Songs of 9/11 range from angry to reflective

The images of 9/11 remain indelible: rubble and rescue workers stained gray by ash and anguish, bright flames and black smoke sucking the oxygen from the lungs of a city, lives lost and saved in the same choked breath.

Likewise, the sounds of that day continue to reverberate like aftershocks from some seismic convulsion still shaking the earth beneath our feet.

Hundreds of songs were penned in response to the attack from across the musical spectrum, from pop icons such as Paul McCartney ("Freedom") and Michael Jackson ("What More Can I Do?"); classic rock institutions The Eagles ("Hole in the World") and Neil Young ("Let’s Roll"); metal bruisers Disturbed ("Prayer") and Slayer ("Jihad"); modern rock favorites Evanescence ("My Last Breath") and My Chemical Romance ("Skylines and Turnstiles"), and countless other artists.

These tunes ranged from angry, impassioned battle cries as direct and impossible to misinterpret as the rattle of a sword in its scabbard to more ruminative numbers that attempted to untangle knotted emotions.

There was the sound of Toby Keith’s nostrils flaring on his hard-eyed anthem "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)," a clenched fist directed at the collective jaw of America’s attackers (video below).

"Oh, justice will be served and the battle will rage / This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage," Keith sings, his voice a thunderbolt of vengeance. "An’ you’ll be sorry that you messed with the U.S. of A. / ‘Cause we’ll put a boot in your ass, it’s the American way."

No less emotionally charged was Bruce Springsteen’s "The Rising," told through the eyes of a firefighter climbing the remains of one of the Twin Towers in search of survivors (video below).

Here, however, rage was subverted for reflection.

"Sky of glory and sadness / Sky of mercy / Sky of fear / Sky of memory and shadow / Your burnin’ wind fills my arms tonight," Springsteen sings after sounding like he just cleared his heart from his throat.

As different as these songs may be on the surface, they’re all branches extending from the same deep-rooted family tree.

"The idea of responding to calamitous events in a nation’s history with some kind of music goes far back in history," says Professor Anthony Barone, a musicologist who teaches at UNLV. "Certain Hebrew psalms that were probably written by the fifh century B.C., for example, are songs of communal lamentation that express sentiments that we can still find in 9/11 songs."

Not since the Vietnam War has any single event provoked such a vast musical outpouring, and like the songs catalyzed by that conflict — from folkie Phil Ochs’ anti-war protest "I Ain’t Marching Anymore" to outlaw cowboy Merle Haggard’s denouncing of draft dodgers on "Okie from Muskogee" — the viewpoints they espouse are wildly divergent.

"The immediate musical response in this country was pretty universal: this is a time of mourning, a time of trying to come terms with what happened," says ethnomusicologist Johnathan Ritter, an assistant professor at UCLA who co-edited "Music in the Post-9/11 World," a book that examined some of the musical ramifications of the attacks. "Within that first month, though, fault lines were starting to show."

Despite said fissures, which persist to this day and have only deepened, these songs serve a clear purpose and can generally be aligned with the various stages of coping with grief — shock, pain, anger, reflection, hope, reconstruction, acceptance — which is why we turn to them to begin with.

"Given the emotional power of music to channel thoughts, energies and feelings at these moments of national crisis, people are always going to turn to that, whether it’s for solace or to get beefed up to go to war," Ritter says. "There’s always going to be musicians who provide that, and they’re going to connect with audiences one way or the other."

When it comes to the music of 9/11, these connections have been as varied as the artists who made them.

What follows are the stories behind a few of these tunes, as told by the artists who penned them, each song emblematic of the wide-ranging emotions provoked by that day.

As different as they may be, all the songs have at least one thing in common: No one enjoyed writing them.

A CALL TO ARMS

Charlie Daniels was at a branch of the Tennessee Department of Motor Vehicles when the planes hit, the news of which struck the highly flammable country music lifer like a lit match flicked into a pool of kerosene.

First, there was anxiety, then anger.

And then Daniels got what he calls "cold mad."

That’s when he started writing.

"I wanted to make people feel like we’re madder than hell and that we ain’t gonna to take this," Daniels says. "We needed to nip this in the bud; we needed to do something about it. I didn’t want to see any apathy. This was Pearl Harbor all over again. This was the shots fired in Charleston, South Carolina, that started the Civil War. This day, to me, symbolized all of that. And people needed to understand that."

