We sometimes forget that music is more than a source of entertainment. Songs originally were tools to help us teach morality lessons, to share the news of the day and to record- through the oral tradition- the memories of major events in our lives. They helped us celebrate our victories, mourn our losses and revere our gods. And, though we sometimes think these roots are relegated to dusty folk history for discussions of ancient ballads, our modern songwriters still use music to help us to remember and heal.
Last week, over on Google+, I happened to post a link to a video for the traditional bluegrass/stringband tune “White House Blues” in recognition of the 110th anniversary of the assassination of U.S. President William McKinley. The song’s original lyrics provide a breaking news style series of updates of news of the assassination in a style that should be familiar to any modern viewer of cable news. The narrator of the song even manages to get a quote from the grieving and angry widow. (“Look here, you rascal, and see what you’ve done. You shot my husband with this Ivor Johnson gun.”)
The song generated a comment that recognized the McKinley assassination was no longer a major event in our timeline, so it was interesting to see how the song itself had helped preserve the memory of the confusing days of September 1901 when Americans wondered if the world was spinning out of control.
And, so, I began to wonder. What musical legacy might we leave behind to a generation not yet conceived of our own September story? The songs I’ve selected to showcase in my weekend playlist may not necessarily be the ones that are preserved as American folk music in 2101. However, to me, they do a fine job of illustrating the emotions and experiences of 9/11 as I remember them through the fog of a decade.
The terrorist attacks of 9/11 inspired their fair share of bad music. To be fair, the McKinley assassination likely inspired plenty of maudlin tunes. Most of them are lost to memory for a reason. If there is any justice in this world, the same will happen to much of the 9/11 musical catalog.
I grant that, in the aftermath of that day, emotions were raw. It was necessary to put your thoughts down in some way. So, I’m not going to call anybody out by name (except for you, Toby Keith) because the effort was in earnest.
Actually, Toby’s songs – particularly “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue”—do reflect a very real emotional mindset of people after 9/11. So, leaving it out of the playlist may have been a disservice. I just couldn’t bring myself to include the “boot up your ass” song (as I call it) because it didn’t reflect my 9/11. Everyone’s perspective of the day and its legacy is filtered through their own lens, after all. And while I enjoy much of Toby’s other works, I tend to hear his 9/11-inspired tunes with the same half-attentive polite nodding I give to my Tea Party relatives when they go on a rant.
Your mileage may vary. This is the soundtrack of my life and thoughts in a world where a perfect blue September sky can cause a pain in my heart. You can listen to all the songs listed below on my Spotify playlist created for the article- Weekend Playlist: 9/11 Anniversary Edition
Alan Jackson – Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning?)
“Where were you when the world stopped turning on that September day?”
There may be no better opening line that boils down the shared experience of 9/11 than Alan Jackson’s question that starts this song. Country music produced a large quantity of 9/11-inspired tunes, but this one is the one we’ll still know a century from now. I’ve always admired Alan Jackson’s ability to craft a good story in song. Some of his best writing was taking place around this time (see: “Drive (for Daddy Gene)”), so he seemed primed to speak for us in the weeks after 9/11. The song made great use of country music clichés but still had an ability to feel fresh to us when we heard it played live for the first time on television. When others chose to write songs that wrapped us in flags, Alan Jackson knew we might have better comfort from a blanket draped over our shoulders instead.
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band – Into the Fire
“I heard you calling me, then you disappeared in the dust, up the stairs, into the fire…”
Springsteen’s entire The Rising album is an opus to the memory of 9/11, so choosing only a few songs to mention seemed a difficult task. Into the Fire speaks to me because The Boss so expertly took an image that can still shake us to our core—the thought of the doomed firemen of FDNY climbing the tower stairs—and used it as a metaphor for all the other things that trouble our lives.
Sleater-Kinney – Faraway
“…then the phone rings. Turn on the TV and watch the world exploding…”
Sleater-Kinney delivers a song that presents the confusion, the impotent rage and the frustrations we felt as we watched from afar. We watched this unfold live on our television screens. We were there, but not and we share the thoughts of the song’s narrator, “And the heart is hit in a city faraway, but it feels so close.”
Neil Young – Let’s Roll
“I’ve got to put the phone down, and do what we gotta do..”
While most of us were far away from the center of events as the narrator of the previous tune by Sleater-Kinner, there were plenty who were caught right in the center of it all. The now legendary story of the passengers of Flight 93 is memorialized by Neil Young in Let’s Roll. For literal and symbolic reasons it is appropriate this song begins with a cellphone ringtone. Walter Cronkite broke the news of JFK, cable news was our witness to the Challenger explosion, but the 9/11 terror attacks entered many of our lives with a phone ringing in our pocket. The passengers of Flight 93 learned of the New York attacks from loved ones on the ground, calling them with the news. They turned it into a tactical advantage and we soon all learned about a small town called Shanksville in Pennsylvania.
Leonard Cohen – On that Day
“Some people say they hate of us old, our women unveiled, our slaves and our gold.”
