"Freedom" by Richie Havens, performed at Woodstock
I have already suggested six songs, assuming you wanted songs. Here is a seventh: "Freedom" by Richie Havens. The man from Bedford-Stuyvesant played non-stop while the crowds trekked to the site of Woodstock. If I recall correctly, Havens composed the song as he was singing. A kid from Bed-Stuy knows New York.
Ron Wienk
Suggestions are: "New York City 911" by Dan Bern (time: 8:40); "Over on the Other Side" by Don Conoscenti (time: 4:31); "Take the A Train" by Duke Ellington (time varies by version); "Hope in a Hopeless World" by Phil Roy (time: 4:03); "Land of the Living" by Lucy Kaplansky from her album "The Red Thread" (time: 4:01); and "In the City" by Milton on "Milton" (time: 4:39).
I live on the 32nd floor in a high-rise building atop the New Jersey Palisades, and watched the planes crash into the towers and the towers collapse. Ten years later, WNYC and all other media will focus on "9/11" but my bet is that people in the New York area will do what they do best: work. New Yorkers will not care a whit about "commemorating" 9/11.
The songs I selected are ones I will recommend to friends and relatives who live in Florida, Colorodo, Washington (state), and elsewhere. They do not understand how resilient we in the New York area are.
Ron Wienk
Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem
This work is complex and thought provoking. Always brings tears to my eyes.
loveless
Bumper music from NPR/Talk of the Nation/WNYC
John and Soundcheck staff: Can you find in your archives the music that WNYC and NPR, and particularly Talk of The Nation, played repeatedly on and immediately after September 11, 2001? It became a recurring "bumper" over many days. It was a slow, minor key classical piece which was haunting and reverent. Please search your archives. For me, the mood of that music is the soundtrack of my life in Manhattan during that emotional week. Thank you.
Brendan from the East Village
"If We Only Have Love" from Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris".
This song creates a context for community caring which goes beyond the individual yet honors the individual in a powerful, inclusive way. This music chills my bones and makes me believe again.
Mariann Chinsky
Looking Back by Jim Brickman
It's reflective...and probably would be the most amazing music to a 911 tribute video.
I used it as a backdrop for a video I made for my grandfather when he passed away. It evokes tremondous emotion.
No words...but makes you stop and think...
Also, it's universal...it's not like a Dylan song which might mean something for someone but not for someone else.
If you don't love it, let me know and I'll send you $50 worth of Starbucks coupons. How's that for confident?
scott kochman
Barber's Adagio for Strings
It can be quite cathartic. At the end everything is cleansed, ready to begin again.
Cat D'Arcy
Roger Kallaway Original song: Come to the meadow (1974)
hauntingly desperate, ring meaning and hope of 9/11
LJ
Mozart's "Ave Verum"
This hymn, with universal Latin lyrics in the Christian tradition, is among my earliest musical memories. My father was a tenor in the church choir and it was this beautiful combination of words and music that I remember his practicing in the car on the way to Mass on Sunday morning when "Ave Verum" was part of the liturgy on certain Sundays.
I sang this hymn at my father's and my mother's funeral Masses in 2002.
Francis Campbell
Find the cost of freedom
We still have yet to find or pay the cost of true freedom. We have been held hostage since that day. I feel we will never again be truely free. It's sad when you think they may have won.
David
The Bloc Party - Signs
I am the collections manager on behalf of the Port Authority for remaining 9/11 materials and the steel give-away program. I feel that people remember in different ways through different mediums, including seeing those lost through "signs," whether in nature, music, art, etc. This song's music and lyrics are haunting in that we see people who have passed every day in various forms.
Amy
Lux Aeterna
This is a piece composed by Mr. David Adam Smith. I heard it when it was sung at Holy Innocents R.C. Church on All Souls Day in 2009. It was written to commemorate the first anniversary of 9/11. I should like to hear it again.
David Lane
Spong To Remember By
It's very personal - somehow a way to express profound emotion without words or text. This is a piece that I wrote about a week after 9/11. I hope you take a minute to check it out. Here is a video link: (theme starts about a minute and a half in)
Thank you. Ted Piltzecker, Professor of Music Composition, Purchase SUNY
http://blip.tv/jerryclapis/tango-to-remember-by-4806472
Ted Piltzecker
"If I Had Only Known," by Reba McIntyre from the soundtrack of the movie "8 Seconds"
Hearing this song, I see the "missing" posters at the Princeton Junction rail station. I think especially of the young married couples, as yet without children, whose time together just goes "poof." If I had only known.
Owen Leach
Imagine by John Lenon
It's a ballad or rather an anthem of peace, the way we would like our world to be. Imagine signifies for me a world where war is non-existent, a world where peace and calm exists in all it's myriad forms. A world where humanity is respected, a world away from rabid financial scandals, where people are not ready to back stab you.
Vinay
"Farther Along" as sung by Emmy Lou Harris, Linda Ronstadt and Dolly Parton
It's simple, to the point, and feeds the soul.
Kathy T.
As by Stevie Wonder
This song, in my opinion a masterpiece, speaks to me on so many levels. On 9/11, I was in the south of France with 4 work colleagues and we couldn't reach family or friends in the US. We had no idea of what was happening in our adopted hometown of NYC. We spent the day watching BBC and finally we went to dinner. In the tiny restaurant, the owner approached us and in his broken English told us "we are all Americans today" and he played this song..and it reminded us of hope and the beauty of life.
Fred Howard
Amy Correia's "It's Beautiful"
I heard this song on my way into the city (from CT) to visit my sister -- who lived in Battery Park City until 9/11. It was about a week after the attack and it was my first time in. I was going to pick up my nephews and bring them up to my house.
I found this song -- so soaring with its magnificent chorus -- uplifting and majestic, and a tribute to the city (where I was born and raised) whose soul could never be vanquished. It gave me hope.
To this day whenever I hear it I think of that day and it makes me think of rebirth.
Julie Curtis
"Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen" from Brahms' German Requiem
This movement's title translates to "How lovely is thy dwelling place". Brahms' Requiem isn't the standard Roman Catholic liturgy - the texts focus not so much on those who have passed as on those who are left behind to mourn. I was fortunate to sing in the chorus for the Brahms Requiem in the spring of 2002. The comfort of this movement reduced me to tears.
Mary
"My Country Tis of Thee" (a capella)
The "Star-spangled banner" was for July 4th. "God bless America" was sung by Congress on 9/11. But I feel the most appropriate for the anniversary would be this.
ps
