’d gone stone cold
There were worms crawling all around me
My fingers scratching at an earth black and six foot low
And alone in the blackness of my grave
Alone I’d been left to die
Then I heard voices calling all around me
The earth rose above me, my eyes filled with sky

The final chorus unites all the styles at once, a celebration of life and cultures uniting, before fading out with one last whistled chorus, as light as air and hope.

We are alive
And though our bodies lie alone here in the dark
Our souls and spirits rise
To carry the fire and light the spark
To fight shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart
To stand shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart
We are alive

It’s a remarkable performance, and I’d argue that it’s one of Bruce’s finest committed-to-vinyl compositions. It’s pretty close to perfect and hard to imagine it being improved on stage.

But of course, that’s what Bruce does.

“We Are Alive” is ultimately a song about connection, community, and legacy, and the song works best when sung to an audience. In concert, Bruce’s audience provides him the silence demanded by the early verses and the chorus of voices called for by the final ones.

Watch this wonderfully filmed performance from London in 2012, pay attention to Bruce’s face and voice as he calls upon the spirits past and present, and join the chorus that helps “We Are Alive” take flight.

We Are Alive
Recorded: 2011
Released: Wrecking Ball  (2012)
First performed: March 9, 2012 (New York City, NY)
Last performed: May 1, 2014 (Tampa, FL)

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