Why? We asked this question a lot. Leonard Cohen, one of my favorite poets who also happens to be a songwriter and singer, heard the question and heard some of the too simple answers we were telling ourselves.
Billy Joel – New York State of Mind
“I don’t have any reasons, I’ve left them all behind. I’m in a New York state of mind…”
Yes, this song predates 9/11 by 25 years. But, the tune became an anthem in the months following. While Sinatra’s “New York, New York,” may be the city’s unofficial anthem, Billy Joel’s song had the right amount of nostalgia and melancholy to make it a love song appropriate for the wounded city.
Everclear – The New York Times
“I wanna believe in this world…”
The New York Times began publishing the individual stories of the victims. It allowed those of us who read the stories to recognize the individuals as individuals and not simply as a sum of losses. The narrator looks to these stories in hopes of making sense of the events, but these stories do not tell us why, they only tell us what we have lost.
Eminem – Mosh
“No more psychological warfare to trick us to thinkin’ we ain’t loyal…”
Eminem’s controversial rap in 2004 examined the aftermath of 9/11 and the Desert Storm adventure in Iraq. Like many of the youth that enjoyed his music, there was a growing sense of frustration within the so-called “9/11 Generation” that the united bonds we formed in the days after 9/11 were now being used against us through reactionary legislation such as the “PATRIOT Act.” Eminem called upon his audience to stop standing around complaining and to form a movement. It was a masterful work of capturing the emotional turbulence that would come to illustrate American politics and youth’s role in it for the remainder of the decade.
Steve Earle – John Walker’s Blues
“I’ve seen all those kids in the soda pop ads, but none of them looked like me.”
Steve Earle doesn’t shy away from controversy. So, it was little surprise to me that his most notable work inspired by 9/11 draws inspiration from a young American man, John Walker Lindh, who left the United States to join the Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. Earle’s John Walker doesn’t ask us to think of him as a hero or even as a victim. He is simply telling us his story and how he could find no answers to the questions that troubled him within his own homeland.
Lily Allen – Him
“Ever since He can remember, people have died in His good name…”
Since both sides of the new War on Terror believed they had God on their side, Lily Allen decided to present a possible perspective of God’s point of view. It’s cheeky, irreverent and good pop. Allen also is able to let us know that God’s favorite band is Creedence Clearwater Revival, which makes me hopeful somehow. I had been afraid the answer to that question was going to be Jars of Clay.
Jay-Z – Empire State of Mind
“Long live the WTC…”
Jay-Z delivered the 21st century answer to Billy Joel’s New York State of Mind. It delivers all the swagger and arrogance you might expect from the attitudes of this generation, but listen to the over-the-top chorus with Alicia Keys and tell me it isn’t just as cheesy as Joel’s tune? And, I mean that as a compliment.
Billy Joel – Miami 2017
“I watched the mighty skyline fall…”
Billy Joel may never be mistaken for Nostradamus, but this 1976 tune set in the very near future recounts the memories of an apocalyptic event that changed New York City forever. Joel was writing from the perspective of life in a city that was in the midst of crime waves and financial troubles. It seemed the Big Apple would rot in the 1970s and not many people would be sad to see it go. In Joel’s contemporary world, it was difficult to imagine a New York in the future that the world would want to rally around to save. I used to love this song as a teenager. I loved the New York-flavored defiance found in the narrator’s recollections of how the city and its residents did not go down without a fight. It was that same attitude that carried the city through the tragedy of September 2001.
Tori Amos – I Can’t See New York
“…and you said you would find me, even in death…”
Amos says she actually began writing this song before 9/11, but the World Trade Center attacks certainly influenced the final product. The narrator of the song seems to be the ghost of one of the passengers of the flights that targeted the towers, lost on the other side of the living and trying to make sense of the events of the day.
Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris – If This Is Goodbye
“I love you and that’s all that really matters…”
While there is no direct mention of the 9/11 terror attacks in this song, Knopfler says the song was inspired by news stories in the days following of people who called their loved ones from or in the Towers to say goodbye. To me, it is one of the most achingly beautiful sentiments of any of the songs listed. In my world, the voice of Emmylou Harris is a like an altar call.
Mary Chapin Carpenter – Grand Central Station
“I ain’t no hero, mister,just a workin’ man…”
The narrator of Mary’s song is a construction worker helping with the recovery efforts at Ground Zero. The worker believes the ghosts of the victims are carried with him through the “holy dust” that clings to his work clothes and he answers their requests to have him take them through the city they loved one more time to another iconic New York landmark, Grand Central Station. We find comfort in believing we can help those who have gone, but in truth they help us learn to carry on without them.
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band – The Rising
“May their precious blood forever bind me…”
Springsteen closes the playlist with a song of optimism married to lyrics of loss. Our narrator is a firefighter climbing to his doom and arriving in a vision of his own paradise. Who better to understand the myth of the Phoenix than a fireman? From the ashes, we will rise.
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