After the 9/11 terrorists attacks, country singer/song writer, Alan Jackson had so many thoughts and emotions running through him that he knew he wanted to write a song expressing them. Jackson said, "I didn't want to write a patriotic song. And I didn't want it to be vengeful either. But I didn't want to forget about how I felt and how I knew other people felt that day." And because of this, the song did not come to him until 6 weeks after the attacks.
On Sunday, October 28, 2001, Jackson woke up at 4 a.m. with the melody and opening lines running through his head. He quickly got out of bed and sang his ideas into a hand-held recorder so he would not forget them. Later that day, while his wife and daughter were at church he stayed home and completed writing the lyrics to "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)".
This song focuses on other people's reactions to the attacks in the form of questions. One of the verses goes like, "Did you lay down at night and think of tomorrow?/ Go out and buy you a gun?/ Did you turn off that violent old movie you're watchin'/ And turn on I Love Lucy reruns?" In this one verse Jackson shows three different reactions to the 9/11 attacks. Some people simply went home wondering what was going to happen tomorrow, some people thought about protecting themselves and their families so they bought a gun, and some people simply stopped watching violence and watched an American classic. Later on in the song he quotes the New Testament and says, "Faith, hope and love are some good things he gave us/ And the greatest is love." This is probably the most powerful line in the entire song. This one line shows how much love was in America after the 9/11 attacks. How much love there was for the country, the love for every American citizen, and the love for the troops. After the attacks, America's patriotism was at a high, and Alan Jackson did an amazing job making you feel that as you listen to his song.
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