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A Tribute to Those Who Reported

I just heard a song today, listening to my iPod while my wife and I were eating dinner, and she said, "Is this song about Islam?" I looked it up. Sure enough. It is from a not-very-popular album by Leonard Cohen. The song is called "On That Day." Here are the lyrics:

Some people say
It's what we deserve
For sins against God
For crimes in the world
I wouldn't know
I'm just holding the fort
Since that day
They wounded New York
Some people say
They hate us of old
Our women unveiled
Our slaves and our gold
I wouldn't know
I'm just holding the fort
But answer me this
I won't take you to court
Did you go crazy
Or did you report
On that day
On that day
They wounded New York

Here's a short article about the song (original post is here):

Bruce Springsteen took on the topic practically as if it were commissioned for his 2002 album "The Rising," but it took pop's most authentic poet to stare the subject of Sept. 11 straight in the face.

"Some people say it's what we deserve," Leonard Cohen sings on "On That Day," a little noticed track that appears on his overlooked 2004 album "Dear Heather." Cohen eschews metaphor but maintains a moral distance. "I wouldn't know," he sings, "I'm just holding the fort — since that day they wounded New York."

An unlikely Jew's harp twangs against the song, which could be Cohen's idea of ironic counterpoint. The slight song — it barely breaks the two-minute mark — sounds all the more mournful in his inevitable foggy baritone.

Like all the great poets, Cohen covers immense ground with a few well-chosen words and a couple of half-finished thoughts. "Did you go crazy or did you report," he asks, "on that day they wounded New York?" On the album's liner notes, he makes sure to include a dictionary definition of report: "To present oneself: report for duty."

Death and destruction in the twin towers was such a blinding catastrophe — like the sun exploding — that artists couldn't look at it long. Cohen, in his song, without dwelling on anything, in fact, cuts it short, suggesting we look to ourselves.

Here is the song, as sung by Ken Middleton:

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