"Stay" by U2

For a few months after 9/11, I could only listen to sad music (and the news on WNYC). I found myself listening to this song on the morning of the 12th as I sat at my computer in my dorm room at Barnard, reading in thew New York Times about firefighters going up the stairs as everyone else went down. I'm from a town on Long Island that has a heavy FDNY/NYPD contingent, and that image has stuck with me ever since. A few songs became so strongly associated in my mind with 9/11 that I can only listen to them on or around the anniversary, and "Stay" is at the top of the list for reasons I can't completely articulate. Oddly enough, I couldn't bring myself to visit ground zero for almost two years after the day. I found myself walking by it accidentally-on-purpose on day in the summer of 2003 when I was an intern in Listener Services at WNYC. I don't know if I was ready yet, but when would I ever be?

Katy