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.