Charity record, bombs

Neil McCormick, the rock critic of the Daily Telegraph, has produced a charity single as a response to the London bombs. It should by critically panned.

'People I Don't Know Are Trying to Kill Me' certainly wouldn't pass muster with writers like himself in normal circumstances. McCormick wrote the song and sang it himself when he realised that it would take far too long to get together some big name vocalists.

The result is a 'song addressed to our terrorist enemies, posed as a series of hard questions about why they would attack fellow human beings they have never met'. Or to put it more accurately, a rather embarrassing lyric sung by someone whose vocal performances are usually reserved for the bath.

'If I showed you pictures of my child, if we spoke for a little while
Could you let me be?
Or is that bomb strapped to your chest blessed and primed for death
Or victory?'

It goes on.

'And when I'm turned to dust, will Allah or Jesus claim me?
And will the God of Love, welcome up above
Those who would maim me?'

McCormick says that he was spurred to record the song by his friend, U2 frontman Bono. 'This is a song that needs to be heard now', he told McCormick. The lesson to be learned is never ask your friends for their opinion, especially when you're clearly agitated about something. They'll be kind rather than honest.

Still, any song that rhymes 'claim me' with 'maim me' has got to be more entertaining than that Crazy Frog.

Bono told me: 'Your song needs to be heard now', Telegraph, 19 July 2005