The date was September 12th, 2001 and I woke up, not to the rumble of the first flight taking off from the jetport that would normally pass over our house in Falmouth. This morning, and for the next few days, there were no flights coming or going anywhere, and so it was eerily silent. It was the day after the worst terrorist attack had been carried out on American soil. My husband and I had just moved into our new home with our two young children. And as I lay there in bed in the early morning, Paul Simon’s beautiful song, An American Tune, began to play in my head, as clearly as if I were hearing it in stereo.
“I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered. I don’t have a friend who feels at ease. I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered, or driven to its knees.” This verse got to the heart of the anxiety that I was feeling, that we were all collectively feeling. And although I knew that the song had been written twenty-five years in the past, it felt exactly right, as if it were speaking directly to the 9/11 tragedy.
I slipped out of bed and went straight for my Concert in Central Park CD, and played the song on the stereo downstairs. I didn’t want to wake anyone, but I had to hear it in its full glory, so I turned the volume up and let it fill my livingroom. It was heartbreaking and inspiring, relevant and prescient. The imagery of flying above the Statue of Liberty, sailing out to sea, of course is iconic New York City.
The song touches on our strengths as a nation. “We come on the ship they called the Mayflower. We come on the ship that sailed the moon.” And it acknowledges the difficult times we’ve faced in the past and will face again in the future. “We come in the age’s most uncertain hour, and sing an American tune.”
It felt like the age’s most uncertain hour. But there was Simon and Garfunkle singing reassuringly, and in gorgeous harmony, that it would be all right.
For me this song evokes that day, that moment when we as a country had been "driven to our knees," when the worst brought out the best in us — and it left me hopeful. Tomorrow would be another working day, and we just needed to get our rest. Paul Simon, one of the greatest songwriters of our time, had written this most prophetic song in 1973, and it was precisely what I needed to hear in 2001.
My name is Jenny Ellis and I live in Falmouth, Maine. And this is music that moves me.