If you read the fine print on the cover of this Squeeze 45, it reads “Tiny Collectors Edition.” That’s ‘cause the record is 5 inches—the size of a CD—instead of the usual 7 for a vinyl single. What makes this even more unusual is that I got the band’s singer, Glenn Tilbrook, to sign it in the middle of Grand Central Station, back in October, 2001.

Sadly, 9/11 had just happened a month earlier, and all of New York City was in a deep, unshakable depression. In the middle of this, there was an English Tourism Week called UK With NY going on, with all sorts of goofy free events, like public cooking classes hosted by British celebrities in the middle of Times Square and so on. Well, I got tipped off that there would be an unannounced event in Grand Central Station—Tillbrook was going to be a busker (you know, a street performer playing for change) one morning to raise money for 9/11 relief efforts. This I had to see.

Picture this: It’s 8AM and New York City commuters are arriving in Grand Central Station like they do any other day—groggy and grumpy, thinking about the day ahead as they fumble for change to buy coffee. There’s no question that they’d rather be back in bed. As if on ironic cue, some maniac with an acoustic guitar starts dancing around, screaming the old Squeeze hit, “Black Coffee In Bed,” at the top of his lungs. As the song begins to penetrate through the fog of the commuters’ minds, one passerby mumbles to no one in particular, “He sounds just like the guy who sang that.” Within a few more lyrics, the crowd has stopped moving and is staring at him like zombies—because the maniac with the choirboy voice and crazy energy is the guy who sang that.

It was awesome. For the next half hour, we watched him explode through “Tempted,” “Pulling Mussels From The Shell,” “Another Nail In My Heart,” and plenty more Eighties classics. When he was done, Tilbrook cheerfully signed autographs and simply hung out. It was a great way to start the day, and for me personally, the post-9/11 depression lifted for a few hours. Forget about the autograph; that break from despair, however brief, was a wonderful gift all by itself.