I have a song I'd like to share . . .
You ask the question,
"What music would you like to share with your fellow New Yorkers?"
I have a song called Satisfied Life that I wrote in the morning 3 days after September 11th.
At the time, I could see the NYC skyline from the end of my street.
The song is really a prayer of gratitude for my life.
I also have a song called 2 Clay Feet that I wrote not too long after September 11th about my experiences at that time, waking up at 2AM and smelling the burning, all the way across the water in New Jersey, and bits of conversations with loved ones.
Just the other day my friend Robert Burke Warren, the singer songwriter & family troubadour emailed me and said,
"I recently had the iPhone on shuffle and "Two Clay Feet" came on, between the Beatles and, I think, Weird Al. In any case, it held its own. Such a great, haunting song. You really captured something with that one. A sense of loss but also deep focus on the true fragility and preciousness of life."
Is there any way for me to submit one or both of these songs to WNYC for consideration? I would be thrilled to have my music be a part of this special show.
Please let me know, thank you.
Very best,
Mimi Cross
http://www.mimicross.com
http://www.bodyofwriting.com Our bodies hold our stories.
http://www.sirenstories.com Singers + songs = Sirenstories.
http://www.polymash.com/crankamacallit
http://bit.ly/jL9F1N Kirkus Reviews calls The Crankamacallit children's interactive iPad app "Brawny"!
mimicross@mac.com
140 Ocean Blvd.
Atlantic Highlands, NJ 07716
732.708.0824
Mimi Cross
Glenn Branca's Symphony #13 (Hallucination City)
I saw this performed in the plaza at the base of the World Trade Center towers in June 2001. The performance was memorable, and amazingly appropriate for the space, 100 electric guitars producing a trance-like sound that captivated the smallish crowd. There may have been 500 people there, but that space was so vast it was impossible to know. It was the last time I remember being at the site, and it is a happy memory of the power of serious music played by an extremely talented ensemble.
Alexis Kraft
Black Bird - The Beatles
I heard Black Bird (coincidentally on NPR) that day - it made me weep but beautiful in it's hopefulness too.
AJ
Wayfaring Stranger - Almeda Riddle version
Music meant a lot to me after 9-11. It calmed me when I was anxious and it allowed me to express my grief. I had several songs that meant different things at various times.
The lines, "I know dark clouds are going to gather round me" described the time and "I'll go singing home to God." gave me comfort.
Almeda Riddle's a cappella version was the one I sang along with. It is the most exquisite and expressive of any I've heard.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_pbnHXjbGc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_pbnHXjbGc
Linda Griggs
Sacred Harp - Idumea
This is the song we sang in honor of the firefighters in our neighborhood. You'll know it from "Cold Mountain".
And am I born to die?
To lay this body down!
And must my trembling spirit fly
Into a world unknown?
A land of deepest shade,
Unpierced by human thought;
The dreary regions of the dead,
Where all things are forgot!
Soon as from earth I go,
What will become of me?
Eternal happiness or woe
Must then my portion be!
Waked by the trumpet sound,
I from my grave shall rise;
And see the Judge with glory crowned,
And see the flaming skies!
Linda Griggs
Sacred Harp - Plenary
I organized a 9-11 sing after the first year and dedicated this song to Moises Rivas. I didn't know him. I read his story in the NYTimes. He was a buss boy at Windows on the World and died far from his home in Mexico. I've never forgotten his name. There's something about dying far from home that tears me up.
Plenary, page 162 of the Sacred Harp
Hark! from the tombs of doleful sound,
Mine ears, attend the cry,
Ye living men, come view the ground,
Where you must shortly lie.
“Princes, this clay must be your bed,
In spite of all your tow’rs;
The tall, the wise, the rev’rend head,
Must lie as low as ours.”
Great God! Is this our certain doom?
And are we still secure?
Still walking downward to the tomb,
And yet prepared no more!
Linda Griggs
Kringsatt av fiender by Nordahl Grieg
It is a beautiful, solemn, and ultimately uplifting, life affirming poem by Nordahl Grieg that is frequently sung in Denmark and Norway when evil gets too close. On 9/11 we were surrounded by evil and Kringsatt was one of the songs I found myself humming, almost by instinct, because "War is contempt for life, Peace is creation. Death's march is halted by our determination"
Ellen Ivens
Faure Requiem
It is the piece that I sang with a combined choral group at a special memorial service after 9/11; it is the most 'hopeful' Requiem of the several major ones and it was very calming to be able to sing/hear it.
Grace Goodman
James Taylor's Fire & Rain
The morning after the attacks, The Daily News had excerpts from the songs throughout their article, and the lyrics of the song seemed to fit with the sorrow, loss, and fear that permeated those days after the attacks. As a high school senior, who was terrified for her firefighter cousins, mourning for the father and brother of two friends who never came home, the song, to this day, always brings to mind the days after the attacks.
