Alan Jackson’s ‘Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning) – Live’ Out Now

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Alan Jackson performs “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” live in Nashville on June 27, 2026. Photo: John Shearer

As Americans take a moment to reflect on the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a new live recording of Alan Jackson‘s “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” captured at the country icon’s final concert in Nashville is being released by MCA.

The live version of the song will be available to stream and download at 12 a.m. ET Friday, and will be shared nationwide with radio, who have played Jackson’s original versions of the song (included on his album, Drive) every year since the tragic events of September 2001.

Jackson penned the song in October of 2001 with a nation and the world still stunned and reeling from the tragedy, and within two weeks he somewhat reluctantly performed it live for the first time ever in front of a national audience on the 35th annual CMA Awards, having found the words to describe the full spectrum of emotions people had experienced since Sept. 11.

So many radio stations lifted the song from the CMA Awards telecast the next day, that it debuted on the country charts. The live performance and a studio-recorded version were added to Alan’s Drive album to give the public a way of owning the song and as a quicker means of doing so than releasing a physical single. The song was honored at the CMA, ACM and Grammy Awards, where it was nominated as all-genre Song of the Year. Its words have been read into the Congressional Record, Jackson was asked to sing it in New York City on the six-month anniversary of 9/11, during observances at The Pentagon on the one-year anniversary, and at the Kennedy Center for an official event in Washington, DC attended by the president and members of Congress marking the 10th anniversary in 2011.

“I was so nervous about putting it out,” Jackson recalls. “Even after we did, I thought we would perform it for a little while and then it would just go away. I didn’t feel like people would want to keep thinking about that. But ever since, I see people waiting on that song in the crowd…and I know I have to do it for them.”

“Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning) – Live” was recorded in Nashville on June 27 as Jackson performed his career-capping “Last Call: One More for the Road” concert. The concert will air in December as an NBC-TV special, Alan Jackson: The Last Show, and be highlighted on the upcoming album, Alan Jackson: The Last Show One More for the Road – The Finale (Live from Nashville).

Lorie Hollabaugh
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