It all start­ed with a set of pho­tographs of nurs­es on a Covid ward, tak­en by front­line work­er Han­nah Grace Deller. The work was shown on Grayson’s Art Club – a series pre­sent­ed by Grayson Per­ry on Chan­nel 4 – which Chris Dif­ford of Squeeze just hap­pened to catch. 

Chris was impressed by Han­nah’s work and it moti­vat­ed him to try and do some­thing for the front­line work­ers. He pulled togeth­er a team of writ­ers to cre­ate the 20-track album which he called Song Club. The album opens with an emo­tion­al and stir­ring sin­gle by Jessie Buck­ley and her band which is fea­tured here. The album is out on 23rd October.

The tracks are by an award-win­ning col­lec­tion of song­writ­ers includ­ing Nick Hey­ward, Gra­ham Gould­man, Beth Nielsen Chap­man, Mark Nevin and Kathryn Williams. Song Club is a fan­tas­tic way to cel­e­brate front­line work­ers and it doc­u­ments a poignant moment in time.

Dif­ford has said of the project: “Song­writ­ers have been in lock­down like every­one else and col­lec­tive­ly we have dark stages and an unsure future regard­ing live per­for­mances, so this has been some­thing to focus on by way of embrac­ing the amaz­ing work of the NHS and front­line work­ers. My aim is to doc­u­ment this strange time we are liv­ing in and I hope bring inspir­ing songs to the ears of many.” 

Work­ing On The Front­line is the first release from the album; it fea­tures Jessie Buck­ley and band, ‘Jessie and The Leonards’, writ­ten by Kate St John and Neill Mac­Coll and fea­tur­ing Han­nah Grace Deller. The song is a pow­er­ful rep­re­sen­ta­tion of life on the NHS frontline.

Neill and Kate said: “Work­ing on The Front Line is writ­ten from the point of view of a front­line NHS work­er, to con­vey some sense of the real­i­ty of what it’s like to work on a Covid ward. The inspi­ra­tion for the song came from the pho­tographs of hos­pi­tal work­ers tak­en by Han­nah Grace Deller, talk­ing to her about her own expe­ri­ences of work­ing as a nurse at St. Mary’s Hos­pi­tal.

Pro­ceeds of the Song Club go to (Roy­al Col­lege of Nurs­ing) RCN Foun­da­tion COVID-19 Sup­port Fund | www.rcnfoundation.org.uk
In total, the RCN Foundation’s COVID relat­ed activ­i­ties have, to date, sup­port­ed more than 2,800 indi­vid­u­als, pro­vid­ing more than £1,200,000 in grants to nurs­ing and mid­wifery staff. 

Song Club Tracklisting

1 Working On The Frontline – Jessie & The Leonards (featuring Hannah Grace Deller) 
2 For Us – Judie Tzuke 
3 Find a Way – Sara Douga & Gregor Philp 
4 Sunday – Julia Fordham 
5 Code Sunshine – Kimmie Rhodes 
6 Bittersweet – Komal 
7 Sick of the Sight of You – Bill Lloyd (featuring Beth Nielsen Chapman) 
8 We Can Breathe – Nick Heyward 
9 Invisible Smile – Beth Nielsen Chapman 
10 I See You – Graham Gouldman 
11 It Has To Be Done – Judith Owen 
12 If It Wasn’t For You – William Rees 
13 These Times.…Again – Robert Vincent 
14 Hope We All Deserve – Roisin Donald & Mairéad Carlin
15 Hannah Takes Pictures – Kathryn Williams 
16 Six Degrees – Hannah Grace Deller 
17 Save Us All – Jeff Goldford and Jeff Cohen
18 Rehashtag the World – Ruby Dew 
19 Still With You – Mairéad Carlin & Ronan Scolard 
20 All Ashore – Charlie Wood 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *