“Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)”
Alan Jackson
Written by Alan Jackson
Radio & Records
#1 (5 weeks)
December 21, 2001 – January 18, 2002
Billboard
#1 (5 weeks)
December 29, 2001 – January 26, 2002
This is as much an historical record as it is a musical one.
“Where Were You” became its own “where were you” moment when Alan Jackson performed it on the 2001 CMA Awards. Somehow he channeled the fog and uncertainty of that day into its own form of clarity, helping all of us remember what it was like to feel the world stop turning on that September day.
I was prepared to write about how important it was to seek out the live CMA version over the studio recording, but revisiting the latter made me appreciate the song all over again with Jackson’s steadied studio delivery. Both recordings are essential.
Do I have to write more about this one, or can I just state the obvious?
“Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” gets an A.
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What I love about this one is how calm and grounded it is. It’s not about patriotic sloganeering or fighting any enemy or concept. It’s just about ordinary people and letting love and unity take over.
I was walking between classes senior year. I was told a plane hit the World Trade Center and I thought someone was pulling my leg. Then we spent the rest of the school day watching CNN. I don’t think I’ll ever forget just how scared and confused I felt. And this song makes me think every time of just how sobering a moment it was.
Yes. This song so keenly captures how so many of us felt on that day. For me, it even captured that evening when my college roommate asked if we could change the channel from the news to Nick At Night reruns, which I was relieved to do.
I remember crying my eyes out when he sang it live that night.
For some reason – and this may be my opinion – but it didn’t get the attention it deserved outside of the country universe. I think a lot of news organizations felt it was too religious. But I think he covered all beliefs very well with the lyrics.
This song touched and still touches a lot of people. No, we have not forgotten that September day. Not by a longshot.
Yes, a great song worthy of an “A+”. Not much else to say.
Jackson humbly refers to himself as “just a singer of simple songs.”
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Excellent idea to find the original live performance from the 2001 CMA Awards that packed such a stunning punch. I had always respected Alan Jackson as a songwriter but was floored listening to this performance that night and registering that he was able to put together a composition like this and record it on such a compressed timeline after the attack. The gamut of emotions he processes in those few minutes has enough reach to hit just all of us where we lived in mid-September 2001, and usually more than once in each verse. It was pure poetry and as Caj states, it deserved much more acclaim outside of the country universe, particularly in a pop landscape dominated at the time by the likes of Enrique Iglesias.
Listening to this again, I couldn’t help but think of the contrast to the previous #1 reviewed, not for depth of subject matter, but for volume of material. My modest complaint with “I Wanna Talk About Me” is that it went on autopilot at the halfway point of the track, missing an opportunity to pack a more memorable punch with a third verse or a clever extended bridge. “Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning” kept finding new things to say as it went along, each of them as poignant as the one before it. The only downside is that the song is so “of its time”. Nobody under 25 will listen to it and connect with it the way us “over the hill” types will. Either way, this needed to be said in late 2001 for the nation’s mental health and I’m honored that Alan Jackson said it.
Grade: A
I was moved when I heard him sing it for the first time, live, on the CMA show, but it’s not one of A.J.’s songs that I choose to listen to again.
There’s got to be some zone in between the bluster of Toby Keith and this song, which doesn’t really say anything about what happened, other than that he’s sad about it.
B.
That CMA performance stopped me in my tracks and captivated me.
As for evidence that this song did not reach as far beyond the confines of country music as it should have, I remember a friend mocking “some” country song where the singer brags about not knowing the difference between Iraq and Iran.
Jackson so empathetically oscillates between complicated and conflicting emotions and intense impulses. I still tear up when I stop and listen to the lyrics.
The genius of the song is making the resolution appear so obvious,tender and human when many people were feeling lost, angry, and inhuman.
This is the voice of a parent comforting a child, knowing full well he has no answers for the hurt and fear other than his willingness to sit with their discomfort and honour the messy emotions of the moment.
I am amazed and rewarded every time I listen to this song.
Good stuff – B+
I’m Australian, but I still have the memory of where I was. It was night, around 10.30 for me (I think, it’s been so long). I was watching TV – I even remember it was The West Wing – and half-asleep, I closed my eyes for a few minutes. I woke to see the news, thinking the show had finished. It hadn’t, the news had broken in. It was still devastating, heard around the world.
This song encapsulates the time in a way I can’t even explain and I still listen to it.
There just couldn’t have been a more perfect way for a country artist to address the horrifying event that was the 2001, September 11th attacks than Alan Jackson did with this song. This is still my easily favorite out of all the songs concerning 9/11 that came out around that time.
