Every songwriter is going to reach that point where they think they’ve said all they need to say. As much as they might love to do it for the craft, there’s that lingering feeling that they don’t need to have everyone listen to what grand statement they have to say.

For Bruce Springsteen, it only takes one great song to give him the confidence to make a thousand more classics to come.

But ‘The Boss’ never considered himself a singer-songwriter in the same vein as James Taylor or anything. Most songwriters like Carole King created songs as a job, whereas Springsteen was a poet in the same vein as Bob Dylan. He was writing songs, yes, but that was only because the words demanded to be written down, like the stories in ‘Jungleland’ or the raw pain felt in half of Nebraska.

After going through a haze of divorce grief on Tunnel of Love, though, ‘The Boss’ started to stretch himself into different areas that were a little bit too ill-advised. No one was saying that an album like Human Touch was terrible by any means, but listening to how happy he sounded, there was part of it that sounded a little bit disingenuous. Some of his best songs are about finding beauty in the bittersweet aspects of life, and it took ‘American Skin (41 Shots)’ for him to realise what he was writing about again.

There are many protest songs that ‘The Boss’ has written over the years, but he wasn’t always about painting America as the villain of the world or anything. You aren’t going to find anyone prouder of being an American than Springsteen, and songs like ‘Land of Hope and Dreams’ encapsulate the kind of country that he had written about for years, where everything seems possible even if the odds are stacked against you.

And in his own darkest hour, both songs helped Springsteen refocus what he was all about, saying, “These two songs taken together are just as good as two songs about real issues that I’ve ever written. It gave me the confidence that I could continue to write for the band. The band had work to do to expand its influence, its power, whatever small bit of culture-shaping you can do with rock music. And so I pursued that.”

Considering what America would be up against in the next few years, Springsteen’s reunion with his band couldn’t have come at a better time, either. The impact of 9/11 left everyone scared about what was coming next, and while it would take a few years before Springsteen recorded either of his masterpieces, The Risinghelped everyone find some steady ground and come together through the love of making music.

Even when ‘Land of Hope and Dreams’ was finally released on Wrecking Ball, it had a different tone. Springsteen had written the tune when America started going dark, but even when facing an oncoming economic recession, he knew that the country would be okay as long as they held onto hope.

Most importantly, though, Springsteen always embodied the values that separated false hope from blind faith. Everyone can have false hope and convince themselves that everything is going to be already, but it’s the dreamers who hold onto blind faith as a way to keep them sane and believe that human nature will turn itself around.