We Will Not Go Down

Well, despite illness this week I've got my blog on time, well In a sense. I heard the beginning of this song in a video made by an activist/socialist group Éirígí. The video was an awareness video, about the war in the Gaza Strip over the past three weeks and the song was about the same events. I would have blogged about this in previous weeks, but only discovered the Artist and track title, and thus the song, over this past week. I'm not going to share my political beliefs on the matter. To read that I suggest heading to "The Grumpy Blogger", my other blog which has become my space for political ranting. It can be found at:

http://whatsachris.blogspot.com

Anyway back to matters at hand. The song is called "We Will Not Go Down (Song for Gaza)", and it is composed by Michael Heart, A syrian born Singer songwriter, raised in Switzerland and Austria, and has lived in the Middle East and the United States. Now that is diversity.

This song was written in early January of this year (2009) while the horrific events where still unfolding. In this sense you can hear some places, where given more time, one may have spent a little longer perfecting lyrically. However the purpose of this song originally was for sale to raise funds for the aid that was desperately required by the people of Gaza. So the little inperfections where left alone, and maybe are a better reflection of the mans real feelings. Anyhow I was instantly drawn to this song by only hearing the first verse in an activist video, and having heard the full song, learnt to play it on my Guitar within the day. I was driven to it.

This is the third artist in a row that I have said this about, but again, I haven't heard much of this mans stuff, and so this is as much a note for me as it is for you. The song is available for free download at Michael Heart.com, however there is a simple request from the man himself

"I have decided to make the song available free of charge. I would like to request that after downloading the song from this page, you kindly donate directly to a charity or an organization dedicated to alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people" - Michael Heart

His Charity of choice is UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency, for Palestine Refugees in the Near East). If you know of any other charity then that is also fine. I for one donated, and continue to donate to Trócaire an Irish based Charity.

http://www.un.org/unrwa/
http://www.trocaire.org/

Back to the music, this is simple, no frills songwriting, and it is more than inspiring. It is beautiful. I hope that you all enjoy it just as much as I do

http://www.michaelheart.com