Press
November 15, 2005
Billy Bragg single release follows Culture Online project
A charity record has stormed the British singles chart, following a Culture Online project designed to provide a voice to people with long-term and terminal illness.
We Laughed is a unique and inspired collaboration between Billy Bragg and Maxine Edgington, a woman living with cancer based in Dorset. Maxine wanted to write a song that celebrated her close relationship with her daughter, Jessica.
Maxine took part in the Rosetta Requiem project funded by Culture Online, part of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The project teamed up established songwriters and filmmakers with hospice users so that they could create songs and short films. The project, run by the charity Rosetta Life, helps people with life-threatening illnesses to create works of art, which are then shared with other hospice users, via the internet and videoconferencing.
Billy Bragg said: “When her condition was diagnosed in November 2004, Maxine’s thoughts turned immediately to how she would be remembered, particularly by her fifteen year old daughter, Jessica. Determined that Jess should have positive memories of her after the grieving was over, Maxine commissioned a professional photo shoot that produced beautiful images of mother and daughter smiling together, looking as if they had not a care in the world.
“This was how she wanted to be remembered. As Maxine says ‘Cancer is terrible, but at least it gives you the chance to put things right with those you love’. One of these photos, which can be seen on the cover of this CD, was to be the inspiration for Maxine’s song. Over the following weeks, she wrote reams of words, pouring her feelings out onto the page. My job was to take the words that best expressed the sentiments in the photograph and shape them into a song. I provided the melody, but the words are Maxine’s alone. She called the song We Laughed.”
Calls for the song to be released followed Maxine and Billy’s interview on BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine Show earlier this month.
Claire Harcup, commissioning executive for Culture Online, said: “Maxine’s story is incredibly moving and the song has touched everyone who has heard it. We all at some stage have to come to terms with loss in our lives and I know that Maxine’s song will be an inspiration to many. The Rosetta Requiem project is a celebration of life rather than a commemoration. It’s about sharing stories, emotions and artistic expression at a time of heightened emotional awareness.”
We Laughed is released today through Cooking Vinyl. Details of the making of the song and further information about the Rosetta Requiem project can be found at: www.rosettarequiem.org. Profits from the sale of the record benefit the hospice movement.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: please call Rob Partridge/Janine Warren at Coalitioin PR on 020 8987 0123, firstname@coalititongroup.co.uk, or Graham Thomas at Culture Online on 020 7487 7215, graham.thomas@culture.gsi.gov.uk.