This year marks the 25th anniversary of 9/11. For this episode, I wanted to look at one very specific way it reshaped American life: music. My friend Abby joined me to travel down a rabbit hole that started with an actual, still-referenced Clear Channel memo listing over 150 songs deemed “lyrically questionable” after the attacks (“Walk Like an Egyptian” made the cut, for reasons no one has ever adequately explained), and ended up covering: the benefit concerts that defined the first month of grief that turned to rage, the album covers and music videos quietly re-edited to erase the twin towers, country music’s hard turn to support the Iraq War, what happened to the Chicks when they refused to fall in line, and the strange, sometimes unbelievable songs 9/11 directly inspired, including one performed by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft and one written by an 11-year-old Taylor Swift. We also cover the Limp Bizkit VMA fruit basket coincidence you did not ask for but are about to learn anyway.
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Timestamps
00:09 — Intro: why a music and 9/11 episode, 25 years later
06:14 — Personal 9/11 memories (Abby and Mary)
11:01 — The Limp Bizkit “Rollin’” World Trade Center coincidence
17:56 — Congress sings on the Capitol steps; the benefit concerts introduced
22:13 — America: A Tribute to Heroes (Sept 21), Springsteen opens with “My City of Ruins”
32:16 — Concert for New York City (Oct 21); Paul McCartney and the shift toward revenge
39:41 — The Beastie Boys’ “New Yorkers Against Violence” benefit and the policy timeline (Patriot Act, “war on terror”)
44:24 — Censorship 101: Clear Channel’s rise and the “no-play” memo quiz
56:04 — Music videos and album covers edited after 9/11
1:08:26 — Country music’s turn right: Toby Keith, Darryl Worley, and the Chicks
1:20:50 — Music inspired by 9/11: The Rising, My Chemical Romance, Coldplay, Cher
1:26:17 — “Songs I Can’t Believe Exist” (Ashcroft, Michael Jackson, Smash Mouth, Taylor Swift) and closing reflections
Transcript
Full episode transcript here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tvj_pHsqX9PwN0GyngE7OXVCEQBUlGDVHAvuGw2w8pM/edit?usp=sharing
Resources & links
Benefit concerts & background
- America: A Tribute to Heroes
- The Concert for New York City
- “New Yorkers Against Violence” (Beastie Boys benefit) — Rolling Stone coverage
- Clear Channel memorandum (the banned/discouraged songs list)
- List of songs about the September 11 attacks (Wikipedia)
- Super Bowl XXXVI halftime show (U2)
Books & documentaries
- Music in the Post-9/11 World, ed. Jonathan Ritter and J. Martin Daughtry
- Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror
- Fahrenheit 9/11
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