Crowded House Release ‘Help Is Coming’ to Benefit Save The Children for the Refugee Crisis

This beautiful song is available as a limited edition 7-inch single and download, and proceeds benefit Save The Children to help in their efforts to provide aid during this ongoing refugee crisis. You can read more about their campaign. For those wondering about the song itself, it is from their b-side album Afterglow, released in 2011. The video is by Mat Whitecross with an introduction by Benedict Cuberbatch.

Download the single to donate to Save The Children and show your support. All proceeds will go to help thousands of refugee children in need of food, safe water, medicine, shelter and psychological support. The 7″ single includes an exclusive previously unreleased b-side “Anthem” with new artwork by Crowded House’s bass player Nick Seymour. All entities (the band, Apple, Universal Music Group and producers) are donating their royalties and all proceeds to the cause.

DOWNLOAD SINGLE FROM iTUNES | ORDER LIMITED EDITION 7-INCH VINYL

DONATE FROM THE UK or INTERNATIONALLY | DONATE FROM THE U.S.
NOTE: Above links go directly to the Save The Children official site.

Additional background from the press release:
Like the rest of the nation, the broadcasters/writers Caitlin Moran and Pete Paphides were saddened and angered last week by the images of three-year-old Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi and his brother Galip.

Pete Paphides “I started imagining my family in a similar situation, and almost without me realising it, a song I hadn’t heard for several years started playing in my head. Help Is Coming was recorded by Crowded House over 20 years ago, but it evokes with uncanny empathy the howling uncertainty faced by thousands of families arriving in Europe for the first time. The following day, I contacted friends at The Vinyl Factory — a label that owns the old EMI pressing plant in Hayes — with a view to manufacturing a seven-inch single with all the proceeds going to Save The Children. They responded immediately, offering to waive all their manufacturing costs.”

Caitlin Moran “The day after the pictures of three-year-old Alan Kurdi went around the world — it was like a switch had been flicked. My social media timelines were full of people who just could not stay inactive any more; who were exasperated with the lack of governmental action. There were people posting up Amazon wish lists of tents, sleeping bags, clothes; people hiring vans to drive down to Calais; people organising libraries, and soup kitchens. People doing that brilliant, simple, ageless human thing: of wanting to help other people. Whilst committees convene and resolutions are published and squabbles break out between this government and that, normal people just become very practical: they roll up their sleeves, and say: “Right. if I’d just fled my country with my family, what would I need? Shelter, food, and clothing. maybe some books, for the kids. Let’s get started now.” So, Pete and I were just doing what everyone else was doing, really. He’d found the perfect song — Help Is Coming, about refugees on their way to Ellis Island, with “Empires crumbling” behind them — and I just went on Facebook and told everyone what we were doing. And everyone was desperate to help — everyone felt the same way.”

Neil Finn “I am continually amazed and grateful for the mysterious pathways that songs can travel. You never know where they are going to turn up and when they will reveal their true nature. First recorded in 1995, quietly released in 1999 Help Is Coming has had a long journey to find a good home. It was always a song about refugees even if at the time I was thinking about the immigrants setting off on ships from Europe to America, looking for a better life for their families in America. The words of the poem inscripted on the Statue of Liberty are an extraordinary statement of intent for the development of a great nation ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.’

There is such a huge scale and urgency to the current refugee crises that barely a day goes by without some crushing image or news account to confront us. We can’t be silent anymore. Like the diverse immigrants that made America great, these are good people that just want to find somewhere safe to create a better life for their families. I am grateful to Pete and Caitlin for imagining my song might resonate — and to Mat Whitecross for creating such a powerful film to accompany it. It’s an honour to be a part of a growing chorus of voices to create action and make it real… help is coming.”

HelpIsComing.org | Save The Children – Child Refugee Crisis Appeal | Neil Finn | Crowded House