From the issue dated September 27, 2002
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Can We Find an Anthem for 9/11?By MARTHA BAYLESMusic, to make harmony, must investigate discord. -Plutarch In the last year, many popular musicians have tried to produce a song accessible to all ears, yet also able to resonate with the overwhelming emotions of September 11. But no such anthem has appeared. Why not? One answer is that the popular idiom is simply too shallow to express what needs to be expressed. Lawrence Grossberg, professor of cultural studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has speculated that "the emotions people have toward the events of September 11 are too complicated to be captured in a pop song." And indeed, many music lovers have turned to classical works, from Mozart's Requiem to Krzysztof Penderecki's "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima" and (everyone's favorite) Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings." Ordinary listeners respond powerfully to such music, especially if heard in a nonthreatening context, such as a film soundtrack. For example, the horrendous images captured on the HBO documentary, "In Memoriam," are made bearable by an undercurrent of Barber, Aaron Copland, Charles Ives, John Corigliano, Bernard Herrmann, William Schuman, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich. "Faith and Doubt," the extraordinary two-hour segment of PBS's Frontline that aired recently, included (along with the ubiquitous Barber) two deeply affecting performances: Denyce Graves singing "The Lord's Prayer" at the National Cathedral, and Renée Fleming singing "Amazing Grace" at the original ground zero memorial service. As suggested by the presence of "Amazing Grace" on that list, America has a rich vernacular tradition that could deal with September 11, were it not for certain obstacles. The first obstacle is extra-musical: what linguist Deborah Tannen calls "the argument culture." This tendency to polarize every debate shows up most depressingly in two songs currently doing their best to whip up a (profitable) media flap. The first, Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (the Angry American)," lobs the Nashville equivalent of a full beer can at the terrorists: "You'll be sorry that you messed / With the U. S. of A. / 'Cause we'll put a boot in your ass / It's the American way." The second, Steve Earle's "John Walker's Blues," claims to plumb John Walker Lindh's reasons for joining the Taliban, but comes up with nothing more profound than a music-industry cliché: "I'm just an American boy / Raised on MTV / And I've seen all those kids in the soda pop ads / But none of 'em looked like me." In an interview on the Artemis Records Web site, Earle states that the idea for an "overtly political" album came from the head of that label, Danny Goldberg: "Danny thought there are some things that needed to be said, especially now, in the world after 9/11. So I told him, well, yeah, man, I can do that." A prominent member of the ACLU, Goldberg has every right to float a trial balloon testing the current condition of free speech, if that is his aim. But "John Walker's Blues" does not seem destined to become anybody's anthem, especially since the Taliban outlawed music. In America, we don't outlaw music. But we do have recurrent controversies over it. Most of them focus on lyrics, which is regrettable, because the real problem with contemporary popular music is one of sound. Here, too, we encounter polarization: between styles that stir up only the most negative emotions (angst, despair, rage), and styles that milk every drop from positive feelings (true love, perfect contentment, sun-haloed uplift). To be fair, each extreme has something to contribute. For example, a producer assembling a soundtrack for raw footage of the attacks could do worse than Trent Reznor or Marilyn Manson, techno-industrial wizards who specialize in bleak, hellish sounds. But neither of them has stepped forward since September 11 -- and with reason. To quote U2's Bono, "When a whole core of a city can be taken out ... the guy who is saying, I'm so angry with the world that I'm going to hurt myself ... is enough to make you laugh." As for rap, it has been uncharacteristically mute on the topic of September 11. Eminem's latest CD is spiked with a few anticensorship, antiwar clichés, but the real vitriol is aimed at the rapper's usual targets: his parents, his former wife, the techno-dance star Moby, the record industry, and all white people -- except, of course, Eminem. Obviously, a September 11 anthem would have to express more than adolescent tantrums. It would have to express the grown-up heroism seen that day, the glints of hope amid the appalling wreckage. And here, indeed, is where most would-be anthem makers have focused their energies. Yet the results have been disappointing. Three songs released before September 11, Enya's "Only Time," Enrique Iglesias's "Hero," and "The Prayer" sung by Josh Groban and Charlotte Church, have been embraced by many listeners. But while New Age vapors, mannered ersatz soul, and semi-classical kitsch are all as soothing as Karo syrup, they are no more nourishing. The same should be said of Dolly Parton's "Hello God," a song far too close to the gooey end of the Nashville spectrum. By comparison, Alan Jackson's "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)" is a mainstream country song that, like Toby Keith's "It's All Good," offers at least some grits with the goo. Both songs express the impulse, felt by countless Americans, to stop, take a deep breath, and count our blessings. For the future of democracy, though, let us hope that not many Americans share Jackson's complacent ignorance, boasting a year after the attacks that "I'm not sure I can tell you / The difference in Iraq and Iran." The best American music, the strains whose roots reach back to blues, gospel, and old-time mountain music, is suffused with what Ralph Ellison called "heroic optimism." Not feel-good pablum, but affirmation hard won from adversity. Such music is tough, gritty, stoic -- and as deeply affecting as the weary faces of firefighters, police officers, and rescue workers so obsessively photographed this past year. Like those faces, the best American music expresses both the tragedy and the joy of existence. It reminds us that, to paraphrase William Faulkner, we have the capacity not just to endure but to prevail. Surprisingly, this quality was on display at the Kennedy Center's "Concert for America," broadcast by NBC on the first anniversary of the attacks. I say "surprisingly" because also on display that evening was the worst our musical culture has to offer. Most of the pre-taped segments were accompanied by a type of bloated kitsch, part Wagner and part Welk, that was originally developed for corporate advertising but that has since spilled over into politics. Such music was bad enough when General Electric used