Twenty five years ago today.
For anybody old enough to remember where they were on September 11th, 2001…. it’s a day you’ll never forget. And a day you remember so vividly.
I was actually in gym class when the first tower was struck, and walked into my 7th grade history class when a friend named Tommy Kielbasa (I swear that was his real name) told me that a plane crashed into the World Trade Center.
As a young kid with a knack for geography and landmarks, I wasn’t exactly sure what the World Trade Centers were, and I remember thinking to myself, “I can’t believe I don’t know what this building looks like.” At that age, I also had no compass for terror attacks… I thought it was just a terrible, terrible accident.
And when my history teacher rolled in and turned on the TV, and we all watched that black smoke rising from the buildings, and then the buildings ultimately collapse, smoke and debris filling the New York City streets, I don’t think any of us in that room (save for our teacher, Ms. Koenig) realized the gravity of the situation.
But as we learned more and more about the horrors that were unfolding, it was clear that the world had changed forever in that instant.
Of course I went home and watched the news for the rest of the night. I saw the replays of the buildings collapsing, I saw the chaos in the streets of New York and Washington DC, (as well as the crash in that Pennsylvania field), I saw people running for their lives and the looks of confusion, anger, fear and sadness on their faces.
I’ll never forget it…
The 2001 CMA Awards
The awards show was held on November 7, 2001, less than two months after the horrific attacks on September 11, and the country was obviously still in shock, still grieving, and still angry at what had happened. But for the most part, everyone was just hurting – everyone, including Alan Jackson.
On October 28, 2001, just a little over the week before Alan was scheduled to perform his current single “Where I Come From” on the CMA Awards, Alan had woken up in the middle of the night with an idea for a song. He got out of bed, and sang the chorus into a handheld recorder – while he was still in his underwear – so he wouldn’t forget it:
“I’m just a singer of simple songs
I’m not a real political man
I watch CNN but I’m not sure I could tell you
The difference in Iraq and Iran…”
He stayed home the next day and finished the song, but he had no plans or desire to record it. Speaking on the song, Alan said he wanted to try to put into words how he was feeling as he saw the second plane hit:
“I didn’t want to write a patriotic song. And I didn’t want it to be vengeful, either. But I didn’t want to forget about how I felt and how I knew other people felt that day.”
And he was initially hesitant to record it, because he didn’t want it to seem like he was capitalizing on the tragedy. But when he played the song for his record label, they told him he had to record it. According to RCA chair Joe Galante:
“We just kind of looked at one another. Nobody spoke for a full minute.”
And Jackson reluctantly agreed, realizing it was a song that the world needed to hear at a painful time.
“I’m glad that people like it, but I’m a little nervous about the attention. I think it was Hank Williams who said, ‘God writes the songs, I just hold the pen.’ That’s the way I felt with this song.”
When the time came, Alan took the stage, seated in front of a full orchestra, and delivered the first-ever performance of “Where Were You (When The World Stopped Turning)” in front of a grieving country.
“Where were you when the world stopped turning
That September day?
Teaching a class full of innocent children
Or driving down some cold interstate?
Did you feel guilty cause you’re a survivor?
In a crowded room did you feel alone?
Did you call up your mother and tell her you love her?
Did you dust off that Bible at home?”
The response was immediate – and overwhelming. Alan got a standing ovation from the crowd at the CMA Awards, and the next day radio stations had pulled the live performance from the television broadcast to play on the air.
With the sudden overwhelming demand for the song, his label rush released the studio version of the song and sent it out on November 26, 2001. They even pushed up the release date for his upcoming album, Drive, from May of 2002 to January, to get the song out sooner.
Reflection
In recent years, Alan reflected back on his CMA Awards performance of the song, admitting that it was a tough performance for him:
“I just remember — other than being relieved that I got through it — that I just felt very proud that it seemed to cause a reaction in people. I was proud that I got to do it, and that it seemed like it meant something.”
And he also admits that he was a little uncomfortable with the spotlight that was put on him for that song:
“I’m not really big on chasing that spotlight, and it just put a lot of tension on me for a while and made me feel like it was hard to follow.
It’s like they put you up on a pedestal, and I kept saying, ‘Look, I’m just a songwriter. I’m just a singer. It’s just a simple song. I’m not trying to get up on my soapbox. I’m just an old country guy who writes and sings songs.’”
The song would go on to win Song of the Year and Single of the Year at both the CMA Awards and the ACM Awards in 2002, and it would also land Alan a Grammy Award for Best Country Song.
More than the awards, though, the song was able to offer some kind of healing at a time when the country was still in shock and trying to make sense of such a horrific tragedy.
Though he never expected it to become the hit that it did, that CMA Award performance turned into a powerful moment of healing for a nation that was hurting:
“That CMAs performance made me very proud, but I thought it would probably go away in a couple of years and I wouldn’t be playing it on the road anymore.
But now after all these years, it’s kind of just evolved… in what the song is about, anyway. It’s all about faith, hope, and love… not just about 9/11.”
And it also provided us with one of the greatest performances in the history of the CMA Awards.
