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Neil Young's "Let's Roll" was also released that fall, a work that pays homage to Todd Beamer and the events of Flight 93. Thought not as antagonistic as the tracks previously mentioned, "Let's Roll" features a particularly impassioned bridge where Young declares the need to kung-fu evil's no-good ass. Steve Earle's "Amerika V. 6.0 (The Best We Can Do)" is a bitter argument that 9/11 was just another indication that our country's slowly going down the toilet.
Wu-Tang Clan's "Rules," however, may be the blue-ribbon choice for most angry mainstream pop song linked with 9/11. With vein-popping fury, Ghostface Killah fumes: "Who the fuck knocked our buildings down?/Who the man behind the World Trade massacres?/Step up now/Where the four planes at, huh?/Is you insane, bitch?/Fly that shit over my hood and get blown to bits!" Yes, I don't believe anybody would wish to be on Ghostface's shit list.
Despite being unapologetically angry, these songs can be unifying in nature, the artists promoting a sense -- even if it's a shade too "us vs. them" -- of national, sea-to-shining-sea solidarity. "You hear one of these songs and it's like attending a memorial," Wolf says. "It allows people from all over the country to occupy the same physical space. In some ways, 9/11 is a part of all of us because we're all part of the United States."
Also, these particular tunes have shelf lives significantly longer than most pop songs, since they were inspired by a much-referenced and widely viewed historic event. This timelessness can also be attributed to the fact that this music, despite its heavily-claimed controversial content, isn't horribly offensive, unlike the many dated tunes issued following the event 9/11 is often associated with: the attack on Pearl Harbor.
"September 11 is not something we can think of as just another event in the past," Wolf says. "There will always be frequent reminders of it. So in a way, these particular songs are not disposable at all."
Which means, love it or hate it, "Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue (The Angry American)" is here to stay.
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