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Arts & Entertainment

Laurel Canyon Songwriter Pray Harper Records 9/11 Tribute

The singer has raised more than $5,000 to self-produce his song "Undone" in time for the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.

Pray Harper, 41-year-old singer-songwriter, has come a long way since Sept. 11, 2001.

Ten years ago, the now-Laurel Canyon resident was a substitute teacher in Woodland Hills, married to his college sweetheart. While his teenage students questioned authority, Harper backed his government, voting for GOP father and son George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

After his divorce in 2004, Harper said he started to re-examine his life and began writing songs as therapy. He voted for Obama in the last election, but said his faith in the political party system came completely apart, that is to say, “Undone,” which is the name of his latest project.

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Through a fundraising website called Kickstarter.com and by spreading the word to Facebook friends and fans on PrayHarper.org, Harper has raised more than $5,000—enough money to self-produce his song in time for the 10th anniversary of 9/11. He has hopes to get the song played on KCRW.

“I wrote a song to heal the dark magic spell that was Sept. 11, 2001,” he writes on the Kickstarter site. “I wrote this song to spread a healing message to people around the world like you.”

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Two years ago, a stranger in a sushi bar made a passionate case that Harper watch the movie Zeitgeist. The popular 2007 documentary suggested alternate explanations for the World Trade Center attacks.

“It opened my eyes to the possibility that my whole foundation of how things work in life—not just politics, the music business, everything,” he said.  

For Harper, it was not about the politics as much as it was about really watching the destruction of the towers and footage of people jumping out to their deaths.

“I knew I had to watch to really see and not look away,” Harper said, his eyes beginning to well up with tears. “The only way I could really watch that awful destruction was to imagine that the World Trade Center towers were flower stems and that the people falling were flower petals.”

These days, Harper is remarried and has a brand new baby boy, Jude. He sat down and wrote “Undone” as “a way for people to give tribute to those lives lost not with warmongering, but with hope,” he said. He is working hard to finish mastering the song and would like to arrange for a performance somewhere on the Sunset Strip.

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