Music Doing Good

A blogging friend of mine, Jill, posts a piece every Wednesday that she calls Good People Doing Good Things. If you haven’t seen it, here’s a link to yesterday’s, which is the usual collection of great things being done to help others. She has given us many examples over the years of selfless acts like these, but I’m taking a slightly different route. Regular readers will know that I’m a big fan of Lewis Capaldi and his music: I’ve written about him several times. Like most artists, he produces videos to support his records – mostly his singles but also some album tracks – and he often makes several for the same song: I have featured a couple that he has done for his song Wish You The Best, for example, and there are many more like that, including a lot of lyric videos in the languages of other countries. You may have seen some of these, but did you know that he has put some of his tunes to use as the background to stories of good people doing good things?

Over the past eighteen months five of his songs have been the backdrop to such stories, and I thought it might be nice to share them with you and tell you a little about the people he is supporting. Early warning: you may need a tissue or two handy.

The first of these was published in November 2022 and used his song Forget Me to tell the story of a young woman called Shell Rowe:

As the film shows, Shell is a talented filmmaker who is building a career for herself despite her cancer diagnosis at just 20. The YouTube page mentioned in the video appears to have been short-lived – just six videos, five of which can be found in this playlist, and this is the missing one: the first in the series. But there is something joyful about the clips in Lewis’ video that makes you want to be in Shell’s corner, isn’t there?  It seems that most of her social media activity has been on TikTok since then: this is the link to her page there, with 842k followers and 61m ‘likes’ – impressive! Her engaging and bubbly personality is great to see. The fundraiser shown in the video can be found via the Teenage Cancer Trust, here, and the page includes a link for donations if you want to get involved – it never closes.

This next story, which was published in March 2023, is a real tearjerker with an amazingly uplifting result:

The juxtaposition of the lyric “everything is pointless without you” with the contrast of how people have to rebuild and continue their lives after something as devastating as the loss of a baby is incredibly powerful. Rob Allen, whose story is the basis for the video, has become a Patron of the charity Sands, in addition to the work he has done in helping to set up those Sands United football teams, which have helped bring men together in a way that they have probably never experienced before. The Sands website is full of information to help people bereaved in this way, and it is a remarkable organisation. On their site they say “Sands was founded by bereaved parents in 1978 who found that there was no access to support following the deaths of their babies. Since then Sands has grown, but parents who have experienced baby loss are still at the heart of everything we do.”  They share the frightening statistic that every day in the UK 13 babies are lost just before, during or shortly after birth. I cannot imagine anything more awful, and I applaud everyone involved in their work – and Lewis, for publicising it.

This next one was released in May 2023, and is based around Lewis’ song Haven’t You Ever Been In Love Before? It’s another beauty:

The Nick in that story is a guy called Nick Hardman. Quite a lot is told in the video about what he has been doing, but if you’d like to know more take a look at the 3D Toy Shop website. The sheer range of toys that they make is breathtaking, and some of the testimonials from parents are simply wonderful.

This one has the ‘aah’ factor, as it features people doing things to protect and care for cute little animals:

Sandra’s story, based around Lewis’ song Strangers, was released last month. Hope For Hedgehogs, the charity that Sandra has set up, provides care for sick, injured, and orphaned hedgehogs in Gateshead and surrounding areas in the north east of England. They do this in line with current professional guidance provided by The British Hedgehog Preservation Society and The Vale Wildlife and Rehabilitation Centre, which goes to show how seriously they take their concern for these dear little creatures. Their 77% success rate at rehabilitation is admirable and I hope they can raise it still further.

The final one of these videos that has been released to date came out last week. It tells another inspiring story:

The song in that one is A Cure for Minds Unwell, which I think is a good fit for Naima Ben-Moussa’s story. She has taken her own awful experiences and turned them into a force for good: Rebuilding Lives UK, the charity she has set up, is dedicated to helping vulnerable women and children rebuild their lives after experiencing abuse and violence. They do this by providing security solutions to at-risk women and children, and also renovate the inside of homes to remove the traumatic signs of abuse, thereby helping survivors move forward with hope. If you’d like to find out more about them here is their website. 

I’ve said before that I think Lewis Capaldi is an inspiring young man, with the way he has coped with his own mental health issues and his Tourette’s, and I think it Is wonderful that he is using the platform he has created with his music to help lower profile people who are equally deserving of our admiration and support.

On a musical footnote, all of the tracks here are on his second album, Broken by Desire to Be Heavenly Sent: the first three were on the album’s original release in May 2023, the last two were among five new ones added to a deluxe version that came out on 1 January of this year. Both that and his first album, Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent, are superb records, and I recommend them. And anyone who is using his own fame to help others is a good guy in my book.