Matching Tracksuits

One of we regular listeners’ favorite aspects of NPR’s “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered” (other than the bookend effect it gives work day) is the musical interludes between segments.

Enough listeners apparently wrote in, asking for details, that NPR posts this information on their website.

It even spawned a new show: All Songs Considered.

Looking through ASC’s archives, I stumbled upon a link to the music NPR played on September 11, 2001.

As NPR covered the events of September 11th, it was music that gave listeners time to reflect, to digest the images and the impact. So many letters came to NPR telling us how comforted they were by the music. We’ve put together some of those songs here, in part to answer some of those letters wondering what we played (precise record keeping was impossible), and also to create an aural snapshot that in some small way tries to capture the tone of a nation shaken and changed.

It includes Philip Glass, John Williams, Pierre Bensusan, Ben Harper, Michael Hedges, Mark Isham, and Bach’s Suite No. 1 in G Major (played on a double bass). Many of the selections are from film soundtracks, and that makes sense. The music has been composed with the visual element imagined, or even projected on a large screen. It’s naturally conducive to subtly underlining the visual.

I’m not one usually to get sentimental about such things, but listening to the music, I couldn’t help but recall the footage we were shown over and over and over. At the time, it was tragedy only — no one had started using it for political gain. We didn’t know what lay in store.

The music brings back the overwhelming emptiness we all felt that day and puts some things back into perspective. It’s available at NPR.