Rhett Miller Shares The First Two Songs (One Never Before Released) He Wrote After 9/11

Stephen Masker

Rhett Miller

​Considering that this upcoming September 11th will serve as the ten-year anniversary of the day the Twin Towers fell, the fact The Atlantic is using its September issue to look back on 9/11 isn't all that surprising. The fact that the highly regarded publication asked Old 97's frontman Rhett Miller to recall his memories that day? Well, that kind of is.

Not really, though: Miller was living just a few blocks from Ground Zero on "that day," and his recounting of the events that took place -- and, specifically, how they affected him -- is actually quite moving.

But maybe even more interesting is the online-only tale Miller shares with The Atlantic about how he started to write songs after 9/11, when he was holed up in his fiancee's parents' house, without any instruments to mess around with.
Recalls Miller:

"To write the song, I had to wait until everybody else left Erica's parents' house. Even though I'm pretty good about writing around other people, I didn't have a guitar. It was the first time I'd been without a guitar since I was 12, so it was just going to be me sitting there singing. And that's weird."

Miller ended up writing song, called "She Loves The Sunset," on a toy he found. Seven years later, the song eventually found its way onto the Old 97's 2008 release, Blame It On Gravity. Another song he wrote around that time, called "Lovebird," has never been released.

You can download each of the songs in their earliest incarnations, both recorded with Jon Brion (presumably around the time he recorded Miller's 2002 solo album, The Instigator), over on The Atlantic's site. We recommend you do.