Boeing 737

Album: Smart Flesh (2011)
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Songfacts®:

  • The Low Anthem is a folk rock trio from Providence, Rhode Island comprising Ben Knox Miller, Jeff Prystowsky and Jocie Adams. This song from the band's fourth album, Smart Flesh, begins with the line: "I was in the air when the towers came down, in a bar on the 84th floor,"and is set to a tune borrowed from Springsteen's "Racing In The Street." In an interview with Mojo magazine, Miller refuted the suggestion that it is about America's response to 9/11, saying it instead refers to the album's inspirational hero, Philippe Petit, the French high-wire artist who walked between New York's Twin Towers in 1974. "That song is a fictional bar-stool moment with Philippe Petit as the narrator, Miller explained. "9/11 recontextualised this iconic building that Petit had done something beautiful with and that is what this song is about. There's no political agenda for this album."

Comments: 1

  • AnonymousThis song has to be about 09/11. The fact that the song's subject was in the 84th floor cannot be coincidence. It references both the great Phillipe Petit and the 9/11 atrocity juxtaposing great beauty and endeavour, with great evil and destruction of the human soul and body. It one of the most moving songs I have ever heard both lyrically and sonically especially the live version here. The sheer fury of the drummers pounding is astonishing.
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