Gotham Artists – 911

Directly in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, I gathered a group of friends and colleagues together with a 'We Are The World' spirit and recorded a new song, '911', which played on the sad coincidence the date had with the national emergency call number. Since I knew a lot of musicians and singers, I invited as many people as I could muster, thinking that that the process of making music together would heal not just some theoretical future listener, but possibly ourselves as well. Except that then, nothing really seemed to happen, and for a long time afterwards, I wondered if the only person this process served was possibly myself. And then, beginning in 2003 I started to get the occasional appreciative email, and eventually I discovered that the music had indeed squirreled its way around the web and touched a number of people, and from around the far flung corners of the earth even. So, naturally, it's this song, '911', that I will always hear in my own head when I think of those dark days. But strangely enough, too, it is also increasingly what I hear today, a decade later, when I see or think of the rising tower and memorial downtown, and I feel the pride of seeing the future unfold, terrorists and tragedy be damned: bit.ly/nk1OpZ

Terry