Background
At the beginning of April 2020, Samantha Hobbs - a member of Sophie Jugé's singing group 'The Songbirds', was thinking about the NHS. That made her think of all the other keyworkers and their demanding jobs. She decided that singing a thank you song to them would be a great way to raise awareness of the nation's appreciation, but she needed help! Nikki Kenward, another Songbird, helped her choose the perfect song: ABBA’s ‘Thank You for the Music’, and they set to work on new lyrics before Sophie Jugé and Lee Harris helped fit the lyrics to the song. Sophie and Lee created a backing track and vocal recording to encourage members of The Songbirds singing group and some of Sophie's singing students to video themselves singing it at home in lockdown. Sophie gave the singers 48 hours to learn, rehearse and record so that we could turn this project around very quickly. Sophie and Lee then undertook the mammoth task of editing 100 videos and 34 vocal tracks to create what you can now see and hear! We felt strongly that it was important to emphasise that this was very much a stay at home community project so editing was kept to a minimum. Most of the singers had never recorded themselves singing before so it was a huge effort from all involved.
We all had great fun doing this and are very proud of the result but we haven’t lost sight of the original aim - to get people to think about and thank all keyworkers especially those in less visible jobs that we sometimes take for granted.
If you could help us spread the word then that would be wonderful. We would love for this song to become the nation’s feel-good anthem during these unprecedented times.
We have already received great feedback from keyworkers who were moved by our lyrics that made them feel rightfully proud.
Click here to watch on YouTube
We all had great fun doing this and are very proud of the result but we haven’t lost sight of the original aim - to get people to think about and thank all keyworkers especially those in less visible jobs that we sometimes take for granted.
If you could help us spread the word then that would be wonderful. We would love for this song to become the nation’s feel-good anthem during these unprecedented times.
We have already received great feedback from keyworkers who were moved by our lyrics that made them feel rightfully proud.
Click here to watch on YouTube