Justin Anderson became involved with “Never
Forgotten” through the project's engineer, Darrell Lehman. In
2010, Justin, performing as Via Linota, was working with Darrell as
they co-produced Via Linota's debut album World Gone Crazy at Tone Grown
Studio in Nashville, Tennessee.
“Darrell contacted me this
summer about writing a song for the project,” he said. “I
spent time with a few different song ideas and ended up with what I
now call "Operator. “The first push for the writing of the
song came from involvement in the 911 project. However, on a songwriting
level, I gathered my inspiration from the numbers in the musical scale
9-1-1 upon which I then began to build the rest of the song.”
Justin finds it astonishing to think it's been ten
years since 9/11 occurred.
“It's kind of strange to think that it has been
a decade since that day,” he said. “I, like everyone else,
still remember where I was when I first found out and the time that
followed.”
He has also noticed a lot of uneasy changes since then.
“On a simple level, our access to airports as
citizens has been restricted. Being a frequent traveler, not being allowed
to see people off or meet them at the gate is a real loss,” he
said. “The events also changed the way we perceive our vulnerability
in this world.”
According to Justin, there's hardly a person you meet
who wasn't affected by 9/11.
“It really was this time where everyone stopped,
most of us feeling a sense of hopelessness. Even if you didn't know
someone personally who was in the towers, at the pentagon, or on flight
93, we all felt and still feel the effects of that day,” he said.
“I want people to listen to my song and feel a real sense of hope
as they reflect on who we are and what has changed. May we embrace the
grace we can experience as we continue to heal individually and as a
nation.”
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