Songs in Tune With the Times

Mississippi rockers 3 Doors Down were just looking for low-profile dates to break in a new drummer when they booked a show last fall on the aircraft carrier George Washington, then floating off Portugal.

But Universal Records executives thought footage shot of the carrier performance might make the right backdrop for the music video for the band’s “When I’m Gone,” with its lonely -- and wholly apolitical -- refrain: “Hold me when I’m scared and love me when I’m gone.”

With the advent of war, that accidental matchup has conjured a patriotic hit from a song that has remained strong on rock charts for seven months.

“When I’m Gone” is now the second-most-played tune on radio’s top 40, and probably rising. The video, which includes scenes of troops bidding families farewell, has become the top-ranked clip on music channel VH1. Radio stations in major markets have edited sound bites from President Bush and hometown soldiers in between verses.

Universal executives say the sad lure of the song was evident recently when the mother of a U.S. soldier slain in Iraq called the label, asking to speak with Brad Arnold, the band’s lead singer. “When I’m Gone” had been her son’s favorite song, she said. Label executives set up a phone call with Arnold, then traveling with the band in Europe, so she could express her thanks.

“We’re not pro-war, but we believe in what our military does for this country,” guitarist Chris Henderson said. Visiting with sailors, he said, “we got a taste of what it’s like on those ships.”

“They leave for six months at a time. They lose all contact sometimes,” Henderson said. “When we’re on tour, I’m able to fly home for a weekend. Those guys can’t.”

Universal Records’ red, white and blue success story has underscored the dilemma of the music industry in wartime. Though the war ties for “When I’m Gone” essentially developed through happenstance, several record labels are seeking to replicate its success and ride the conflict to a payday.

“There’s definitely a thin line” dividing commerce and exploitation, Henderson said. “You can get on the bandwagon and cash in if you’re a record company, if you can see it coming.”

The song’s emergence as a patriotic anthem, he said, “just kind of happened because of the circumstances -- it’s not like anyone planned it.”

In other cases, record executives have been scrambling to do just that. Bertelsmann-affiliated Sanctuary Records, for example, said this week that it would move up the release of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s new album in response to what it said was an “overwhelming” appetite among radio stations for the rock band’s flag-waving new song “Red, White & Blue.”

Gospel label Verity Records revived its attempts to persuade R&B; radio stations to play “The Prayer,” a song recorded by Donnie McClurkin and Yolanda Adams and initially released last fall. The track picked up little airplay at the time. But the label recently sent messages to programmers and the media, reminding them of the song’s relevance during the conflict.

“We want to keep the troops in prayer, but we don’t want to seem like it’s a publicity push,” said Jojo Pada, McClurkin’s spokeswoman. The label’s thinking was that “maybe we can give people some relief,” she said.

Another label, Sony Corp.’s Epic Records, rushed this month to sign young singer Rachel Loy, who had written a song about a friend fighting in Iraq and performed it on an Austin, Texas, radio station. The phones lit up. Epic promptly teamed her with Grammy-winning producer Cliff Magness for a quick recording, scheduled for release as a single April 22. Epic has been promoting Loy’s “The Same Man” as “the song that will touch the world.”

Outside the mainstream pop world, country music labels are expected to generate a sales boost from patriotism, as they often do in times of national crisis. Darryl Worley’s call to arms “Have You Forgotten?” has been at the top of the country airplay charts for two weeks. DreamWorks Records plans to release his album, which includes the song, on Tuesday.

Across the industry, radio stations have largely shunned songs seen as antiwar, such as “Boom” by Columbia Records rock band System of a Down. Executives at several labels say privately that they believe radio programmers may strike back against acts viewed as unsupportive of the war effort.

They cite the recent decision by radio chain Cumulus Media Inc. to slash airplay of country-pop stars the Dixie Chicks after one of the band’s singers said she was embarrassed that President Bush hailed from her home state, Texas.

Biloxi-based 3 Doors Down, for its part, didn’t plan to enter the political waters. Arnold wrote “When I’m Gone” during a stop in Puerto Rico more than a year ago. The song was meant as a rumination on being a rock star constantly on tour, band representatives said. At the time, the group was playing concerts to support its first album, “The Better Life,” which has sold more than 5 million copies since its release in 2000.

About four months after finishing the tour, the band returned to the studio to record its next album, “Away From the Sun,” then set off on the road again.

By late October, after the band returned from performing at six military stops, rock stations had begun devoting heavy airplay to “When I’m Gone,” the first single from the new album. At the same time, Universal had been planning to release a video for the song, shot by star director Marc Klasfeld. The concept then was to show the band being buried alive in a cow pasture.

But after seeing footage shot during the band’s armed-forces concerts, Universal Records President Monte Lipman said, he decided to scrap the U.S. release of the first video and replace it with images of the band’s performance on the aircraft carrier, spliced with news clips of troops hugging loved ones goodbye.

“I felt it would be a better representation of what the song is really about,” Lipman said. “But in no way was this trying to take advantage of the situation in the country. It wasn’t calculated.”

In international markets, where sentiment against the U.S.-led action has been running high, Universal executives are marketing the original cow-pasture clip to local music channels.

In the United States, music channels initially aired the video sporadically. But with the outbreak of war, cable channel MTV began running a segment that paired the 3 Doors Down video with the antiwar clip for “Boom” to show both sides of the debate.

U.S. sales of the 3 Doors Down album have held at a solid 30,000 copies a week, said Universal executive Tom Mackay, who has overseen the project. “Away From the Sun” crossed the 1-million sales mark last week, according to Nielsen SoundScan data.

Radio programmers say audience demand for the song shows no sign of waning.

“Every event seems to have that song that just kind of fits the moment, and this song is one of them,” said Jay Hasting, program director for WABB-FM in Mobile, Ala., which has been playing “When I’m Gone” more than 80 times a week, sometimes with audio snippets from the film “Patton” spliced in. “We’ve been playing the heck out of it for all the people from around here.”

To see the original and military versions of 3 Doors Down’s “When I’m Gone” videos, go to www.latimes.com/3doorsdown.