Similar to Bobby above, I love how the song itself is not so much about patriotism as it is about love and unity and the very human emotions many of us felt after the attacks and how it made many of us put things in perspective and not take so many things for granted. Every “Did You…?” that Alan asks was relatable to somebody out there. Jackson’s Don Williams (another “singer of simple songs”) influence really shined here in that it does what many of Williams’ ballads does best, which is speak plainly and directly about real, relatable human emotions and find common ground with the listeners. I also love how the singer’s humbleness and honesty is on full display in the chorus as he sings “I’m just a singer of simple songs. I’m not a real political man. I watch CNN, but I’m not sure I can tell you the difference in Iraq and Iran.” I also love the line “Faith, hope, and love are some good things he gave us, and the greatest is love,” which can still bring tears to my eyes today. On top of it all, the song has such a beautiful melody, I love the string section in the arrangement, and Jackson sings it all in an earnest, warm, comforting, and sympathetic delivery that makes it all come together beautifully.
I’ll never forget the night I first heard Alan perform “Where Were You..” on the 2001 CMA awards. I had been in my bedroom watching the show all night when Vince Gill introduced Alan’s performance by saying he was going to sing a brand new song he had just written that kept him up all night. As soon as I realized it was a song concerning 9/11 by the opening line, I was glued to the TV until the very end of the song. And throughout nearly the entire performance, especially as soon as he got to the first chorus, I had goosebumps. It wasn’t too long that I was moved to tears, as well. It was truly a moment I had never felt or experienced on any of these country award shows before. As much as I love the studio version, I also love the rawness of the live CMA performance with his voice occasionally cracking from all the emotion he was surely feeling that night.
I remember very shortly after that night, I’d already be hearing it on the radio on quite a few occasions. In the beginning, our stations mostly played the live CMA performance version before I started hearing the studio version. I just remember how insanely fast it zoomed up the charts not long after its release. And when Alan’s Drive album was rush released in early 2002, I remember being in Best Buy not long after it came out, and there were TONS of people crowded and coming and going around the country section around the J’s where Alan’s CD’s were. And there were literally all kinds of people from different backgrounds there, including two women who were speaking to each other in their native foreign language who were picking up a copy of Drive. To me, it showed how many different people can enjoy and appreciate country music when it simply comes from the heart and talks about real life emotions that all of us feel.
While the song is obviously “of its time,” it’s still personally a very enjoyable listen for me today, and it still moves me. It’s also a great reminder of how we were able to come together as a nation during that time of pain, trauma, confusion, and healing, despite all of our differences. Sadly, that version of America seems far in the past these days with the current climate we’re in today, though I’d like to think we could still put aside our differences the way we did then if something so awful and tragic were to ever happen to us again. I also personally have an even greater appreciation for the song today, as I have a better understanding of how truly devastating and terrifying the event was now than I did in my mid teens in 2001. Some of that footage on YouTube is truly horrifying and painful to watch, and it’s hard to believe it was something that actually happened in real life.
At the time, I pretty much had no clue what was going on during that day early into my sophomore year in high school. In my third period class, the student sitting next to me had to suddenly leave due to some “emergency.” I had heard a few things here and there about some plane crashes, but didn’t think too much of it. And for some reason, we were dismissed early that day. It wasn’t until my dad and I were sitting in the Lone Star Steakhouse later that afternoon that we both saw the footage on their TV of the Twin Towers on fire with endless smoke flowing into the sky. We just couldn’t believe what we were seeing, and all of us, including other customers and the servers couldn’t take our eyes off the TV. When we got home later, I found out that the towers had completely fallen as my step dad was watching the news, which was just so unreal to me, plus we found out that another plane had crashed into the Pentagon, which was even scarier for us, since it was very close to home for us in Northern Virginia. It was all pretty hard for me to digest at the time. I’m still thankful every day that none of my family was harmed or anywhere near the attacks, though my heart still goes out to anyone who lost a loved one that day.
Things were never the same after that, and it seemed like the world was suddenly changing rapidly from what I had known and was used to before, but we at least had Alan Jackson there to comfort us with this beautiful song, and yes I did and do still thank God I have somebody to love.
A friend of mine was living in New York City when 9/11 happened. He heard a loud bang outside and went to his balcony to see what he heard. It was the first plane striking the North Tower. He stood out there for a few minutes sort of in shock, and then personally saw the second plane hit the south tower. I think of his experience when I listen to this song and how harrowing that must’ve been, even more so than turning on the news to find out like most of us did. This song still stops me in my tracks today whenever it comes on.