[NOTE: This was originally a LiveJournal post of mine from 11 September 2013, and lightly edited. The above playlist is missing only two songs — one was my own, and another is linked below.]

I was working at Yankee Candle that day, and I’ve already posted about what I did, what I felt, and so on. We all have at some point or another. One thing I rarely about, however, is how I got through all of it on a personal level.

Those of you who know me already understand that I’m an obsessive music nerd. I may not have a degree in it, but I’ve been collecting and listening to music since I was a wee kid. I’ve also made mixtapes since I started taping stuff off the radio, and started making my own real mixes around 1988. These mixes often reflected the mood I was in at the time and became a way for me to sort out those emotions and thoughts on my own.

In 1991 I created a compilation called Desert Storm: Sailboats of Ice on the Desert Sand, a highly-charged mix that reflected my anti-war feelings at the time. Considering I was a sophomore in college at the time, one can understand that this particular playlist might be a bit overwrought and self-righteous (Ending with Barry McGuire’s “Eve of Destruction”? How heavy-handed can I possibly get?), but it seemed to help me get over the anger and confusion I felt at the time.

A bit over ten years later, and exactly ten days after the events in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington DC, I put together another compilation to help me sort things out. I needed to put things in some sort of order so I could process what happened then, what some may have felt, and what might come next. I had to do this on my own, with no outside influence. I knew that if I followed the news I’d get overwhelmed; if I read the pundits, I’d only get pissed off; if I reacted to emotion and wished for vengeance, then I wouldn’t be true to myself.

I had to process this in my own way, and music, as ever, helped me through it.



1. Albinoni/Giazotto, comp. ‘Adagio in G Minor’
Certainly, some may connect this track to the more dramatic movie themes — or if you’re me, connect it to the first track of Sigue Sigue Sputnik’s Dress for Excess album — but this was actually a connection from a Best Classical Album in the World Ever cd I got from back in my HMV days a few years previous. I listen to this track for what it is; a quiet yet stunning piece of neo-Baroque music that serves to set the scene. In my head, I pictured the sun coming up, the start of a lovely and clear day, maybe even somewhat hot and muggy. There’s a sense of…something, underneath it all, however. One of those feelings of tension but you’re not entirely sure where it came from.

2. Jars of Clay, “Crazy Times”
Everyday stress. A long and frustrating commute. Driving into the city, or taking the train in, or maybe even like me, taking that back road in the pre-morning darkness towards your destination, coffee in the cupholder, contemplating why you’re even up and in this situation. Nothing inherently bad…just temporarily finding yourself in a situation or place that you’d rather not be in, fully knowing that you’d be free of it eventually.

3. Radiohead, “Street Spirit (Fade Out)”
Tension spills over as we get to our destination. It’s another Tuesday workday, and you’d rather still be in bed, even though you’re wide awake, already on your second coffee, and really need to get that project done today. For a brief moment you’re wondering why you’re even here at this job…it’s okay, it pays the bills, but does it make you happy? What do you really want to do? Can you even do it at this point, or do you have to wait another few years and save up? Shit…well, you can’t really think about it right now, can you? Almost time for that team meeting. May as well get it over with.

4. Live, “Overcome”
8:46am ET. “OK. What the fuck just happened…?”

5. The Cure, “All Cats Are Grey”
9:03am ET. “Oh. Oh, shit.”
9:37am ET. “What the fuck is going on…???”
10:03am ET. “…”

6. Nine Inch Nails, “We’re in This Together”
9:58am ET. The South Tower collapses.
10:28am ET. The North Tower collapses.
The first song I thought of as soon as the news had been sent my way. I immediately thought of all those people in the Towers, unable to escape. The people on the planes with no way of escaping. The commuters and the pedestrians below, scrambling to get the fuck out of the area as fast as they could. Tension built up to dangerous levels, where fight or flight kicks in. Where fear feeds or kills. And despite it all, somehow still having that choice whether to live or die, to endure or break.

7. Ciccone Youth, “(Silence)”
Just…silence, as we sit there, staring in disbelief.

8. Pulusha, “Isolation, Part 1”
Everything slowly starts to sink in. We see what we’ve witnessed on the TV, what we’ve heard over the radio, what our friends, our relatives, complete strangers have been telling us. We start processing what happened. Two skyscrapers that many people have known for most of their lives are reduced to rubble. A section of a major government building in ruins. Thousands of people killed. All other planes are accounted for, aside from those four. Some of us know victims, others only hear of them. It’s hard, but we finally let ourselves accept what just happened.

