John Lennon, "Give Peace A Chance"

On September 14th 2001, my then-boyfriend and I went to Union Square where there was a sort of spontaneous public memorial. We were already getting a bit uneasy at the patriotic tone a lot of people were taking; and so we were uneasy when we heard a couple people singing "God Bless America." But we noticed not too many people joined in. He tried singing "New York, New York" instead -- but no one joined us. Then we heard across the park that someone was playing "Give Peace A Chance" and walked over; the singer had gathered a decent crowd around him, all of them joining in on the chorus. We joined too. And so did more people, joining after us. He played through the song twice, and then just kept playing, letting us all sing that one line over and over, for a good three minutes more -- "All we are saying is give peace a chance." Finally everyone had found one song they wanted to sing.

Kim W.