Kevin Devine's 2009 performance at Reax Space in Ybor City, Florida still feels so fresh in my mind, and today was a reminder of that.
Last week, the 36-year-old, Brooklyn-based songwriter shared his new, patriotic rock anthem "No History," and two days ago he released an acoustic version of the song. Today brought a poignant reflection on what 9/11 means to him.
"My broken-heartedness will always be with the innocent people who died on this day," he wrote on Facebook, "and the innocent people who died because of this day."
He expounds in his explanation of the song for Stereogum.
I wrote “No History” last summer, after driving Manhattan’s West Side Highway home to Brooklyn from an early morning doctor’s appointment. It was 8am, and a lot had already happened that day, and the immediate sky was uninterrupted blue, and my mind was lazy, and I happened to look up at my left at the Freedom Tower, and I realized That Day in 2001 was a lot like this one. Memories and images tumbled and fought for space until the song had its shape. I’m 36 and a lifelong New Yorker and in many ways my life is pre/post That Day. That’s also true on a larger scale; a lot of present-day ugliness & scariness (not to mention the poisonous fruit we’re being served in place of sane civic discourse) has its roots in how Power reacted to what happened. This is a song tying moments together to shrink back to the personal, to reconnect to that meaning & narrative, to the kernel of humanity buried in the fog."
Watch the acoustic video for "No History" below and make plans to see Devine, along with Pinegrove, Julien Baker, and Petal on November 5 when they play Orpheum in Ybor City. More information is available on CL's events calendar. Pre-order his new album Instigator, due October 21, here.
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This article appears in Sep 8-15, 2016.