Weaving 9/11

(This is a piece that originally appeared on my now-defunct essay blog.)

Sometimes a song can encapsulate an historic event better than any journalistic or academic commentary can, even when the song was written long before the event took place. Rock critic Dave Marsh related Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising" to Ronald Reagan’s election as President in 1980, even though John Fogerty wrote the song about Richard Nixon.  Elvis Costello's 1979 song about mercenaries, "Oliver’s Army," summed up the Iran-contra affair better than Oliver North’s testimony at the U.S. Senate's hearings on the scandal in 1987. And so it proves with a 1969 song from the British rock band Family in relation to the al-Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center.

"The Weaver’s Answer," regarded as Family’s signature song, was composed by lead singer Roger Chapman and guitarist Charlie Whitney about an old man wishing to look at his life as a tapestry. After recalling key moments of his past, he sees the loom of the "weaver of life" and understands why his wish has been granted; because he’s moments away from death. As recorded for Family’s second album, "The Weaver’s Answer" is a stately, arty, psychedelic rock song. Chapman and Whitney were never satisfied with this arrangement. As performed live, the song became a menacing, violent piece of music that made it a concert favorite among Family’s fans. Whenever I hear a live version of "The Weaver’s Answer" – especially a 1970 performance Family taped for the German television show "Beat-Club" – I can’t help but frame it to the events in New York on September 11, 2001.

The intro of "The Weaver’s Answer" finds Roger Chapman’s narrator wistfully beseeching the “weaver of life” for a glance upon his loom as multi-instrumentalist Poli Palmer’s vibraphone and Charlie Whitney’s guitar waft softly in the background. It’s a calm moment not unlike the one at 8:45 A.M on September 11, 2001 in Lower Manhattan. A sense of ominous foreboding arises as drummer Rob Townsend pounds out a repetitive beat. A guitar riff from Whitney slashes through with an impact comparable to the sound of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center’s north tower. Shouts from Chapman are followed by Palmer’s wavering flute and by heavy bass lines from John Weider, and the chaos sets off the first verse. The old man hopes to see “the flower of my childhood” and "the tears of yesterday" as the music builds like the smoke emanating from the north tower in the first few moments after the attack. With the drums pulsating and the guitar getting muddier, Chapman – ferociously bashing a tambourine throughout – voices the old man’s memories of marrying his wife and the births of his two sons. His vocal grows louder describing the passage of the brothers into young adulthood as both Weider and his bass rock violently. The old man recalls his sons' marriages ("Do the sparks of life grow bright as one by one they wed / To start their lives as fathers / Apart from lives they'd led?") with an anxiety comparable to what people trapped in the World Trade Center must have felt on 9/11. A cymbal crash rings with the explosive impact of the second plane slamming into the south tower, as a flute solo from Palmer ensues and signals heightened despair. It also recalls emergency sirens.

Led by Palmer, Family brings "The Weaver’s Answer" to a greater state of pandemonium. The tempo accelerates, the drums get louder, the bass lines swing and cut like a hatchet on a pendulum, and feedback distorts the sound while Roger Chapman's cries turn into bloodcurdling screams. Listening to it all, one can’t help but remember the chaos and confusion on Lower Broadway as pedestrians watched people jump from the Twin Towers and the fires raged out of control. With the tempo at the fastest possible speed, Charlie Whitney's guitar enters in full force, spitting out notes that sear the senses like the smoke and falling debris of 9/11. Rob Townsend's drum thrashing only adds to the terror. This goes on for several moments before Palmer, having switched to his organ, sends out a warning of danger. Whitney responds with a dreadful riff, and the music falls back into a suspended state of animation, as when the World Trade Center's south tower collapsed.

Family quickly recovers as Chapman returns, voicing the old man’s recollection of the death of his wife – "My sorrow blacking out a space upon our woven crest / A gathering for the last time / As her coffin slowly lain / Ash to ashes, dust to dust / One day we will regain." This is followed by remembrances of grandchildren on his knee, but only having been able to hear them because age has blinded him, just as ash from the south tower's collapse blinded New Yorkers on 9/11. Family pauses, then pushes ahead as the old man wonders, "Does by sight a shooting star fade from your tapestry?"” Whitney’s guitar is white noise by now, and Palmer’s organ provides a melodic undercurrent. As Weider’s bass and Townsend’s drums charge on relentlessly, Chapman's old man can suddenly see again as the weaver’s loom draws closer and the music reaches a final crescendo: "Could it be that after all my prayers you've answered me? / After days of wondering, I see the reason why / You've kept it to this minute / I'm about to die!"  The music slips away, like the World Trade Center's north tower falling away into nothing, and all that’s left is a few murky guitar notes bringing to mind the silent stillness that enveloped Lower Manhattan in a storm of smoke and ash.

It is this image I am left with as "The Weaver’s Answer" returns a soft vibraphone and a couple of prickly guitar notes as Chapman sings the old man’s requiem. “Weaver of life, at last now I can see / The pattern of my life go by / Shown on your tapestry." A violin solo from John Weider symbolizes the passing of the old man into the next world before a brief final roar from the band brings the song to an abrupt end – just as life America as we knew it suddenly ended on 9/11.

"The Weaver’s Answer" vividly illustrated the final throes of life after much tumult and grief, and in that sense it's not unlike how the World Trade Center attacks unfolded. Many people in Lower Manhattan must have felt their own lives pass by in a rush if recollections and remembrance in a chaotic milieu of despair, much like the old man in Family's song. At the World Trade Center, 2,749 tapestries were abruptly completed. Meanwhile, at the Pentagon and in a field in rural Pennsylvania, 228 more people received . . . the weaver's answer.

This song, like the date of September 11, 2001, is a tombstone.

(Check the comment section underneath to see when the music of this performance matches the events of 9/11 in Lower Manhattan.)