Billy Bragg’s response to Corona virus prompted me to write my own topical song. You can listen to it here:
No Man’s Land
Some where ordered off to work
And many ordered home
Two lives to live in parallel
With battles of their own
The front line face contagion
The back line, house arrest
For each a different sacrifice
The same weight on their chest
It’s hard to march together
When comrades can’t be seen
Tonight we march remotely
In unity through screens
At least this time we’re not confined
To trenches in the earth
And when life returns to no man’s land
We’ll know how much it’s worth
Our country has received difficult news. At the same time, we’re being asked to sacrifice physical contact with all of the people that normally comfort us.
We’re also in a situation where people in the same household find themselves facing opposite fears. The fear of losing the outside world verses the fear of facing it.
Unity is at stake, and all of the places that promote it have locked their doors.
How do you bring people together without actually bringing people together?
How do you bring a country together when those being asked to fight live in the same place as those being asked to stay behind?
And most of all; how do you encourage people to perform duties that involve huge sacrifices?
I don’t know, but music helps.
We’ve still got the means to make it, the means to share it, and the means to talk about it. I normally go to band practice on Monday night. Not tonight. But the music continues. The band are meeting up for a NEON LADY video chat instead.