The Best Songs of the 2000s: #500

#500: "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)" (2001) - Alan Jackson

Rush-recorded and rush-released after the 9/11 attacks, Jackson's song was criticized because, basically, it didn't seem too angry. It also didn't implicate the Powers That Were in any wrongdoing, nor did it ask many deep questions. It didn't question the nature of the events, and it sounded maudlin.

Well, most of those criticisms were accurate, but none of those should have denegrated the song. Jackson's song didn't criticize, but it didn't need to. What Jackson offered was a song of empathy. It's sentimental, but that sentiment seems appropriate to the mournful situation. One doesn't go to a funeral and start attacking and villifying any one person or the cause of death: one offers a sympathetic soldier--analysis can come later. Jackson had this song on the radio--not at his behest, either--in two months, and the nation was still in mourning. The deeper questions could--and did--come later.

The song grows complex towards the end, though. Jackson offers what seems to be a glaring contradiction, asking the audience if they turned off the violent television program and then asking them if they went and bought a gun. He doesn't seem to be hewing to the Republican/conservative party line here, though (as that contradiction might seem to denote), for his last question--and ultimate answer--"the greatest is love"--sure seems to be asking his audience to show kindness not only to each other, but to all others. That bit of philosophy is about as liberal and open-minded a thought as I've ever heard from a Nashville record, and that deserves mention.

The mandolin's sad and sweet, too. Just like the entire song.