Eric Clapton and Van Morrison release an anti-lockdown song that nobody asked for

Look, we get it. This is the longest month of March we’ve ever experienced. We’re all done with the pandemic. But the pandemic isn’t done with us. In Canada alone, there were over 5,600 new cases of the novel coronavirus reported yesterday, bringing the total number of cases in Canada to over 356,000. In this second wave, numbers are going up. We need to stay in lockdown. Now is not the time to --- oh great, Eric Clapton and Van Morrison have released an anti-lockdown song. Great chat, guys.

Entitled “Stand and Deliver,” proceeds from the single will benefit Morrison’s Lockdown Financial Hardship Fund, with an aim to help struggling musicians facing financial hardship as a result of the closure of live music. Okay, on the surface, that sounds like a great idea. We need to protect the arts and artists so they can survive and thrive beyond quarantine.

But Van Morrison has already released three anti-lockdown songs this year, and a quick look at them reveals some pretty dangerous thinking that could put vulnerable people at risk for contracting the virus, spreading it, and even losing their life.

In October, he released the song “As I Walked Out” that has these troubling lyrics: “Well, on the government website from the 21st March 2020/It said COVID-19 was no longer high risk/Then two days later/They put us under lockdown.”

Later that same month, he released, “No More Lockdown” (I mean, the title has it all) with these awful lyrics: “No more lockdown/No more government overreach/No more fascist bullies/Disturbing our peace/No more taking of our freedom/And our God given rights/Pretending it’s for our safety/When it’s really to enslave.”

Morrison also said in a statement that he has been lobbying hard every day “for the return of live music” (aka super-spreader events). Eric Clapton, for his part, has only said that he worries “Live music might never recover” (rather than worrying whether or not people on ventilators will recover, but we digress…), but as some eagle-eyed music fans pointed out on social media, Eric Clapton has a long and storied past of being on the wrong side of history. Thus, no one right now really trusts him.

This tweet is specifically referring to the horrible rant Clapton uttered on stage in 1976, when he reiterated fascist alt-right propaganda, like “keep Britain white” and insisting that all foreigners and people who aren’t white leave Britain. The concert Rock Against Racism launched as a counter to Clapton’s inflammatory remarks.

Eric clapton going to put out a pro open windows in nurseries song next

— Whale Appreciator (@TheWhaler) November 27, 2020

In any case, Clapton and Morrison’s collab will be available for download and streaming from iTunes, Amazon Music, Deezer and all other outlets on December 4^th. But washing your hands and staying 2 metres apart from everybody is free, every day, all day, forever.

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