Single honouring those who have died from Covid-19 aims to reach number one
A charity single which pays tribute to 155 people who have lost their lives to Covid-19 is aiming to reach number one in the charts.
The single, Together In Electric Dreams, and its accompanying video aim to honour those who have lost loved ones throughout the pandemic.
“It’s a really lovely, inspiring story… so many people have been so moved by it, just to see all the photos of all the people who have passed away this year,” Andrea Harris, who took part in the single as a choir member, told the PA news agency.
“It would just be totally amazing to get to number one just to reach all those people, and to meet people that have really suffered this year.”
Producer of the single Jeremy Millington told PA that a woman who took part in the video, whose father passed away from Covid-19, said she felt that the song enabled her to “unlock my bereavement and the depth of my emotions”.
Mr Millington, a professional musician, told PA: “There’s been so much happening, and all of these locked-down funerals… in a way, people’s emotions have been locked down.
“If it stands as an unlocking of people’s feelings at the end of this terrible year, then that would be stunning.”
Ms Harris performs as part of her local choir in Wells, Somerset, and was asked to join the project by Mr Millington along with local schoolchildren and singers.
“It’s got beautiful photos of people who have died this year through Covid, and it was just really a way of honouring their loved ones,” Ms Harris told PA.
“There’s some kids that are all from the local school, about six kids that sang orchestrally in the background, the girl, the 14-year-old is the producer’s child, she’s singing at the beginning.”
The video has notched up more than 44,000 views on YouTube, and has received celebrity attention, with Stephen Fry calling the project “immensely touching”.
“We have had a huge outpouring of of support and love for it and an awful lot of comments,” Mr Millington told PA.
“In a way, I felt like the most appropriate Christmas Number One this year would be a slightly more solemn memorial of all the tens of thousands of people we’ve lost.
“I wanted to allow people to stop on Christmas Day. It’s going to be such an awful day for so many people this year… wouldn’t it be like a minute’s silence, just to stop at four o’clock, whatever time the charts come out, and remember?”
Proceeds from the single, which can be purchased from Apple Music, will go to charities Mind and Cruse Bereavement Care.
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