Daniels’ rage is a Cruise missile on "This Ain’t No Rag, It’s A Flag," a song about as subtle as a bar fight, initially issued as a bonus track on his 2001 concert album "Live!"

"You’re a coward and a fool / And you broke all of the rules / And you wounded our American pride," Daniels sings over a bluesy guitar swagger, addressing the 9/11 attackers with the authoritative tone of a Stetson clad drill sergeant. "And now we’re coming with a gun and we know you’re gonna run / But you can’t find no place to hide / We’re gonna hunt you down like a mad dog hound."

If the song was born of anger, it also provoked its fair share of as much for its opening line — "This ain’t no rag, it’s a flag / And we don’t wear it on our heads" — which some considered offensive to Muslims.

"I had people who wrote me things that said, ‘You are insulting everybody who wears a turban,’" Daniels recalls. "And I said, ‘No, I am not. Did you bomb the Trade towers? No? Well, then the song is not about you.’"

Daniels isn’t chastened by much, and he continues to fly his "Flag" as an encapsulation of the outrage stirred by that day.

"It was a strong statement," Daniels says. "That song was almost a perfect extension of my musical personality. It very much aligned with a lot of things that I had done over the years. I’ve never hidden away from being totally red, white and blue. I’ve never made a secret of my patriotism."

A VOICE OF DISSENT

The way Sage Francis saw it, patriotism had been reduced to a product, something to be bartered and sold like a street vendor hawking velvet paintings.

"We’re selling addictive, 24-hour candlelight vigils on TV / Freedom will be defended at the cost of civil liberties," indie rapper Francis rhymes over moody, minor key piano lines and a languid beat half the speed of his rapid fire, machine-gun delivery.

The song is "Makeshift Patriot," which was written, recorded and released within a month of 9/11, when emotions were still as raw as a bad sunburn, making it among the first statements of dissent.

"All we had at the time was constant rehashing of patriotic songs," Francis says. "I was so hungry to hear a voice of sanity from groups I usually rely on for stuff like that. Then I was like, ‘Why the hell am I waiting for someone else to do this?’"

With "Makeshift Patriot," Francis not only questioned the media coverage and perceived commercialization of 9/11, but the costs and motives of the American response.

"Get your tanks and load your guns and hold your sons in a family huddle / ‘Cause even if we win this tug of war / And even the score / Humanity struggles," he raps.

The song’s reception was predictably volatile.

"There were a couple instances at shows when servicemen challenged me to a fight," he says. "but strangely enough, the song was mostly celebrated at the time of its release. There were also the odd instances where people mistook the song to be a war anthem. I received love and hate for that misinterpretation. Truthfully, I was very nervous when it came time to release the song."

He needn’t have been, because patriotism is like a fingerprint: it’s unique to all of us. For some, it manifests itself in joining a branch of the Armed Services; for a man as outspoken as Francis, it means testing the bounds of the freedoms by which this country has long defined itself.

"We were living in a sudden culture of fear after the attacks of 9/11 so my main goal was to open up a dialogue," he says. "I wanted to speak on things that I know a lot of people were thinking, but it was really uncomfortable to do so during a time when we were all feeling the pressure to ‘fall in line’ and give blind obedience. This pressure was coming from all directions.

"It was a voice of the voiceless dedicated to the thoughtless, who usually happened to be the loudest people."

A MOMENT OF REMEMBRANCE

It’s less a song than a bear hug, reassurance set to a beat as insistent as a hard driving rain.

"Everything is going to be all right."

The line is repeated three times, like a mantra, as if saying it again and again and again will turn darkness to light like the morning sun chasing away the night.

"Believe," by violin-abetted pop punks Yellowcard, is a pulse-quickening memorial to fallen 9/11 rescue workers that’s unabashed in its pursuit of one of music’s most basic aims: to invigorate and inspire.

"Think about the chance I never had to say / Thank you for giving up your life that day," frontman Ryan Key sings over guitars that gallop like thoroughbreds.

"Wanna make a change right here, right now / Wanna live a life like you somehow / Wanna make your sacrifice worthwhile," he adds later.

