Covid Island Discs

Day 175: New York, New York (Ryan Adams)

So I have one of Ryan Adams albums but this song wasn’t on it. The song from the album I was searching for is called “Gimme something good” but while searching for it, this song popped up. The opening credit to this song is quite something as he filmed this on the 7^th of September 2001, a few days before those two gigantic buildings (the world trade center), which feature heavily in his film clip, would come crashing down forever changing airtravel as we know it.

My own personal memories of those amazing buildings date back to 2000 when I was at a scientific conference in New York. One afternoon I went to the observation level of the World Trade Center which was always incredible because unlike the Empire State building, they had designed the roof top so there was no actual safety netting or fencing. Basically, you could walk out to an edge which had a short drop down of about 5 feet into a pit area that was probably about 20 feet wide. If you were to jump into the pit (obviously you couldn’t jump 20 feet to make it to the ultimate edge of the building), you of course you would not hurt yourself but once down in the pit area, you were protected from the ultimate building edge by a perimeter wall which I guess was about 10 feet high.

I arrived at the World Trade Center in the early afternoon and made my way up to the lower observation deck. This floor was inside and in the central part, was packed full of shops and food outlets. I bought myself an early tea (some pizza and coke) and then went up to the roof top where I spent several hours watching the sun set and the city transform itself from a day to a nightscape as literally thousands upon thousands of tiny lights began to illuminate across that incredibly vast city. It was a memory I will never forget and I am so thankful I had the opportunity to do it.

On the day the Trade Centers came down, I felt physically sick and my mind kept wondering if any of the folk who served me tea that afternoon were now lying dead in the ruins of those mighty towers. Of course I will never know but given I was only there the year before, it is sadly possible that some of the people I interacted with that day lost their lives on that cold morning of September 11^th.

My Video Summary

If you click on the Playlist Video for Week 25 (top right of this page) you will be taken to a single video which allows you to play each song in this week's list one after the other. Alternatively, if you watch my own video summary below of this week's songs at the end of the video two playlist links will appear. The one on the left hand side will take you to the video playlist for this week while the one on the right will take you to a single video playlist that allows you to play the complete Covid Island Discs collection for all the currently completed weeks so far — well over 200 songs and counting!