The day that changed everything.

Like most, I have a pretty indelible imprint inside my brain of exactly where I was and what I was doing on 09/11/01. I was driving in my car down Venice Blvd, in LA, listening to Howard Stern, and remember a tone in his voice like I’ve never heard before.

He sounded both serious and fearful. Something, as an avid listener for years, I’ve never heard from him, until then.

Soon after that, I arrived home and turned on the news to see one of the World Trade Center building collapse. Then, shortly after that, another.

I didn’t know what would happen next.

I couldn’t believe what was happening. But at the same time, I was super confused as to how something like this could happen, living here in the US. And didn’t know what would happen next — with talks of attacks in multiple cities, and at that time, living not that far from LAX.

My dad, living in Staten Island, NY at the time, I soon called to see if he was ok. And he too, was watching the news as the horror unfolded (realizing he was, thankfully, nowhere near the city).

Like many, a number of weeks passed that left me questioning what I was doing with my life, as well as the path I was on. Plus, whether I should be as far away from family as I was, after all that happened.

I left LA scared and burnt out.

At that time I was tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt, trying to “make it” — before deciding I would basically move back with family, get a regular job, and try paying off all my credit debt that accumulated in trying to fund my flailing music career.

It was one of the biggest mistakes I made.

Although it paled in comparison to what thousands of people and families that had lost someone on 9/11, it’s still something I always look back on and what was going on in my life at that time. Not just on 9/11, but on all the years that followed.

So I did like any songwriter would… I wrote about it.

Over 20 years later, I hope I did it justice.

Like so many other songs I had written, I had to write about 9/11 and do it in a way that did it justice. Especially with how long ago I had written the original version of it.

Although it’s decades old, I’m glad I went back and gave it the attention it now deserves, all these years later. But to be honest, I don’t know if I can ever sing this live, without breaking down crying.

Personally, I’d like to dedicate it to anyone and everyone that either passed or knew of someone who did, and eventually got their “Wings in Manhattan” on 9/11.