it to create an aura of golden happiness around microwaves and refrigerators; it got worse when politicians began using it to evoke the saintliness of their characters and the blissful contentment of their families. Now, when this musical schlock is used to wring from us every ounce of love we feel for America, it becomes unbearable. All is not lost, however. The "Concert for America" offered several highlights from popular music past and present: Reba McEntire singing her light, graceful way through Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" and Crosby Stills Nash & Young's "Teach Your Children"; Al Green striking the old-time gospel spark with a choir from the U.S.S. John C. Stennis; Chris Isaak reviving the infectious sound of early Elvis; Gloria Estefan warming to the Beatles'"In My Life"; India Arie singing a sweet, understated pop ballad; and Renée Fleming causing everyone to mist over with Rodgers and Hammerstein's "You'll Never Walk Alone." Can the tough, affirmative quality of the best American music be found in any of the songs written specifically about September 11? There's a hint of it in "Let's Roll," the song about Flight 93 by veteran rocker Neil Young. Over a dark drone we hear the ringing of a cellphone, followed by a steady beat and Young's voice in a minor key chanting the steely resolve of the passengers who thwarted that terrorist attempt, mixed with anxiety and a pinch of recklessness. This is much better than Toby Keith's barroom bravado. But after the first few seconds, the song decays into empty repetition. Empty repetition also mars Bruce Springsteen's new album, The Rising. To his credit, Springsteen puts September 11 at the center of almost every track. And critics have nominated two, "Into the Fire" and "Empty Sky," as potential anthems, doubtless because they bring back the classic rock-anthem sound of Springsteen's E Street Band. But there's a problem here, more serious even than the repetition. The E Street Band has a heavy sound, thick with instrumentation and the world's most ponderous backbeat. In spite of that, the band has always been able to lift off and become miraculously airborne, like a pregnant pterodactyl. That is affirmation of a sort, but not the sort that can do justice to September 11. Given such an imposing theme, it is understandable that the band should try to make its weighty sound even weightier. But the result is a different kind of bombast: a music designed to express high spirits and good times, straining to express something larger. It doesn't fly. Far better are two unpretentious songs about loss, "You're Missing" and "Nothing Man." Both are the kind of low-key, raspy ballads that are Springsteen's true métier, and both speak of heroism. But rather than high acts of self-sacrifice, these songs are about the everyday heroism of those left behind to grieve: "Coffee cups on the counter / jackets on the chair / Papers on the doorstep / but you're not there." Still more impressive is the haunting "Paradise," which, in spite of being about a suicide bomber, is not apt to provoke any controversy. Like The Terrorist, a remarkable Indian film about a young woman impressed into a suicide mission but so intensely alive that she is a walking contradiction of the evil men sending her to her death, "Paradise" explores the emotional state of someone manipulated into seeking salvation through murder: "I sing 'neath the water cool and clear / Drifting down I disappear / I see you on the other side / I search for the peace in your eyes / But they're as empty as paradise." Here Springsteen does what Steve Earle only claims to do: He imaginatively enters a mind filled with hate and suffuses it with love. Listening to another track on the Springsteen album, "Worlds Apart," which tacks on a coda of voices praying in Arabic (as does Earle's ditty), one imagines what the missing ingredient might be: the spiritual music of Islam. Not to justify the terrorists' actions -- not at all. Remember, the Taliban taught that "those who listen to music, on the day of judgment will have molten lead poured in their ears." But according to John Baily, a British ethnomusicologist and author of The Music of Afghanistan, such teaching is "of dubious authority," and "it looks very much as if the Taliban have made it up." So rather than support the terrorists, the inclusion of Islamic music would oppose them. It would tell the world that although the terrorists abused the most appealing aspect of America, its welcoming absorptive culture, that aspect is not going to change. On that ground I nominate "The Long Road," from the soundtrack of Dead Man Walking, the 1995 film based on the true story of Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun who sought to redeem the soul of a condemned murderer. The song is a duet between the rock singer Eddie Vedder and a world-class musician, the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Khan, who died in 1997, was a renowned practitioner of the devotional Islamic music from Pakistan called qawwali. "The Long Road" is hardly "pure" qawwali, but the power of Khan's contribution was felt when Vedder sang a solo version on the September 2001 telethon, "America: A Tribute to Heroes" -- without Khan, the song fell flat. The late rock musician Jeff Buckley once described Khan this way: "Part Buddha, part demon, part mad angel, his voice is velvet fire." It is precisely that blend of the otherworldly, the demonic, and the angelic that made Khan's music perfect for a film about a man being brought by degrees to repent for a horrific crime. Need I point out that the same ingredients, fused at a much higher temperature, were present on that cloudless blue morning one year ago? Come to think of it, my nomination is not one song, but a whole album, Dead Man Walking: The Score, which features a 16-minute version of "The Long Road," along with a stunning array of instrumental and vocal music produced by David Robbins with the help of Ry Cooder, and based mainly on qawwali but incorporating African, Russian, Irish, and Middle Eastern elements. For me, that recording does all that is musically possible to evoke the emotions of September 11. One more point. What have all the tributes tried to show, if not the glory of e pluribus unum? What better anthem, then, than one that says to Muslims: "Your intensely spiritual music, which the terrorists have tried to crush, is alive and well in America. Indeed, it has been working its way into the mainstream." If there must be war, then let it be accompanied by messages like that. Martha Bayles teaches in the literature department of Claremont McKenna College. She is the author of Hole in Our Soul: The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music (University of Chicago Press, 1996). http://chronicle.com Section: The Chronicle Review Volume 49, Issue 5, Page B16
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Copyright © 2002 by The Chronicle of Higher Education