HelloAngel
ONE love, blood, life
Bono told me: 'Your song needs to be heard now'
When Telegraph pop critic Neil McCormick wrote a song in reaction to the London bombings and set about getting it recorded and released for charity, the response from friends and contacts in the music industry was phenomenal - and fast
How can music respond to something as devastating as the London bombings? It is a question that has been weighing on my mind. Somehow, without quite intending it, I have stumbled towards a response of my own. By this time next week, I hope to have a single available to download with proceeds going to charity to help victims and their families.
The song is addressed to our terrorist enemies, posed as a series of hard questions about why they would attack fellow human beings they have never met. It is called People I Don't Know Are Trying to Kill Me. The response to the song within the music business has been hearteningly supportive. If all goes to plan, it will have been written, recorded, mixed, mastered and released within the space of two weeks.
It really started with Live 8. As a rock critic, much of what I do is inescapably trivial, so I found myself caught up in Bob Geldof's dream that music can actually make a difference. I went to Edinburgh to march for Make Poverty History.
The concert in Murrayfield stadium on Wednesday July 6 was a joyous, celebratory experience, more like an after-show party than a political rally. It felt like the work had been done. Then I woke up on Thursday morning and switched on my hotel television. Like everyone in the country, I had to come to terms with an awful new reality. Live 8 was old news already. It felt as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of it.
To read the entire article, please visit:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/mai...19.xml&sSheet=/arts/2005/07/19/ixartleft.html
When Telegraph pop critic Neil McCormick wrote a song in reaction to the London bombings and set about getting it recorded and released for charity, the response from friends and contacts in the music industry was phenomenal - and fast
How can music respond to something as devastating as the London bombings? It is a question that has been weighing on my mind. Somehow, without quite intending it, I have stumbled towards a response of my own. By this time next week, I hope to have a single available to download with proceeds going to charity to help victims and their families.
The song is addressed to our terrorist enemies, posed as a series of hard questions about why they would attack fellow human beings they have never met. It is called People I Don't Know Are Trying to Kill Me. The response to the song within the music business has been hearteningly supportive. If all goes to plan, it will have been written, recorded, mixed, mastered and released within the space of two weeks.
It really started with Live 8. As a rock critic, much of what I do is inescapably trivial, so I found myself caught up in Bob Geldof's dream that music can actually make a difference. I went to Edinburgh to march for Make Poverty History.
The concert in Murrayfield stadium on Wednesday July 6 was a joyous, celebratory experience, more like an after-show party than a political rally. It felt like the work had been done. Then I woke up on Thursday morning and switched on my hotel television. Like everyone in the country, I had to come to terms with an awful new reality. Live 8 was old news already. It felt as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of it.
To read the entire article, please visit:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/mai...19.xml&sSheet=/arts/2005/07/19/ixartleft.html
