Party members have just received this email from Lib Dem Chief Executive Chris Fox:
At our successful spring conference last weekend, a number of delegates came up to me to ask about the music they heard at the rally, opening each session and on the video before Nick’s speech. This music is called We’ll be the change that works for you and it has been specially prepared for the election. The more you listen to it the catchier it gets.
Following the positive comments we got at conference we wanted to make it available to members and supporters and I am delighted to say that it is now available via iTunes. There are a number of ways you can find it – if you go to the iTunes store and search any of the following, it’s in the top results:
The LD Community Choir (straight to track)
LD Community Choir (straight to track)
We’ll be the change
Change that works for you
Alternatively, there is a direct link using this URL (this will launch iTunes if you have it installed):www.itunes.co.uk/theldcommunitychoir
If you are trying to access the track and have not used iTunes before, this link should then show you how to download it.
We have prepared a number of different versions, but the one available here has a long instrumental introduction that can be used for a variety of campaigning events and it ends with the rousing chorus we all heard when Nick Clegg ended his speech on Friday.
Yours,
Chris Fox
Chief Executive, Liberal DemocratsPS Of course if enough of us all download it in the same week we might just creep into the charts! Please encourage friends and family to download this as proceeds go into the campaign fund.
Lib Dem Voice didn’t receive a review copy, so I’ve coughed up my 79p and downloaded my own legal copy.
It’s mostly a long instrumental, with a gospel-y chorus at the end:
We’ll be the change
We’ll be the change
We’ll build a fairer Britain and make a change for you
We’ll be the change
We’ll be the change
We’ll be the chaaaaaange that works for you
[One for a future edition of Liberator songbook?]
You can get a flavour of it from the video (below) that was shown before Nick’s keynote speech:
Also available on YouTube here.
Unfortunately the LDV team have just taken their ukuleles in for essential post-conference maintenance, but I’m sure our readers can record their own YouTube responses in a variety of genres.
(Sara Bedford’s hoping for a Big Band version; meanwhile Alex Foster senses it could be as big as the KPMG anthem)
24 Comments
Hey – I also wanted a version in the style of an English madrigal and also the thrash metal version …
Folks, don’t disappoint Sara now…
I’d enjoy seeing some interpretive dance
…I presume, however, that we are all going to freely share this file, and create as many derivative works as we have constituencies we are campaigning in?
Incidentally, the iTunes link doesn’t work for me as it seems to be prepended with “http://www.libdemvoice.org/www.itunes…”
Yes, the link fails; you have to enter the address as http://www.itunes.co.uk/theldcommunitychoir
Whereupon you get invited to install iTunes. No thanks, I already have at least 3 music players on my PC, why do I want more, especially ones designed to install restrictions? If it’s not available to download as a simple file I’ll do without.
Agree with David Wright, if I can’t download this without Apple’s bloatware, which I couldn’t install on my (linux running) PC if I wanted to, the campaign will have to go without my 79p.
Like the LibDems the link doesn’t work
Definite, definite miss. Sorry Chris!
Personally, now their keyboardist has joined us, I don’t see why we can’t just crack out “Things Can Only Get Better” (For You)
Miss, but not a bad campaign tune. I’ll geev et foive
Instantly forgettable corporate training video soundtrack music. Why didn’t the party commission Eno to write something?
As I said on Guido’s place:
“One for a future edition of Liberator songbook?” asks Helen Duffett (in jest, I hope). As the editor of that esteemed publication, I can assure everyone that I would rather have my retinas pierced with red-hot needles than publish the lyrics of such a diabolical piece of crap.
It sounds like someone went round to Argos, bought a cheap Casio synthesizer, programmed it to play random notes, then dubbed in the chorus from a TV ad for detergent.
Chris Fox claims, “The more you listen to it the catchier it gets.” Does he mean “catchier” in the sense of bubonic plague?
First aqua, then the anodyne election slogan, and now this. I despair.
Actually, I take it back, it is A Good Thing it’s only available in a Digitally Restricted format since at least Prater Raines won’t be allowed to auto-add it to all the Foci sites!
At least random notes might have produced an enduring work of art like Interstellar Overdrive though!
I concur with Simon. As my girlfriend has just said, I could fart a better song than that.
What I find amazing is that clearly Campaign HQ sat down, listened to this song (perhaps during a campaign strategy meeting) and thought it would be a good idea to release it to the general public. From this, I can conclude that no-one in our campaign team has ever heard of this thing called ‘music’. We really ought to start asking this sort of thing at interview.
Hey, Jedward are out of work. How about we ask them to release our next anthem? “Go back to your constituencies and stop up your ears”.
I have just lowered my direct debit to the party by 79p.
Thank you Simon for making sure this rubbish gets no where near the song book Tim Farron’s excellent piece from last Autumn Conference on the other hand.
I’ll have a look around for it online – as somebody else who runs GNU/Linux and can’t (and wouldn’t want to) install iTunes, it seems the best way to appraise the tune in its majesty.
The only thing I remember about the music at conference was that it wasn’t (for once) so loud I had to cover my ears. Must have been totally overlookable. There was, however, some very nice baroque type music afterwards while we were waiting to get out of the hall.
Hey, I just made most of the chorus into a ringtone for my iPhone, so it’s either a good song, or I’m one of the saddest people I know. Oh God. It’s the second one, isn’t it? Be kind to me, though.
I would buy a copy in a heartbeat… if there was a physical CD-Single.
My heart sank when I first heard there was a specially created song, and nothing written above or elsewhere has helped.
I just cannot bring myself to listen to it. Please tell me that someone somewhere did some rigorous in-depth testing that proved the words and/or tune will have a significant net positive impact on large numbers of potential supporters and wasn’t just a last-minute bright idea by some bubble-headed marketeer. (You could convince me – I have just about managed to persuade myself that that gormless slogan is actually a cunning weapon to blunt and blur the impacts of the Labour and Tory slogans!)
Just reassure me that the verses don’t begin with “Share and enjoy…”
“Please tell me that someone somewhere did some rigorous in-depth testing that proved the words and/or tune will have a significant net positive impact on large numbers of potential supporters “
They tried, but the results were tragic:
http://tinyurl.com/d24p8a
Escape by Craig Armstrong…stop being a bunch of WETS and get moving
You have one shot at this and you’re making a pigs ear of it so far
I sadly wasted a half hour downloading I Tunes, with the intention of being a good little party member and shelling out my 79p. Managed to avoid the d*mn thing sneaking Quicktime onto the computer as well and then was told that you could hear it (sort of), on the video shown at conference. Saved me 79p that did. I might of been tempted by a ring tone for the phone though. Trouble is, I doubt if you would notice the confounded phone was actually ringing!. Hey ho another happy half hour exterminating I tunes from the PC awaits.
Dave E.
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