9. The Flying Bohemians, “Intro/Sodabottle”
This is something I’d recorded myself in the summer of 1995. It’s a shortish instrumental played on guitar through flanger and delay, using a soda bottle as a slide (as well as invoking a trippy sound — the title was partly inspired by a college friend who’d made a working bong out of a plastic 7-Up bottle). This is the moment where I’m told by my boss of what exactly happened and the aftermath, and I’m left speechless. I head out to the smoker’s table out back and proceed to light up at least four cigarettes in a row, staring up at the now empty sky. Our warehouse was right under a major flight path for planes out of Boston. I let it hit me fully and completely, just so I could process it all.

10. Manic Street Preachers, “If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next”
“Let’s go get those motherfuckers!”
“Kill those shitstains, whoever they are!”
“Goddamn Muslims!”
“Bomb the fuck out of Afghanistan!”
“Oh, you have messed with THE WRONG FUCKING PEOPLE.”
“USA! USA! USA! USA!”
“Kill ’em all!”
“Those fuckers are gonna eat lead!”
“Those bastards are gonna fucking DIE.”
“Give me a goddamn gun, I’m gonna head over there and do it myself if I have to.”
“NOBODY fucks with America.”

Jesus, the fucking noise that came after that silence…

11. Failure, “Daylight”
Some of us wanted to go out and kill the bastards. Some of us wanted to hide from the world until it blew over. Some of us wanted to detach ourselves just enough so we could think clearly. Some of us wanted to know why these events happened. Some of us just…wanted it to be over, just so we could let the healing begin.

12. Temple of the Dog, “Hunger Strike”
By that afternoon, we were all exhausted. We’d bled our emotions dry for the day, leaving us empty. Calmer minds started turning towards the rescue efforts, the security checkpoints, the vigilance of the police, fire departments, FBI agents, the doctors and nurses, everyone from triage up to commanders and commissioners. They kept watch over everything and everyone, often at the risk of their own health and sanity. And for a brief moment, we stopped being hateful towards each other.

13. Jeff Buckley, “Hallelujah”
This song was everywhere that day. Leonard Cohen’s brilliant elegy of perseverance and reconciliation when the world is utterly fucked up beyond fixing seeped into the country’s psyche with Buckley’s sparse and haunting version. We would heal from this. Hopefully.

14. Radiohead, “You and Whose Army?”
Cooler heads finally prevailed, after all the noise died down. We would eventually find and capture–or even kill–the ones who had done this, but we weren’t about to go in guns blazing…at least not yet, anyway. We were still angry and in pain, and we wanted revenge…but many of us felt we could trust those trained to do so–the Armed Forces, the FBI, those in charge–to eventually put this all to rest. We were quiet…but we wouldn’t forget these events, not for a long while.

In retrospect, this didn’t quite unfold the way we wanted or expected — I will spare you the diatribe on that — but slowly, eventually, we found Osama bin Laden and many of his cronies. [EDIT: Twenty-five years later and sadly the day continues to be turned into patriotic porn for the conservative wing while the rest of us are trying to heal and move on.]

15. U2, “Mothers of the Disappeared”
Originally a song about the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, this song was my own personal tribute to those we lost that day. That’s what I try to remember. Not the violence, not the revenge, not the anger…but the loss. How easy it was to erase a life, and how easy it still is to use that loss as an excuse to further fuel blind hate.

16. Chet Atkins w/ Mark Knopfler, “Imagine”
I will freely admit that I am liberal, but in my own way. I will also admit to wanting peace over war if at all possible. On the flipside, though I dislike war, I understand it as an inevitability if and when it happens. I fully admit and embrace this paradox because it’s who I am. I will never be a part of a war as I refuse to take the life of another person for any reason, but I have come to accept that the world is an incomplete, fallible place where things disintegrate and events unfold to cause war. I’ve seen and read about uprisings and revolutions, I’ve witnessed and read about pre-emptive strikes, I’ve read about the after-effects of these things. We’re constantly evolving, and that doesn’t necessarily mean only in a positive direction. Things change whether we want them to or not.

At the end of the day, however, it would be nice to see a day where we can meet in peace, not in animosity.