Hope, faith and clarity

In this age of media saturated, computer driven conflicts, the realities of warfare have become more and more reduced to sanitised phrases and reams of statistics. Consider this for a moment, though. In the 20th century, 60 million people were killed through warfare. 80% of these were civilians and the majority of these were women and children. In the past decade alone, 1.5 million children have died, 4 million disabled and a further 10 million traumatised through military conflict. It’s numbers like these that led to the formation of the War Child charity ten years ago.

Although the charity has a history of undertaking long term projects in war zones all over the globe, its profile has been highest through its work with the music industry and especially a series of star studded records to raise immediate funds for emergency situations. In 1995, the Britpop elite turned around the Help album for the Balkans in the matter of a few days. Now the Hope album for Iraq has emerged in a comparable manner, as War Child’s James Toppin explains.

“It was very similar. It was quite a similar timescale, except we didn’t record it all in one day,” he says. “Due to the nature of the project we didn’t have the luxury of a three month lead in, we basically had to do it now. From the initial idea to the completion of the record it was something like three or four weeks.

“We started off approaching people but after a while they started coming to us, which is how you know that you’ve got a successful record. It was just one of those things where people wanted to do something. It was the one subject on everybody’s mind and obviously the best thing they do is to make music so we gave them a handy way of doing that”.

It’s a cause that has inspired some of the brightest and the best – from Paul McCartney and David Bowie to Blue’s Lee Ryan and Avril Lavigne – to come up with a mixture of timely covers and thoughtful originals. A varied bunch they are too, taking in a wider musical remit than before. “Help and One Love were very much guitar band records, but I didn’t really want this one to be that exclusive,” explains Toppin. It’s more than just the hotpress or NME readership who are interested in this and it was good to have a much more varied approach this time. Obviously the financial aspect was a major consideration as well”.

The result is an album that places the protest songwriting of Billy Bragg and Tom McRae next to the dance of Beverley Knight and Basement Jaxx, something that could only really happen on a charity album. Likewise, Avril Lavigne’s cover of ‘Knocking On Heaven’s Door’. “That was a bit of a coup,” Toppin admits. “War Child Canada are doing a similar record, which is most of our one with a few Canadian artists added to it, and they got her to say she’d do it. Our deadline was fast approaching and she actually finished it eight hours before the final cut began.” Lavigne herself was delighted to be involved. “I have high hopes that the suffering little bodies will somehow be relieved,” she says. “It kills me that innocent hearts have to suffer”.

Given their track record for tardiness between albums, New Order are not exactly the kind you’d expect to rush into the studio, yet their cover of Jimmy Cliff’s ‘Vietnam’ is one of the album’s highlights. “As a parent I don’t think that the question would have to be asked twice,” says Peter Hook. “Adults always pick their politics but children have it thrust upon them and they are the ones who end up being maimed or killed for it. It’s horrible to see in the aftermath of any war – Vietnam, Afghanistan or any one – that it is the children who suffer the most.”

So were there any creative criteria for the album? “It was more to do songs that they felt reflected their feelings towards the situation”, says James, “whether that was write your own or if there was a particular song that you wanted to cover. It turned out that there were quite a lot of new songs”.

Despite the nature of a lot of the material (especially Travis’ ‘Beautiful Occupation’), James doesn’t see it as a political record: “I don’t think it’s a political album at all, because children transcend politics. It was never meant to be a specifically anti-war record; it’s for the children of Iraq. It’s pro-peace rather than anti-war. I think if we’d wanted to do an anti-war record we’d have had to get it out two months ago. It would be a bit late to put it out now. Regardless what you think about war, when it happens children suffer.”

Of course, with the fighting all but over, the album has emerged at a time when people’s thoughts are turning more to the humanitarian nature of the crisis. “Let’s hope so,” James says. “It seems it’s becoming that way already. Once people start getting better access into Iraq and the security improves, the reality of what happens to children will unfortunately become much clearer”.

What is certain is that this is not a problem that is not going to go away. Long after the soldiers have gone, long after the media have packed up and moved on to the next global crisis, the children of Iraq are still going to be feeling the effects of this particular quest for justice. Fortunately for them, the people of War Child are going to be there to help them on their painful journey.