Friday, April 20, 2007

The Zimmers

This was the most popular video on YouTube this past week. From the blog Firedoglake:

It all started when documentary filmmaker Tim Samuels was making a hard-hitting series for the BBC about the isolated and disenfranchised elderly in Britan titled Power To The People. He wanted to have a grand finale for his project by bringing together 40 of his subjects to record The Who's My Generation at Abbey Road studios in London to bring attention to their situation and blow some misconceptions of the elderly out of the water. U2's producer and Band Aid's video director jumped on board, the project gained momentum and the recording session went down:

They were then coached from around the country to the North London studios, where the single was painstakingly recorded between band members having to sit out sections due to treatment for various medical problems. One fainted in over-excitement before she even reached the studios.

Don't let that concern you, they all had a blast. Ninety-nine year old Winnifred Warbuton said the recording was "the best day in her life" and frontman Alf Carretta, 90, stated, "I feel like the whole experience has brought me back to life. I was stuck in a rut and now I feel alive again". The man flipping the bird at the end of the video is Britain's oldest working citizen Buster Martin, 100.


1 comment:

ProgressiveChurchlady said...

The transformative power of music! One doesn't have to be 90 to get stuck in a rut. Sometimes music--making it or listening to it--is one way to get out. Power to these people! No Eleanor Rigbys there!