“The pain, the sad, the bittersweet, hope you landed on your feet”

Life if full of challenging emotional curve balls that as a songwriter you are not always sure what you can or should swing at.

My birthday is 9/11, I wanted to write a song for all of us who have this birthday. I thought I would pass on it because the likelihood of squaring it up is somewhat remote. Still I also felt duty bound to at least try and maybe fail at it.

At the very top of this song I mention some folks who share this birthday, my DJ buddy Emily Edelman and the Duffy sisters Vera and Barbara are mentioned.

I also ended up thinking about someone I don’t know at all, I'll explain:
My dear friend and KPFK DJ Mark Torres told me that his young niece,
Lola, got some negative comments about being born on 9/11 even though she was born way after the actual event.

After hearing this I was sure I had done the right thing to finish this song and try to get it released this year. I wanted to see if I could take the sting out of this day for her and other innocent 9/11 birthday bystanders.

Of course we will forever remember the entirety what happened on that day in 2001, and what it means in America and to the world.

I realize that it’s a whole other level of P.T.S.D. if you lost someone or were a witness to the events in NYC, D.C. or Pennsylvania. So I’m not really attempting to address any of that in this song. But of course just by nature this song could resonate for those folks too.

When the actual events occurred on the morning of September 11th 2001 I was waking up late in Los Angeles as I was granted the day off from work. The way I received the tragic news of that morning was actually on my answering machine because Michelle and my Mom called and left a birthday messages on my phone, both with a foreboding “turn the news on” tagged on at the end.

Needless to say I have been thinking about what to say about that day for 20 years.

So this song idea hit me with what I like to call “Late Life Lightning.” LLL is what happens to me, my brain dictates things to me. This time it said it’s time to do this song about 9/11. It left me no choice. I had to do it for all the souls out there that share this inauspicious birthday.

Here is to remembering and honoring everyone affected by that day. However, this song is more specifically for anyone who has the 9/11 birthday.

This song is here to show love and peace, and to also put some bad days behind us.

In 2021 we have so much to deal with, so hopefully the song is a bit of a help for anyone who feels it, and needs it to get through this day.

Happy Birthday!
Here’s looking at you all you 9/11 birthday kids.

(Greg Franco - Mt. Washington CA, U.S.A. 8/30/2021)