Shut Up, Laura

Pulled this from my old livejournal account. I posted this back in January 2004, but the London memorial service for the 7/7 bombings certainly brings it to mind.

Original subject: No, I haven't gotten over it.

You know, it's funny. This stupid Five For Fighting Song always makes me think of 9/11. More to the point, it makes me think of the New York firefighters. See, my brain decided to cope with 9/11 by becoming really attached to FDNY. I don't know a single one of them, but I came to take stories of their victories and losses very personally. I suppose that I couldn't wrap my brain around the concept of 3,000 people dead in an instant; 343 became a small enough number for me to comprehend, but a large enough number that I was still horrified and nauseated.

(Counterpoint to the above: I met a firefighter from a small company in New Hampshire who felt exactly the opposite. He'd been an NH firefighter for like 5 years, during which time his entire state had lost something like 6 firefighters. 343 lost souls was as incomprehensible to him as the larger number was to me. Perspective's a funny thing, isn't it?)

Anyway, back to the song. The singer of Five For Fighting was interviewed shortly after the attacks, and he thought it was really fascinating that his song had taken on a life of its own in the 9/11 aftermath. He apparently wrote it as a song about human weakness, a fairly pessimistic statement:

"I'm just this guy wearing this stupid costume. I get homesick and lonely and tired and scared. Don't go expecting all these great things from me, because I'm just not a superhero."

But then the attacks happened, and the world fell in love with these guys who run into burning buildings because they just can't imagine doing anything else for a living. And the song...changed. It was still about human weakness, but in a really different way:

"Yeah, I'm just this guy wearing this stupid costume. And I'm afraid to fly, and I get homesick and lonely and tired and scared. But every last one of you is going to be safe tonight, because if you need me to be, then I'll be Superman because I have to be."