Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, Clear Channel Communications (now iHeartMedia), the largest owner of radio stations in the United States, circulated an internal memorandum containing a list of songs[1] that program directors felt were "lyrically questionable" to play in the aftermath of the attacks.
[2] During the time immediately after the attacks, many television and radio stations altered normal programming in response to the events, and the rumor spread that Clear Channel and its subsidiaries had established a list of songs with lyrics Clear Channel deemed "questionable.
The list was made public by the independent radio industry newsletter Hits Daily Double, which was not affiliated with iHeartMedia.
[4] Snopes.com did research on the subject and concluded that the list did exist as a suggestion for radio stations but noted that it was not an outright ban on the songs in question.
The Clear Channel memorandum contains songs that, in their titles or lyrics, vaguely refer to open subjects intertwined with the September 11 attacks, such as airplanes, collisions, death, conflict, violence, explosions, the month of September, Tuesday (the day of the week the attacks occurred) and New York City, as well as general concepts that could be connected to aspects of the attacks, such as the Middle East, the sky falling, and weapons.