Kate
"Wayfaring Stranger" by Jo Stafford Arr.by Paul Weston
Maybe we all need a good cry.
Jo Stafford keens for us.
Ruth
American Hearts by A.A. Bondy (American Hearts)
"and if your god makes war
then he's no god i know"
Special Monkey
Thrice - Broken Lungs / The Sky is Falling
Both of these songs deal with the events of 9/11 and the consequences of engaging in a poorly planned war, respectively. The lyrics along with the music are emotionally moving, Broken lungs, starting out with - "Woke up to a brand new skyline, we licked our wounds and mourned the dead" immediately puts you in the mindset of the morning of September 11th. The Sky is falling, with its chorus - "I want to be strong enough, to not let my fear decide my fate. Surrounded by jingoists; I don't want any part of this" deals with the mixed emotions of anger and fear in a post 9/11 world. I grew up listening to Thrice and have for nearly a decade now and these tracks are possibly some of their most meaningful to me.
Salvatore
"Denn Alle Fleisch" from Brahms' "A German Requiem"
It is the most poignant reminder I know that all things must pass.
Joel
Nirvana - "All Apologies"
This song is aching, emotionally draining, weary, chilling, dark but beautiful. When I heard of this project, it was the first song I thought of. I was at the WTC on 9/11 20 minutes before the first plane hit, watched the second plane hit from my office window. Walking to the ferry, making my way home to NJ that day, all the papers flying around that were blown out of the Trade Center offices. Everyone was so giving on that day, I saw the best of this country that day. Everyone helped me, helped each other, the goodness in in people. I must have received 40 phone calls from friends and relatives who knew I worked near the Trade Center and wanted to be sure I was alright. But the words, the melody of this song resonate with a bleakness, a beauty that I still feel in my bones. "In the sun I feel as one", "All alone is all we are". Fifteen people in my town were killed just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Went to a lot of prayer meetings, memorials. I still can't watch any documentaries about the event. They do not represent what I saw or felt on that day. This song comes close.
Barry Kurtz
Fleet Foxes - Hopelessness Blues
This music reflects the way I feel now when looking back on 9/11/2001. Lost, sad, hopeless.
Sylvia
Billy Joel - Miami 2017 (I've Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)
Long a favorite of mine, I heard this song on the radio a couple of days after 9/11 and was overcome with emotion and still am every time I hear it now. [One line in particular really gets me: "I watched the mighty skyline fall"}
Miami 2017
by Billy Joel
I've seen the lights go out on Broadway-
I saw the Empire State laid low.
And life went on beyond the Palisades,
They all bought Cadillacs-
And left there long ago.
We held a concert out in Brooklyn-
To watch the Island bridges blow.
They turned our power down,
And drove us underground-
But we went right on with the show...
I've seen the lights go out on Broadway-
I saw the ruins at my feet,
You know we almost didn't notice it-
We'd see it all the time on Forty-Second Street.
They burned the churches up in Harlem-
Like in that Spanish Civil War-
The flames were everywhere,
But no one really cared-
It always burned up there before...
I've seen the lights go out on Broadway-
I watched the mighty skyline fall.
The boats were waiting at the Battery,
The union went on strike-
They never sailed at all.
They sent a carrier out from Norfolk-
And picked the Yankees up for free.
They said that Queens could stay,
They blew the Bronx away-
And sank Manhattan out at sea....
You know those lights were bright on Broadway-
But that was so many years ago...
Before we all lived here in Florida-
Before the Mafia took over Mexico.
There are not many who remember-
They say a handful still survive...
To tell the world about...
The way the lights went out,
And keep the memory alive....
Batya Diamond
David Bowie and Pat Methany's, "This is Not America"
Because the 9/11 attacks were planned and executed from overseas. It was not homegrown nor is what America is about.
It was also a failure of our intelligence agencies, just like in the the movie "The Falcon and the Snowman" where the song comes from.
David Schneier
Adagio for Strings
It's emotional, powerful, beautiful, and can be heard and understood in any language.
Kristina
City - Hollywood Undead
This song outlines the feelings of many after the event. The anger of those who witnessed these events
Killian James
Anything from the tribute concert that was broadcast several days after 9/11--especially "My City in Ruins" by Bruce Springsteen or Billy Joel's performance of "New York State of Mind"
That event captured the nation's attention and represented how everyone came together, including TV networks, to grieve, think, heal, and support one another. The actors and musicians who participated seemed like everyday Americans who were just as affected by the events as anyone else.
Meaghan Guiney
