Today is the tenth anniversary of 9/11 as most people in the U.S. know. I wanted to take a second to reflect about it and the following days.
I will never forget that day (as most won't). I was working the closing shift at the Southfield, MI Best Buy at the time. I woke up and did the normal thing I always do, turn on the PC to read Emails and news, turn on the radio to Drew & Mike on WRIF for background noise and started the shower. As I'm bumbling around I hear Mike say something like "WOAH... ANOTHER ONE HIT A BUILDING!! THIS IS AN ATTACK!!" And I stopped what I was doing and paid attention to the radio, quickly signing into the PC and something I rarely did in those type of days, turned on the TV. I saw the replay of the 2nd plane, the PC finally fired up and there was all the news and speculation and I was just frozen and consumed by what I was seeing and hearing. This went on for a few hours...
I took my shower and called work to see what was going on there as Southfield is close to Dearborn which has a large Arabic community. The first person I got was Amanda at the front security podium and she was obviously (and understandably) freaking out. "I'm so sacred right now" she told me, "There is a rumor they may attack the Detroit area" Of course those rumors were in every major city. I told her to move away from the front podium to be safe and to get me Tony, the GM. Tony told me he was waiting for word and to come in, so I did. An hour later we were all sent home. The whole day just had a quiet feel to it, which was odd for all the chaos going around.
I was working in the audio department at the time and Best Buy still let us play our own stations at the time. And what I started to notice was a dramatic increase of requests, all of the most patriotic stuff of course, but WRIF is a rock station and rock isn't really known for patriotism, it's known more for the party. Yet this day I heard 2 songs requested over and over again. Both were remixed songs that included responders calls and people crying for their loved ones. One was Styx's "Show Me The Way" off their forgotten by then record "Edge Of The Century" and the other was Lee Greenwood's "God Bless The USA" Neither were rock songs but I hand it to WRIF for turning a blind eye to that and helping people heal.
One of the first things done after the shock wore off a little was SNL... And what was the first thing they did? Played music. Paul Simon's "The Boxer" while several firefighters and policemen stood on the other stage, covered in dust from ground zero, Rudy Guillianni was also there. It was a touching moment. Next was a huge concert where the event even moved Paul McCartney to write a song and preform it. The country was really coming together as one. I kind of miss that part of the tragedy.
A year or so later we had albums coming out inspired by the tragedy. My two faves are Springsteen's "The Rising" and Bon Jovi's "Bounce", both albums are some of their stronger works in their later years.
It's amazing to me that when everything is down and everything is chaos we turn to music to help and find common ground. It's why all these guys write here and it will always be this way.
Thank God
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