always a soundtrack
At some point after Sept. 11, 2001 (days? weeks? months?), I made a themed mix. Generally, when I’m confused/scared/emotional and don’t know what to do, I make a mix. Somehow it gives the tiniest bit of comforting order to a situation to put a soundtrack to it.
These were the days before iTunes or owning a laptop. Making a mix was an undertaking that involved swapping CDs in and out of the disk drive, one by one, on my family PC, importing, ordering, and burning using some sort of cumbersome software.
I remember laboring over the cover art for an inordinate amount of time. A simple white-line drawing of the Twin Towers, drawn in MS Paint, and a background that needed to match That Blue of the sky that day. You know, That Blue that you saw on TV. It might be #0099FF or #0066FF. We lived close enough that we had that same sky at home, too, that day. It used to be such a gorgeous color, but after that day, whenever it’s reappeared over the years, I’ve always desperately searched for a stray cloud in the sky.
I’m not sure what happened to the CD and don’t remember what songs were on it. I don’t think these five songs were on it, but they became frozen as the soundtrack of that time.
Just before it happened, “Fallin’” by Alicia Keys was alllllll over the radio. I listened to it early that day, and it was stuck in my head that morning. When radio stations eventually went back to “normal” afterward, it was back. It has absolutely nothing to do with the events but brings back the memories just the same.
“This Is My Song” was a hymn that we sang occasionally in high school. It shares a melody with “Be Still My Soul” and also, apparently, an unofficial national anthem for Finland. The song took on new meaning during an impromptu extra chapel service we had either that day or the day after. (Certain parts of memory from that time sure are fuzzy.)
My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,and sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine.Singing that line at the service made one of my teachers break down crying. That Sky again.
I used lyrics from “Hands” by Jewel in a red-and-blue mural that my printmaking class created. (Yeah, I know. Jewel. I was one of those girls in high school. I grew out of it.)
We worked mostly in silence for days in the studio, with NPR always playing on the radio.
I will gather myself around my faith,For light does the darkness most fear.I heard that our art teacher took out the massive mural every year and re-hung it on the anniversary.
Everyone remembers that reworked version of Enya’s “Only Time” that had the bits of dialogue from that day woven in. It was inescapable for a while on the radio. I already owned her album A Day Without Rain because I’d found it (and especially that song) relaxing. Needless to say, the song transformed itself.
My first post-attack trip into New York was for a post-season baseball game that fall with my father. Despite being a diehard Yankees fan at the time, I oddly I don’t remember what team they were playing or what playoff round it was. I remember that we won.
As Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” played after the game and we slowly filed out, the crowds of fans started chanting, rhythmically pounding the roofs and walls of the concourses and ramps. It started out as the usual “let’s go Yankees” and then morphed. First “USA! USA!”… and then all kinds of violent, obscene threats against the terrorists.
Unexpectedly, being stuck on a very slow-moving line snaking around the upper levels, surrounded by these drunk New Yorkers staggering, shouting and shaking the walls of Yankee Stadium felt bizarrely comforting.
