Wrecking Ball is an album of hope amid "this great depression." We are told in "Land of Hopes and Dreams" that "faith will be rewarded." Though such faith might be "shaken" by troubled times, we should not feel "hopeless" or "forsaken." Like his song "Waiting on a Sunny Day," which offered a refreshing dose of optimism amid the tragic songs on The Rising, Springsteen tells us in Wrecking Ball that the "morning sun is breaking" and a "new day is coming."
We can also trust in God's goodness to us. Consider the words of the rap (certainly a first for Springsteen) embedded in the lyrics of "Rocky Ground."
You use your muscle and your mind and you pray your best
That your best is good enough, the Lord will do the rest
You raise your children and you teach them to walk straight and sure
You pray that hard times, hard times, come no more.
This is one of the most explicitly Christian lyrics in the entire Springsteen songbook. Indeed, Springsteen is coming of age. His spiritual vision is maturing with every album. He seems to be searching for answers to questions of life that take him beyond being "sprung from cages on Highway 9" or jumping in a car with Wendy and cruising down Thunder Road. Everybody has a hungry heart. Even the Boss.
In the end, Bruce Springsteen loves America. One of the last songs on the album is "Land of Hope and Dreams," an uplifting song that has long been a staple of Springsteen concerts.
Springsteen loves his country so much that he is no longer satisfied with the great distance that now exists between American reality and the American dream. He wants to shorten that distance and he believes that preaching the virtues of Christian faith is one way to do it. Wrecking Ball is an album that we all need to come to grips with.
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