It’s a song bereft of pretense, an emotional response to an emotional series of events. "Watching something like that unfold live on television is something I will never forget. I still remember the feelings of fear and uncertainty I felt during the days following," Rey says of his 9/11 memories. "We actually didn’t write the song until 2003, but I remember combining the chord progression with Sean (Mackin)’s violin part for the first time and knowing that this song had to be something epic and powerful. So I just dove into writing a song about the people who gave it all that day."

As such, there’s no subtext here.

Instead, "Believe" is just a simple distillation of complex feelings.

"I didn’t want to make the song political in any way," Key says. "I hope that people can still use that song as a source of strength."

A PLEA FOR TOGETHERNESS

Singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge wanted to complete the narrative of a hero whose life story was missing a few pages.

Mark Bingham was one of the four men who stood up and confronted the hijackers of the ultimately downed United Airlines Flight 93.

He was also gay, a fact Etheridge hoped could be a source of unity.

"I thought, ‘This is it. This is when we can step up and say, This is what America’s about. We are all different colors and shapes and sizes and preferences, but we can all come together," she says. "Then I watched how the story became a little more of a sound bite and how the details of his lifestyle became a little less in focus."

Bingham was hardly the only gay individual to perish in the events surrounding 9/11, and Etheridge wanted to see how the federal government would respond to all the same sex couples who had lost a partner.

"It was clear that the answer was, ‘No, we do not recognize this,’" she says. "I saw my community be ostracized, and it was disheartening. I didn’t want to get angry. I wanted to try my best as a writer and a mirror of society to say, ‘Can you really get all patriotic and say, ‘We’re the land of the free and the home of the brave’ and yet we’re going to totally go against what is the meaning of democracy: freedom?’ And then I started writing."

The resulting song, "Tuesday Morning," was a galvanizing lament, and was released on her 2004 album "Lucky."

"Can you live with yourself in the land of the free / And make him less of a hero than the other three?" Etheridge asks shortly before the chorus kicks in.

"Stand up, America," she then exhorts, on her feet, leading the way.

"I wanted to say ‘C’mon, let’s wake up to this call," Etheridge says. "Maybe this is a bigger call than just an eye for an eye.’ Maybe this was the chance to say that the only way we can truly have the institution of democracy and what our forefathers fought for is to exercise it here at home."

A PAUSE FOR REFLECTION

It’s a song whose explosiveness approximates the fire-scorched intensity of that day. In terms of sheer torque, "Life to Lifeless," from gold-selling Massachusetts metalcore quintet Killswitch Engage, is among the most fierce and jarring responses to 9/11. Then-singer Jesse Leach emits a larynx-bloodying growl suggestive of the agony of an anesthesia-less root canal over riffs so heavy it was as if they were cast of iron.

But despite the song’s complete lack of equivocation, sonically speaking, its message was one born of uncertainty, as Leach grappled with larger issues of mortality and loss.

"Humanity cover me with the ashes of remembrance / I will learn from this pain," Leach snarls at the outset of the tune, which appears on "Alive of Just Breathing," the band’s breakout 2002 disc. "There is no darkness without light to teach us of ourselves."

For Leach, the song was an attempt to put into words the feelings he was struggling to articulate.

"It was just really not knowing what to think when it happened. I found myself in a state of disbelief, like many people, I’m sure," recalls Leach, who departed Killswitch after the album was released. "It was the idea of, ‘How do we as a people move forward from such a tragedy?’ It was just seeing it as the cycle of life and something that you have to learn how to deal with because there’s nothing you can do to change it. It was a very innocent reaction of sadness and contemplation."

Leach says his view of 9/11 has evolved over the years, that he now looks at this country’s response to the events of that day with a more critical eye.

Still, "Life to Lifeless" continues to underscore the uncomfortable notion that sometimes there are no clear answers to the many questions a tragedy like 9/11 can pose.

"I didn’t have any political intentions at all back then, it was just a matter of, ‘Wow, this is heavy. How do you wrap your head around it?’" Leach says of his attempt to come to terms with the events of that day.

"Such is life. That’s the lesson — pain is our lesson. Finding an understanding of our pain is part of life. We all go through suffering."

 

"Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue," Toby Keith

 

"The Rising," Bruce Springsteen

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.