{"id":19179,"date":"2020-07-04T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-04T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/estreetshuffle.com\/?p=19179"},"modified":"2020-07-04T06:53:55","modified_gmt":"2020-07-04T13:53:55","slug":"roll-of-the-dice-the-fuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/estreetshuffle.com\/index.php\/2020\/07\/04\/roll-of-the-dice-the-fuse\/","title":{"rendered":"Roll of the Dice: The Fuse"},"content":{"rendered":"

If there’s one song on The Rising<\/em> that best captures the sense of collective dread gripping America in those first post-9\/11 months, it’s “The Fuse.”<\/p>\n

“The Fuse” tends to puzzle fans and reviewers, because on the surface it seems almost flip in its juxtaposition of tragedy and sex, and I suspect that with distance new listeners will understand it less and less. “The Fuse” is a you-had-to-be-there song.<\/p>\n

Like many of Bruce’s best songs, “The Fuse” operates on two different levels: on the surface, it’s about our primal instinct to self-medicate trauma and tragedy–in this case, with physical connection. On a deeper level, though, “The Fuse” is about the last moments of normalcy before a tsunami of change sweeps over all that we know. This song is so remarkably prescient that we have to remind ourselves that it was written not years later but rather is one of the very first songs Bruce wrote after 9\/11. Bruce knew what was coming long before it actually did.<\/p>\n

The narrator of “The Fuse” is well aware of what’s coming, too–he can feel it, hear it, see it, even taste it. But it’s not here yet, and he’s determined to make the most of a fleeting moment, one last haven of time of out of time.<\/p>\n

Let’s take a listen, and then we’ll break it down.<\/p>\n