Without music, life is unimaginable | thearticle

It is time for ABBA. It is, frankly, always time for ABBA, but it is especially time for ABBA in times like these. As with all great artists, from Shakespeare to Sondheim, the Beatles to

Jacques Brel, ABBA have something to say about everything. I speak here as someone who, as a Cambridge University modern languages student, wrote an essay on ‘the influence of 19th Century

French literature on ABBA lyrics.’ Pretentious, moi? Or was I, as my tutor assumed, _prenant le piss_, as we say? It was in this week forty-six years ago, April 6, 1974, that ABBA entered

all of our lives, literally exploding to global fame when winning the Eurovision song contest with “Waterloo”. But it is the lyrics of another great song that keep popping into my head, and

providing hope, comfort and inspiration, as one lockdown week rolls into the next … _Thank you for the music, the songs I’m singing,_ _Thanks for all the joy they’re bringing,_ _Who can live

without it, I ask in all honesty,_ _What would life be?_ _Without a song or dance what are we?_ _So I say,_ _Thank you for the music,_ _For giving it to me …_ True ABBA aficionados like me

will know it was first released on an album, funnily enough called “The Album,” in 1977, then as a B-side, (remember those) and was only released as a single in 1983. But I knew the first

time I heard it that it was going to become one of the great pop songs of all time. Indeed, as fellow students may recall, when the song was released half way through my time at Cambridge,

when I was 20, I immediately translated the lyrics into French and German and would boom them out drunkenly in my favourite pub, The Mitre. My French lyrics went as follows … _Merci pour la

musique, les chansons que je chante_ _Merci pour toute la joie qu’ils apportent_ _Qui peut vivre sans ça? Je demande en toute honnêteté_ _La vie que’est-ce qu’elle serait?_ _Sans une chanson

ou une danse qu’est-ce qu’on est?_ _Alors je dis, merci pour la musique_ _Pour me l’avoir donné_ For the German version, I had to change the lyrics slightly to get the three line rhyme…

_Ehrlichkeit, Zeit, bereit_… but I hope Abba will allow this adaptation … _Danke für die Musik, die Lieder die ich singe_ _Danke für all die Freude, die sie bringen_ _Wer kann ohne Musik

leben? Ich frage in Ehrlichkeit_ _Was wäre unsere Zeit?_ _Ohne Lied oder Tanz nicht bereit,_ _Also sage ich Danke für die Musik_ _Daß man es mir gegeben hat_ I was clearly ahead of my time,

because in 1980, ABBA released an album, _Gracias Por La Música_, with ten of their songs translated into Spanish, which was huge in South America, and stayed in the Spanish charts for 21

weeks (more than five times longer than I have already been in lockdown.) It included the title track, _Gracias Por La Música_, (easily understood I hope), but also _Fernando_, _Chiquitita_,

_Mamma Mia_, _Ring Ring_ (no translation required,) and _Reina Danzante_ (Dancing Queen,) _Estoy Soñando_, (I have a dream), and my favourite on the translation front, _Conociéndome,

Conociéndote_, (Knowing Me, Knowing You.) Check it out, it’s brilliant. Music really matters when life is tough. Exactly a month ago, in Italy, the first European country forced into virtual

lockdown by the coronavirus, an initiative was launched in Rome which swept the whole country. A Flash Mob organised by the brass collective Sonoro urged people to “open the windows, step

out onto the balcony and play together”. The next day, another flash mob event, _Mestolata Collettiva__, (_Ladle Collective), embraced that most primitive method of music-making, bashing

pots and pans. Many opted to sing the national anthem, _Il Canto degli Italiani_, which unlike ours is a wonderful song to sing and to listen to. But across the country everything from the 

_Macarena_ to _Imagine_ and _Ti Amo _to _Ode to Joy_ has rung out across rooftops. The_ New European_ recently did a wonderful piece on how Italians have often used music in crisis, showing

that, as ABBA said in Waterloo… _The history book on the shelf, Is always repeating itself._ We Brits are perhaps not as out there as the Italians, but music is definitely playing its part

in our response to this crisis. It is now a full four weeks since I decided, after Sport Relief, to limit my horizons to my house, and Hampstead Heath. Music, playing and listening, has

become a big part of my survival kit. I am working my way through every Motown song as I pound out the miles on the Wattbike. Elvis, Brel, Piaf and ABBA are getting their usual outings. My

bagpipes are being played daily, and for the first time in ages I am learning, and also writing, new tunes. One of them, _Our Neighbours, Our Nurses_, I will play again this evening when I

serenade our next door neighbour, Sissy Bridge, who is a nurse at the Whittington, as part of the now weekly Clap for Carers. A film of me marching her home from work a couple of weeks ago,

taken on my daughter’s phone after she urged me to go to the bottom of the road to greet Sissy, got millions of views and media calls and coverage from around the world. There seems to be a

yearning for music and kindness to neighbours. I will also play Highland Cathedral tonight, because I have been getting requests from people in the neighbourhood, and that is one of them.

And to Mr Jonathan Wheeler of Birstall, Leicestershire, who wrote to _The Guardian _asking if I was playing the pipes “to make music or to enforce social distancing,” I say three things

through the smile you inspired: 1. Bugger off. 2. Those who don’t like bagpipes have never heard them played well, or never listened. 3. My neighbours complain when I don’t play, not when I

do! I will also be playing a new tune, _Everyday Heroes_, which has been written by Martin Gillespie of the Scottish band, Skerryvore, to raise funds for NHS staff. He has gathered nineteen

of the best professional musicians in Scotland — and me! — to record in our own homes, reading from his score, then send our individual recordings back to be mixed by his Skerryvore

colleague Scott Wood. The result is a wonderful sound, mixing accordion, guitar, violin, bagpipes and drums, and a nice little film too. It will be released at 8:15 this evening, across

Skerryvore’s social media channels, and the video will be available on YouTube where there will be donate option with all proceeds going towards the NHS Charities COVID-19 Urgent Appeal. The

track will be available to buy, stream and download on all major platforms from midnight, with all proceeds from any digital downloads also going to the charity fund. All of the members of

Skerryvore took part, along with Innes Scott of Peat and Diesel, BBC Take the Floor Presenter and member of Mànran, Gary Innes, Robert Robertson of Tide Lines, Harry Richards of the Red Hot

Chilli Pipers, Skipinnish’s Angus MacPhail and Rory Grindly, Ian Smith and Seonaidh Macintyre from fellow Tiree band Trail West, Mhairi Wood of Skara. Oh, and me! Martin Gillespie said: “The

response and support from other musicians has been fantastic. Everyone worked so hard to turn the track around in days. Hopefully when we are through this crisis, we can perform the track

for NHS staff in person, but for now we hope they enjoy this tune written in their honour.” And I said: ‘To anyone who knows anything about traditional Scottish music, me playing with

Skerryvore, Skipinnish, Mànran, Peat and Diesel, Tide Lines, Trail West, Skara and the Red Hot Chilli Pipers is the musical equivalent of playing football with Maradona, Zola, Schmeichel,

Ginola, Mattheus, Desailly, Dunga and Figo… which I did, in Soccer Aid, though I never talk about, apart from every day.” Football and music. My life without them is unimaginable. At least,

though we may be without football right now, we always have music. May I remind you of the line which follows the opening line of _Estoy Soñando, _as the Spaniards and South Americans call

it… I have a dream, a song to sing To help me cope with anything…