Editor’s Note: Two years have passed since that day when everything seemed to stop. When we were united as a people in grief, despair, hate and love. We’ve had two years to ponder; to reason with something so grave.
Artists reflect, then turn around and create new works – sometimes shocking, sometimes soothing. The poet writes, then recites. The singer serenades. The actor performs. The painter interprets life.
More than any politician or television commentator, the artist helps take us inside ourselves, inside our world. We travel together along a journey of discovery, hope and understanding.
Jon Nolan scratched and scribbled, trying to catch his feelings, as they tumbled, on the rough, brown paper bag, soaked in the misery and heaviness of the moment.
It was the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, shortly after Nolan, a local singer-songwriter, heard of the terrorist attacks in New York City, the Pentagon, and Pennsylvania. He grasped the bag as he sat working as a cashier behind the counter at Marelli’s Fruit and Real Estate, a country store in Newmarket. As an artist, he felt the need to grapple with his thoughts and emotions.
Eleven September
Stand with us Father, our eyes are deceived
Horrors before us we cannot conceive
All to Manhattan the world’s eyes did turn
Along with our fury the towers did burn.
All through the city went out the alarm
Firemen and comp?nies ran straight into harm
Precincts and ambulances to the scene
All understanding the danger it means.
First word from victims from stairways they fled
“Jakes” with their hoses climbed upward instead
Bravery not seen since on Normandy’s shores
Upward they charged to the fiery floors.
Only to heal and to comfort they toiled
The plans of the doctors and officers spoiled
When from on high came a tremendous roar
Two towers and souls were no more.
Also in Washington hell from the skies
Smoke filled the air while the tears filled our eyes
Aloft was a gloriously mutinous lot
Who saved untold numbers when boldly they fought.
Let none forget you, our tragically lost
Let us bear witness to freedom’s great cost
Who test our mettle let these words be clear
Cowards cannot make America fear.
Tall from the tangle of steel and of stone
Proudly the Stars and the Stripes they are flown
O’er every color and creed it did wave
The land of the free and the home of the brave.
Copyright 2001 Lyrics Jon Nolan
Artists rely on their craft; it is their language. Close to a dozen local artists from the Seacoast were asked to share their personal reflections about how the events of Sept. 11 have influenced their work. Each artist has his or her own level of personal impact, as well as ways to express, cope and heal. Now, two years since the attacks, some use their art to stimulate, search and try to explain the devastating phenomenon of Sept. 11, while others find comfort in the escape that art allows.
Capturing the moment
As Nolan wrote down what plagued his mind that morning, he knew that what he had seen on the news just before he left for work was very real.
“A month from now I wouldn’t remember how I felt then,” he recalled last week. “I wanted to record that.”
Three days later, with his focus still on the firefighters and his paper-bag thoughts, Nolan wrote the song, “Eleven September,” which he recorded on Sept. 15.
At the time a member of Say ZuZu, Nolan normally writes and performs rock music, but after Sept. 11, he took a different stance. In “Eleven September,” a traditional folk song, he meshes his thoughts and desires to “work things out through music.”
For Nolan, writing and recording “Eleven September” was an emotional release during such a desperate time. He wanted to move people with his lyrics.
That was then. Now it’s two years later, and he has barely revisited that day in his music.
“I haven’t found a way to artistically express those thoughts. … If I can piece together my philosophies about what’s going on in the world with good music, I’ll let it get out there.”
Not all artists feel the need to express the gravity of that day in their work. Singer-songwriter Jodi Shaw, formerly of Portsmouth and now living in New York, was standing with a group of artists on the roof of her loft in Manhattan as she watched the attacks. Like many, she stared in awe and disbelief.
“It was very scary, kind of unreal – horrifying,” recalled Shaw. “After the attacks, a lot of artists were writing about what had happened. It crossed my mind to write about it but I never start with a preconceived idea,” said Shaw. “It’s kind of a hard thing to write a song about. I think it may have gone into my subconscious and maybe it?ll come out five years later.”
For now, she takes things as they come.
“If it comes up in a song then it does, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.”
Forces at work
Many of the artists contacted for this report said that in the days and months after Sept. 11, they felt as though they?d been touched by a weightless presence – something that compelled them to be more expressive in their art.
“It brought me out of my American cocoon,” recalled singer-songwriter Deidre Randall of Portsmouth.
After the events of Sept. 11, danger became a real concept for Randall. She now has a heightened sense of why she’s a songwriter.
“I realize my responsibility to the world and to the community to be a source of light and hope,” she said, adding that she also feels a responsibility to share her music. “Human beings want peace; they want to be loved.”
Filled With Love
Men of anger, men of war
My heart is filled with love.
Tell me what you are fighting for
My heart is filled with love.
This death I see won’t make me numb…
Every boy a mother’s son…
Raise your voices, spread the news…
Moslem, Christian, Buddhist, Jew…
They all teach the golden rule…
Do unto others as you?d have them do…
I will not fear these foreign tongues…
There is a place for everyone…
I cannot make my will their own…
But fear can turn a heart to stone…
I do not know my neighbor’s name…
I love that stranger just the same…
Hope is rising from this place…
Divine wisdom, amazing grace…
Men of anger, men of war…
Tell me what you are fighting for
My heart is filled with love.
Copyright 2003 by Joyce Anderson
Download this song
Come together
Love makes the world go ?round, and the lack of it makes … what?
Joyce Andersen of York, Maine, is a local songwriter, folk singer and fiddle player who cradles the idea of love. After Sept. 11, Andersen recalls “having a strong feeling of love.”
On the eve of war in Iraq this year, she composed a peace song called “Filled With Love.” She liked the feeling of singing about something positive.
“I want to make people feel love instead of fear,” she said.
Andersen said she hopes for more love. She hopes to come to terms with what it truly means to “love,” and to love both enemies and strangers alike.
“Filled With Love” is “a mantra – a prayer,” she said. “It’s a struggle to get to the point when our hearts can be filled with love.”
Abstract notions
Two years ago on Sept. 11, Portsmouth artist Roger Goldenberg was working on a painting. He considers it ironic now.
“The History of Peace” was the title of the painting. But something about it was misleading. Goldenberg realized there was no real history of peace in the world.
He recalled having a premonition that something was looming as he was painting. He said he felt the weight of the world. He also had a “vibe” of peace. In his abstract painting, there are white circles dispersed throughout – pockets of peace, he said.
Goldenberg described the pockets as “disconnected psyches … separate orbs within a dynamic movement.”
He said the circles represent bubbles of thought, separate minds. “In the universe, we’re all alone … we have our own minds and thoughts.”
The dark lines strewn throughout the painting add a sense of connectivity, said Goldenberg.
