Musical comedy duo Sparrow-Folk usually play for laughs, but their latest project has a greater purpose – thanking frontline workers for their efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The project was completed in about three weeks. ‘Thank You’ was released on Monday 25 May alongside a video clip featuring members of the community including frontline workers and politicians from the ACT and Newcastle, where one half of Sparrow-Folk, Cathy Crowley, now lives.
“We knew we weren’t the only people who wanted to do more, so we reached out to our community to contribute and were flooded with responses,” Cathy said. “I think people just wanted to do something.”
The iso-filming project saw members of the community share short video clips featuring messages of thanks while frontline workers were also asked to contribute.
“We wanted to be able to highlight them in our film clip,” Cathy said. “We just wanted to show how grateful we are for those frontline workers. Some are doing amazing work and they are just inspiring.”
The video clips were compiled together by the other half of Sparrow-Folk, Juliet Moody, who is still based in Canberra. Because some submissions were filmed on different devices, Cathy said “there were some thank-you’s we couldn’t use because of technical difficulties” but “we will put them up on Facebook when we have the time”.
“We usually do comedy, but for this we decided to write a serious song to sincerely thank the frontline workers who are tirelessly working in our local community,” she said.
The song ‘Thank You’ was inspired by Cathy’s time in isolation after she had interacted with someone who might’ve had contact with COVID-19.
The experience made her think of those on the frontline. “I was desperate to do something that was more than writing a letter saying thank you,” she said.
Cathy penned the song and, with Juliet, “refined it together over Zoom with wine”.
“It’s had such good feedback. Lots of people are incredibly grateful and some have used it as a way to thank people they know,” Cathy said.
Meantime, Sparrow-Folk are also using this time to navigate creativity and the tyranny of distance.
“We are learning how to perform with each other across borders,” Cathy said. “It has been more of an exploratory time for us.”
