I'm just an American boy raised on MTV
And I've seen all those kids in the soda pop ads
But none of 'em looked like me
So I started lookin' around for a light out of the dim
And the first thing I heard that made sense was the word
Of Mohammed, peace be upon him
A shadu la ilaha illa Allah
There is no God but God
-- Steve Earle, John Walker's Blues
Jerusalem is the 2002 studio album from musician Steve Earle, released on September 24, 2002 on Artemis Records. This album has a strong political streak running through it, mostly in response to 9/11; it's been described as the "opposite side of Bruce Springsteen's The Rising;" it retains much of the same optimism, but attempts to dig at the cause rather than lament the effect. The music is best described as rock with just a touch of folk and traditional country.
Track Listing
1. Ashes to Ashes (4:02)
2. Amerika v. 6.0 (The Best We Can Do) (4:19)
3. Conspiracy Theory (4:12)
4. John Walker's Blues (3:40)
5. The Kind (2:04)
6. What's A Simple Man To Do? (2:29)
7. The Truth (2:21)
8. Go Amanda (3:35)
9. I Remember You (2:52)
10. Shadowland (2:52)
11. Jerusalem (3:56)
Track Comments
The album opens very strongly with Ashes to Ashes, which lends a great deal of instrumental feeling to the sentiments from 9/11. The lyrics nicely parallel the devastation of the event with the radical changes society has seen over the past several decades and will surely see in the future. A strong and courageous song.
Amerika v. 6.0 (The Best We Can Do) is a bluesy number lamenting the problems of America today, from HMOs to a negative take on the war on drugs. This song probably provides the most "real" evidence of an anti-American slant in this album, but instead it strikes me as a lamentation; a critique by someone who authentically loves America.
Conspiracy Theory continues the thread of the previous two tracks, continuing to examine the flaws in America; this track has more of a rock feel again and dwells on issues such as xenophobia and consumerism, counterbalanced by a funky bassline, a drum loop, and distorted guitar licks along with the vocals of Irish singer Siobhan Maher-Kennedy, who basically provides an alternating perspective to Earle's resigned lyrics.
John Walker's Blues is the song that started the firestorm that surrounded this album upon it's release. The song basically tries to see the choices of John Walker Lindh from that man's perspective. Earle delivers the song in his usual resigned voice, as the fate of Lindh is already set in stone, but the song comes together with a chorus about religious unity. Of course, sympathizing with a traitor is very likely going to result in a similar branding being pressed upon you; that's why this song brims with courage.
The Kind steps away from the intense politics of the first four tracks and delivers a simple, melancholic ballad that seems to symbolize an attempt at a return to normalcy; if the rest of the album had been as dense as the first four tracks, it would have been some difficult listening.
What's A Simple Man To Do? returns to the more political stylings mixed with solid rock that make this album memorable. This song focuses on workers in Mexico, who are often dealt a hand of poverty that they cannot escape. Again, this song looks at America from a perspective that seems taboo in post-9/11 America.
The song that made me think more than any other on this album is The Truth, which addresses the topic of prisons in America, and whether or not they serve to help or hurt things. "Devil's Advocate" might as well be the topic of this album, as Earle takes the perspective that the prison system is outdated and that it breeds evil things by tossing people who are threats only to themselves or may have only made a simple mistake into the fiery abyss.
The album then switches pace a bit through the next three tracks. Go Amanda is probably the least memorable part of the album, but it is still a nice rock song (penned by Sheryl Crow) about the power of a single woman.
The next song is a fairly straightforward duet between Earle and Emmylou Harris. I Remember You is a song about lovers separated by a great distance who see each other again after a long time. Earle and the Red Dirt Girl mesh well together, and this song is solid.
Shadowland gears the album up for its conclusion, about a man riding alone through a land full of shadows. This song could easily be seen as an abstract criticism of the lack of friendliness in much of America, but mostly it is a good road song.
Jerusalem closes the album with a hammerswing, though. You might expect this album to close on a pessimistic note after all of the criticism and meditation on modern America throughout this album, but it is actually a track that details a future that includes the end of holy wars when we wake up and realize that all of our differences are actually similarities.
Some Personal Thoughts on Jerusalem
Jerusalem is the album that The Rising should have been.
-- tes, September 25, 2002
I have a deep personal attachment to this album. It took me a long time to begin to accept what exactly happened on 9/11. It filled me with a mix of feelings, as it did most of us: I felt anger at the terrorists who would do this; I felt grief for those who died in the act; I felt confusion and loss and malaise.
Then, fate dealt my life a bizarre hand, and I found myself with a lot of time to think about my life and where it fit into the big scheme of things. I found my spiritual side and realized what I wanted to do with my life. And I also realized that, to an extent, America holds some of the blame for 9/11.
Music has always played a major role in my life, and it was no different while I was recovering from my accident. I discovered Sonic Youth and The Avalanches and the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players; what else did I have to do but read and listen to music?
I picked up a copy of Bruce Springsteen's The Rising when it was released on July 30, 2002. I figured that, since many of Bruce's earlier albums struck such a personal chord with me, that perhaps this album would strike a chord with the way I felt about 9/11. But it felt utterly flat to me. Rather than really addressing what's going on in America, the album instead focuses on the idea that "we have to rebuild what we had before."
But this message struck me as wrong. Wasn't it "what we had before" that contributed to the problem in the first place? Didn't we respond with more xenophobia? Isn't this wrong? I now live in a country where some of my closest friends are having great problems renewing their visas because of the insane acts of a small handful of people. I now live in a country where the word Muslim, to many people, means evil. I now live in a nation that views a country western song espousing ignorance of the fact that we're running roughshod over large segments of the world is praised as a wonderful and poignant tribute to 9/11, and a frighteningly angry song is almost as lauded.
Then, sometime in September 2002, I heard the song John Walker's Blues on NPR, and for the first time, I heard a musical perspective on 9/11 that didn't focus on the effects of the event, but on the cause. Why did Al Qaeda and the Taliban do what they do, and why was an American involved in this? It went a lot deeper than Alan Jackson or Toby Keith, and even further than Bruce dared to go.
The rest of the album didn't let down my initial sentiment, and for that Steve Earle has earned a loyal fan. After hearing the negative response that he's received for John Walker's Blues (and he surely had to know that that was coming), it took a lot of courage to go ahead and release an album in a similar vein, and carry it off with significant musical acumen. It will always have a place in my musical collection, and I plan on adding earlier Earle albums to join it.
If You Like This Album...
... you'd probably also enjoy some rock songs with a true social conscience. You should try
Freedom by Neil Young (featuring perhaps the best political rock song ever, Rockin' in the Free World)
The Rising by Bruce Springsteen
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco
If you take but one thing from this album, let it be this:
A shadu la ilaha illa Allah
There is no God but God