Crowded House‘s Help Is Coming, with a new introduction by actor Benedict Cumberbatch (above), has been re-released to aid Save The Children‘s Refugee Crisis campaign.
Husband and wife, Q writer Pete Paphides and author and broadcaster Caitlin Moran, have organised the release – which is available to download now via iTunes – to raise money for the charity.
A limited seven-inch edition of the track, with an exclusive B-side, will also available from the end of the month (28 September), while a short film by Mat Whitecross about the crisis to accompany the song and introduction and can be watched now.
“I started imagining my family in a similar situation, and almost without me realising it, a song I hadn’t heard for several years started playing in my head,” explains Pete of his choice of song. “Help Is Coming was recorded by Crowded House over 20 years ago, but it evokes with uncanny empathy the howling uncertainty faced by thousands of families arriving in Europe for the first time.”
It was a sentiment shared by Crowded House’s Neil Finn, who allowed the song to be used for the campaign, explaining he was apt because had initially written it with refugees in mind.
“I am continually amazed and grateful for the mysterious pathways that songs can travel. You never know where they are going to turn up and when they will reveal their true nature,” he says of Help Is Coming’s second release.
“First recorded in 1995, quietly released in 1999 Help Is Coming has had a long journey to find a good home. It was always a song about refugees even if at the time I was thinking about the immigrants setting off on ships from Europe to America, looking for a better life for their families in America. There is such a huge scale and urgency to the current refugee crises that barely a day goes by without some crushing image or news account to confront us. We can’t be silent anymore. Like the diverse immigrants that made America great, these are good people that just want to find somewhere safe to create a better life for their families. I am grateful to Pete and Caitlin for imagining my song might resonate – and to Mat Whitecross for creating such a powerful film to accompany it. It’s an honour to be a part of a growing chorus of voices to create action and make it real… help is coming.”
