The Year the Music Stopped
Seriously...
BBC
4.1 • 885 Ratings
🗓️ 29 October 2020
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For musician and poet Arlo Parks, 2020 was set to be massive. Festivals, a US tour. Then the world shifted. Her gigs were postponed, festivals cancelled. We watched Glastonbury's empty fields from our sofas where Arlo played, but only for the cows.
So instead, she did gigs online, put out new tracks to wide critical acclaim, wrote new music and published poetry on social media. Her thoughtful, intimate music has been the soundtrack to many people's life in lockdown. But still, live performing is on hold. Her fans, once singing her lyrics back at her at shows, feel very far away. She left a bit of her heart out there, on the road.
The Coronavirus pandemic has struck a huge blow to everyone involved in the music industry. While the world gets back to some kind of normal, Arlo explores what the psychological effect will be of a world with - for now - no live music in it. She asks other artists she admires like poet and hip-hop artist Kojey Radical, Ed O'Brien from Radiohead, Yannis Philippakis from the band Foals and indie singer songwriter Phoebe Bridgers, how they've dealt with the void. How have they managed the impact on their creative process and where do the silver linings lie? She asks them what lasting impact this time will have on their live performances once the world's venues are open for business again. And she connects with her fans, the people she can't wait to get back to see in the flesh, down in the auditorium.
Presented by Arlo Parks. Produced by Clare Salisbury for BBC Audio in Bristol.
Photo by Adrian Lee.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This was an impregnable fortress. The only way you get out was in a wooden box. |
| 0:05.0 | The controversial maximum security prison impossible to escape from. |
| 0:09.0 | And one of the duties of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.0 | The IRA inmates who found a way. of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.5 | The IRA inmates who found a way. |
| 0:14.5 | I'm Carlo Gableer and I'll be navigating a path |
| 0:19.5 | through the disturbing inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history. |
| 0:25.0 | The narrative that they want is that this is a big achievement by them. |
| 0:28.5 | Escape from the maze, listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:35.0 | BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
| 0:39.0 | Hi, I'm Riana Dylan, |
| 0:41.0 | and you're listening to another seriously great podcast from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:47.0 | For one hour we are sweat. |
| 0:50.7 | We are unbeautiful and electric blue. I don't know you. But for one hour we are completely together. We are not tired, we are not dark with the |
| 1:06.3 | personal because here is the music. Here are the limbs, here are the kisses behind the barrier, here is the sticky |
| 1:17.7 | heat. I feel it in my spine and my feet. |
| 1:23.0 | We are alive, we're alive with all of it, |
| 1:27.0 | and I promise we'll feel that way again soon. This is the story of a year which took an unexpected swerve for all of us and particularly for musicians like me |
| 1:48.8 | Festivals were cancelled our tours were postponed the glittering gig venues in towns and cities across the world closed. |
| 1:56.4 | Lied music has stopped for a little while. |
| 1:59.7 | COVID has struck a massive financial blow to the music industry and everyone who works in it. |
| 2:04.8 | This really matters. |
... |
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