Everything But The Girl from LOVE NOT MONEY, "Sean"
( Walking Wounded )
Vic
'Last Train In' by Robert Cinque
I was working on Barclay St in September 2001, and was on one of the PATH trains that pulled out of the WTC station on the morning of 9/11 without opening its doors. Our office had to relocate for about six months, and when I went back to riding my regular train, I noticed that some of the people who I would see every day weren't on the train. Did they change their commute, or were they lost on 9/11? So I wrote this song in early 2002, and recently posted a video of it on YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPnkeUWtfQA - It's something I'd like to share -
Robert Cinque
Eberhard Weber from LATER THAT EVENING, "Maurizius"
well... (?)
..._| |_< <__
Vic
Eberhard Weber from LATER THAT EVENING, "Later That Evening"
?
__> >_| |_...
Vic
Ryan Adams - New York, New York
It's a love song to New York City. You go through a New York experience that may be one out of 8 million stories but the one thing in common is that our stories are interwoven here, in the City that grows on us and eventually we fall in love with.
Will
Eberhard Weber from LITTLE MOVEMENTS, " "No Trees", He Said"
Please, No Trees...
( "What?" )
Vic
'SHADOWS' by Kevin D Jones
This is such a beautiful and healing song.
The lyrics begin:
"There used to be SHADOWS here
This time of day...
We used to imagine hear
That nothing could stand in our way...............etc
Now the SHADOWS are gone
But we stay"
I can send you a cd copy - let me know.
Thank-you.
Barbara Byrne
Eberhard Weber from LITTLE MOVEMENTS, "Little Movements"
What does it take...?
"Little Movements"
Vic
Tuesday's Gone by lynyrd skynyrd
I heard this song played behind a video of photos shortly after 9/11 and every time I hear it I can clearly see the beautiful blue skies that we had that terrible day. I can not forget those images from that Tuesday that changed our world.
Pat Cosgrove
Karen's Theme from John Barry
This music is so haunting and so reverant, it speaks to the possible, if only. I am swept away and near tears each and everytime I listen to it.
Jeanne G.
The song "7th December 1988" by Djivan Gasparyan
I spent many years not wanting to think about 9/11. I worked next door to the South Tower until the Friday before when I quit because of a growing anxiety to not be there that I will never understand. I had just moved to NYC on July 1st of that summer, 25 years old and so excited to tackle New York. I got a temp job at the American Stock Exchange where I had some friends who were also temping. Then I quit that Friday, out of nowhere, and watched the horizon burn from Bushwick on Tuesday morning as I did my shopping for my new apartment. Bits of paper and ash floated everywhere. I had forgotten to tell my parents and brother that I no longer worked there and the phones were all down; I lined up at a pay phone and reached them.
I stayed with my AmEx friends that night in Queens (all of us young and new to the city) and will never forget the dust on their clothes and the look in their eyes. I went back to work there a few weeks later (because I needed to make rent, obviously) and looked at a big hole outside my window every day for a week, until I was fired for screwing up a conference call. My New York adventure was done (although I still live here, and love it here).
I block things I don't like from my mind with amazing ease. I avoided everything 9/11 after those first few months when it was unavoidable. Who wants to think about such things? I got a job at the Social Register, another temp job -- they needed me because they had just laid off a bunch of employees after 9/11, when the economy tanked and everyone was freaking out. My main job was to peruse the obituaries in the New York Times every day, and find people who were listed in the Register so we could delete their names for the next printing. So for several months, every day, I read all the obits, which included the 9/11 people. It was a very strange time, my first year in NYC.
So I stopped thinking about 9/11 after that, and avoided movies about it, I stopped watching TV news period (the violence of the images they showed I am still disgusted by), anything like that. And then one day, about two years ago, I heard this song, and it moved me so deeply that I researched it on the Internet, and learned that Djivan Gasparyan had composed it in memory of a devastating earthquake that destroyed so many lives and families on a single day in 1988 in his beloved country. Listening to it helped me to think about 9/11, cry about it, about what I lost (I know, it's not much compared to what so many other people lost, but I did lose something that day, like most New Yorkers). It made me feel like we are never alone, no matter what, when we can connect through such beautiful, peaceful but sad music. I feel very close to God when I listed to this song, and I feel close to the composer of this song. We have something in common I think.
Megan C.
"Ripple," the Greatful Dead
First, thanks so much for this fascinating concept. I've never heard such an eclectic collection of great music anywhere, and each song played seems astonishingly right for the theme.
Although I'm a very avid classical music enthusiast and WQXR listener, my tastes spread far beyond the classics, and I admit to being a bit of a "Deadhead." The song "Ripple" is my favorite Grateful Dead song for several reasons, and I'll explain what is, for me, its 9/11 connection.
Until recently, I lived in Jersey City with one of my best-ever friends, Scotty - who has to be one of the world's biggest "Deadheads," and whose favorite Dead song was "Ripple". Over the course of attending concerts and listening to records with Scotty, this song eventually became my favorite Dead song as well. I even performed a version of the song on stage a few years ago at a round-robin at Peoples Music Network, a folk music festival upstate, near Woodstock.
