Hope in the darkness

These are certainly troubled times. An economy failing. A U.S. that finds itself with few allies. Turbulent world relations. It's times like that make us look both within ourselves and to our surroundings for hope. For direction. For a sense that maybe we're going to be okay.

The leader we need is here.

AC/DC has returned, just when we needed so very badly. Go here and you can hear their new single, "Rock N' Roll Train." The new album, "Black Ice," is due in October and features four different songs with "rock n' roll" in the title. Goddamn, we need these guys like we never needed them before. Welcome back, my Australian brethren.

I'm not a particularly religious person, but when I hear a really, really wonderful rock song, I feel a little more connected to the universe. There's a feeling in a song like the Stones' "Moonlight Mile," Prince's "The Pope," or Black Flag's "Rise Above" that lets you know that you're a part of something bigger. For those three minutes, you believe in something more than yourself. Like maybe, hippie-ish as it may sound, that maybe there is something in common between all of us. Maybe St. Joe Strummer was onto something.

There's something so incredibly reassuring about AC/DC's return, offering a song we've never heard before even as we've heard it a thousand times before. I can't stop playing it.

Let there be rock.