American Tune by Simon and Garfunkle

I was in Los Angeles on the day. Woken by frantic phone calls. A few hours later, noon eastern time, the local npr stations started their broadcast with this song. It seemed almost prescient. Line by line, this song seemed to invoke every feeling connected with that day, person by person. For example:

"And 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
But it's all right, it's all right
We've lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the road
we're traveling on
I wonder what went wrong"

Once you hear it connected to 9/11, you almost can't separate it from the events, the country, the city, and the people of New York on that day.

Jason Kravits