Last Friday marked the 25th anniversary of 9/11. It’s almost hard for me to comprehend that an event that continues to define modern history occurred before I was even born. There is a pre-9/11 world, and a post-9/11 world. I have only ever known the latter. Inevitably, 9/11 had a profound effect upon popular culture and much of the art that was released in the early 2000s represented the world trying to come to terms with such an unfathomable tragedy. Today I would like to discuss Turn On the Bright Lights by Interpol – an album which, despite being conceived prior to the attacks, came to serve as a soundtrack to the reckoning that many New Yorkers experienced following the events of the 11th September 2001.
The events of 9/11 have always fascinated me. Perhaps it is a case of the old ‘morbid curiosity’, but there is just something about it that I continue to find obsessively compelling. The amount of time that I have spent watching old news reports, surprisingly well-made YouTube documentaries and listening to people’s first-hand accounts of that fatal day is honestly staggering. I think perhaps the thing that fascinates me the most about 9/11 is the fact that it quite literally changed the world. America would invade Afghanistan less than a month after the attacks of 11th September in Operation Enduring Freedom, marking the start of the war in Afghanistan which would only come to an end in August 2021. Estimated 176,000 casualties. Then there’s the 2003 invasion of Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom) in which then prime minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair would infamously support the American invasion of Iraq after being presented with ‘evidence’ of Iraq possessing ‘weapons of mass destruction’. Those weapons of mass destruction, of course, were never found. The Iraq War would come to an end in December 2011, eight months after SEAL Team Six finally found and killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Estimated 150,000 to 1,000,000 casualties.
The loss of life that 9/11 caused did not end on 11th September 2001. It was merely the beginning of the War on Terror, a decades-long conflict in which hundreds of thousands of civilians, military personnel and insurgents would ultimately lose their lives in the wars and conflicts that were to follow. In the weeks and months that followed 9/11, Americans were left to ask themselves, 19“How could this happen to us?”. Of the 2,977 victims of 9/11, 2,753 died in New York City from the attacks at the World Trade Center site. New York was at the centre of America’s grieving, and nobody really knew what was next.
On 19th August 2002, 11 months after the attacks of 9/11, a relatively unknown New York band named Interpol would release their debut studio album Turn On the Bright Lights. Formed in 1997, Interpol consisted of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Paul Banks, lead guitarist Daniel Kessler, bassist Carlos Dengler and drummer Sam Fogarino. Prior to the release of their debut album, Interpol had released three EPs – Fukd ID #3 in December of 2000, Precipitate in 2001 and the self-titled Interpol in June of 2002. Two of the three songs included on Interpol, ‘PDA’ and ‘NYC’ would later feature on Turn On the Bright Lights as Track 3 and Track 4 respectively. Unlike fellow New York contemporaries The Strokes, Interpol had yet to generate significant mainstream attention before the release of their debut album and were still considered to be an underground band in the New York music scene.
In November 2001, Interpol relocated to Tarquin Studios in Bridgeport, Connecticut to record Turn On the Bright Lights. The band chose to record their debut album outside of their hometown of New York City to maximise their focus on their tracking sessions and avoid the local distractions of their home. When Interpol entered Tarquin Studios to begin recording their debut record, the events of the 11th of September had occurred only two months earlier. Whilst the majority of the songs featured on Turn On the Bright Lights had been written prior to the attacks, the events of 9/11 would, almost inevitably, have a profound effect upon the recording of their debut album. Turn On the Bright Lights was also produced by fellow New Yorker Peter Katis, who would play an important role in the record’s distinctive atmospheric sound.
The finished product? An album that sounds, in the most literal sense, like four guys attempting to come to terms with an unfathomable tragedy that occurred in their hometown. When lead vocalist Paul Banks wrote Turn On the Bright Lights, he had no idea of the new meaning that the songs would take on following the events of the 11th September. It is one of those beautiful moments in music where an album is released at a time when it is needed the most. Turn On the Bright Lights takes on the sound of a city that is mourning, a city that is trying to come to terms with the fact that life will never be the same as it once was.
Whilst the entire record came to serve as a soundtrack to New York’s reckoning, there are two songs in particular from Turn On the Bright Lights that I believe define the album’s sound. These are the opening track ‘Untitled’ and Track 3 ‘NYC’. Untitled opens the album with a sound that I can only describe as despondent. Untitled is almost entirely instrumental, and to me, it has always felt as if the song is giving the listener a deliberate opportunity to reflect and prepare themselves for the journey the album intends to take them on. Banks does enter Untitled with vocals around 1:23 into the track, but it is him merely repeating variations of the line “Surprise, sometimes, will come around” for around 30 seconds before the track returns to its instrumental. I have always interpreted Banks repeating this sole line for around 30 seconds as him struggling to find the words to suit the atmosphere of the song, instead letting the music do most of the talking. Metaphorically, listeners could interpret this as the album struggling to find the words to match the devastation of 9/11 – however, it is worth remembering that the majority of this album was written by Banks before 9/11 occurred, so this interpretation was never Banks’ intention. The poignancy of this album comes from the way it is heard in retrospect.
NYC, Track 3 on Turn On the Bright Lights, is undoubtedly the song that ended up carrying the most meaning in the wake of 9/11. Unlike the rest of the tracks on Interpol’s debut album, NYC explicitly refers to New York in its title, lyrics and themes – making it almost impossible not to draw connections between the song and the attacks of 9/11. Whereas Untitled serves as a reflection of a morbid reality, NYC, whilst still possessing a melancholic sound, provides listeners with a sense of reassurance that things will start to get better. The lyric “It’s up to me now, turn on the bright lights” (for which the album gets its title), when considered without the wider context of the 9/11 attacks, can be read as telling the listener that it is up to them to pick themselves up and define the better days that are ahead. “Turn on the bright lights” becomes a metaphor for finding light at the end of the tunnel.
Upon release, Turn On the Bright Lights was met with widespread critical acclaim within the underground music scene. In May of 2003, the album entered the mainstream after Untitled was featured in the season nine finale of the television series Friends, “The One in Barbados – Part 2”, when Joey and Rachel shared their first kiss. Ultimately, for the people of New York who were still trying to make sense of what had happened in their city, Turn On the Bright Lights arrived at the perfect time. The album’s dismal sound spoke to New Yorkers who were in their most vulnerable hour and provided them with an outlet through music that they could relate to. In a 2012 interview with Pitchfork, bassist Carlos Dengler explained to interviewer Ian Cohen, “The songs were written before 9/11, but the unintentional meaning they take on isn’t any less of a meaning, we were holding the cards to a certain message that was about to become relevant. It’s insane. It’s like the universe is taking care of us, even in the form of a horrific event”.
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