Scotty was dating a girl named Mitsy for about three years. Mitsy had been a 9/11 survivor; she had just happened to be on her way to the observation deck on that fateful day. (I happened to have jury duty on the same day, but that's quite another story.) She emerged unharmed physically but had a host of emotional issues that required treatment and understanding. Getting to know Mitsy over time gave me an empathy and an understanding for 9/11 survivors, along with their familes and friends, that I otherwise would have missed. I consider myself most fortunate to have the opportunity to know her and am pleased to report that she has made a great deal of progress towards overcoming the painful emotional scars incurred on that tragic day.
Whenever I hear "Ripple," I think of Scott and Mitsy, and I know that it will alway leads my mind back to the events of 9/11.
Like all Jerry Garcia-Robert Hunter compositions, the lyrics are a bit rambling and can be taken to mean many things to many people. But I think the imagery conveyed in the chorus, "Ripple in still water / Where there is no pebble tosseed, nor wind to blow" certainly conveys both the uncanny calm of that now infamous morning, and can also refer to the soon-to-be opened reflecting pools. The latter theme can also be found in the lyric, "Let it be known there is a fountain / That was not made by the hands of men."
The lyric, "There is a road, no simple highway/ Between the dawn and the dark of night/ And if you go no one may follow/ That path is for your steps alone" speaks to the loneliness and isolation we all face from time to time, but must be particularly acute in 9/11 survivors.
Finally, musically speaking, "Ripple" has got to be one of the most peaceful songs I know of. It's a testament to the greatness of the song that it can invoke imagery both terribly painful and almost blissfully peaceful.
So that's my request. I never thought I'd hear the Grateful Dead on any stream associated with WQXR, but it seems quite appropriate, and certainly qualifies as classic (if not classical) music.
Thank you very much.
Rick Libert
Union City, Indiana
Rick Libert
Beim Schlafengehen by Richard Strauss
This is the most beautiful and poignant - at least to me - of the Four Last Songs. The poem by Hermann Hesse deals with death but is so comforting:
Now that the day has made me so tired,
my dearest longings shall
be accepted kindly by the starry night
like a weary child.
Hands, cease your activity,
head, forget all of your thoughts;
all my senses now
will sink into slumber.
And my soul, unobserved,
will float about on untrammeled wings
in the enchanted circle of the night,
living a thousandfold more deeply.
The version by Jessye Norman is transcendent. Thank you all so much for doing this. You made life a little more bearable on 9/11 and I know you'll do the same on this anniversary.
Louise from NJ
The Town I loved So Well- by Phil Coltery
I am of Northern Irish descent and grew up on Long Island in a house where Irish music played all day on Sundays. This song is about someone's childhood home turning into a war zone and how that competes with his beloved memories from youth. I lived downtown on 9/11/01 and I remember walking down Broadway in the days that followed and seeing tanks patrolling my streets. A line from this song suddenly popped into my head;
"With their tanks and their guns,
My God, what have they done?
To the town I loved so well."
Ellen Bailey
"Will The Circle Be Unbroken", covered by Ashleigh Flynn
A soulful rendition of a song of loss and mourning originally written by Ada R. Habershon and adapted by The Carter Family. A free download of the song is available at www.ashleighflynn.net.
jill
Green Day - Wake me up when September ends
To this day, it upsets me that as Americans out reaction to the tragic killing of our fellow Americans was to react with rage and hate. I am a Christian who actually understands the "turn the other cheek" principle that was taught to me. The intolerance that Muslims are met with all over the world as a result of the actions of a small extremist religious group makes me question just how humane we as humans are. It is undeniable that 09/11 changed America forever, I just question if it was for the better. Wake me up when September ends I feel really gets to this emotion for me. The song expresses the grief I feel with the passing of innocence that I will never have again.
Jason Thorpe
Bunch of Lonesome Heroes by Leonard Cohen
It means everything to me as a bona fide 9-11 WTC initial responder and I can't find it anywhere to listen to online.
It's goddamn lonely out here.
I'm also FEMALE. This should be a series or documentary in itself. Very different theater.
I also have over 200 other tunes. Maybe John would like to view them.
But again, Bunch of Lonesome Heroes is IT for me. I never got a pin even for my service. Can I hear a song?
cynyc
Our One Saving Grace -By Frank Grimaldi
My mother was in the hospital on 9/11 and died of cancer the following August. As a singer/songwriter, I was working on my last CD. But in those months that followed 9/11, I was also working through the incredible sadness I felt after such a horrific event - all the while knowing my mother's death was inevitable. I never thought New York City would bounce back after 9/11 as I never thought I would get over loosing my one remaining parent. I asked myself one day, how did I - we get through that time? The answer was in my gratitude for my friends and my two sisters. I believe we were OUR ONE SAVING GRACE. The song is the the last song I wrote for my CD.
Here's the link to listen and/or download.
http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_1621241
Frank Grimaldi
Dayna Kurtz - It's the Day of Atonement, 2001"
I thought this song captured the helplessness, sadness and anger many of us felt that year, in the years that followed.
Steven Levine
Halleluja
I first heard this song last week on CBC in PEI where it was song for the funeral service of Jack Layton, a very beloved leader of the liberal party who died this August after winning a major election.
It's a hauntingly beautiful song, majestic and sad. There are various versions, one by Rufus Wainwright that I like a lot. It just seems appropriate to the anniversary.
Sydney Johnson
