Tributes Flounder...

The life cycle of a tribute song is no big mystery: The initial shock of a tragedy makes pop-culture, the entertainment industry and its overpaid stars seem trivial--for about a minute. Once they are able to unglue themselves from their TV sets, 20,000 musicians trip over their guitars to be the first to crank out a suitable theme to encapsulate the sentiment--whether it be anger, despair, reflection or hope. The results are then thrown into radio's heavy rotation, played at a patriotic halftime show at the Super Bowl and eventually incorporated into a touching montage to be shown on primetime a year later. Voila--a musical mantra for the ages.

Unfortunately, in this wild rush to create a soundtrack to sadness, true song quality was sacrificed, as only a handful of truly touching tributes emerged in the wake of the terrorist attacks. Perhaps it was the newness of the situation; I'd certainly never experienced anything that emotionally trying in my lifetime. It was a situation that could not be reconciled by Band-Aid's "Do They Know it's Christmas?" or "Give Peace a Chance." With this in mind, it didn't take me long to realize that Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit couldn't do my sorrows justice by butchering Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On." The inherent problem of 9/11 tributes is that our feelings were so strong, unique and altogether indescribable that the resulting music retarded our passions and dulled our senses. In light of the single most significant occurrence in any of our lifetimes--undoubtedly a haunting line of demarcation that will split time for us forever--the recording industry couldn't delve deep enough. Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue" was too militant for many, leaving us to wonder if putting a boot in anyone's ass is "the American way." Neil Young's "Let's Roll" used the fateful catchphrase of Flight 93, but the song itself was mediocre. In an extreme case, G. Love and Special Sauce's "On 9.11.01" was simply too excruciatingly difficult to stomach--I think a five-year-old wrote that song.

It's not that I fault these musicians for trying; it's just that a message of hope--when you need it the most--can still be muddled by the repetitive and dumb. Hey, I picked up my guitar, too, tried to think of a word that rhymed with bin Laden, realized it sounded like crap and went back to sobbing uncontrollably like everyone else. It's that simple.

Although 9/11 generated some inspired songwriting (Bruce Springsteen's The Rising) and some comforting, albeit heavy-handed messages (Alan Jackson's "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)?" we missed out on a timeless tribute. It wasn't a total loss, however, as music's failures were our gains. Instead of hiding behind trite lyrics of prepackaged emotion, we turned to old faithfuls--songs from years past that found new meaning amidst tragic circumstances.