These are trying times. There is a lot of confusion, uncertainty, and fear going on all over the world and everyone handles these feelings differently. One artist turns to music when he’s feeling lost or needs something to pick him up. This talented musician decided to share his gift with YouTube so that anyone else who deals with life through music could enjoy and hopefully escape for a while.
YouTuber and performer Stephen Ridley walks through an empty London metro station and sits down at a piano. There are pianos scattered all throughout London, but with the spread of the virus, most have been padlocked or closed up. Stephen managed to find one that police had forgot about.
Before he even begins to play he does what any sensible person going through this would do and sprays the space with disinfectant.
He wipes down the keys and then he sits down and removes his mask. Stephen opens with the beginning lines of “Let it Be”, but breaks into a different Beatles song- “Imagine”.
There are a lot of inspiring lyrics in the song, which is part of the reason that he chose it. His soft voice fills the empty station and the piano chords echo through halls. Though he’s singing to lift people’s spirits, there is a haunting aspect to the performance, since the location is usually bustling with people.
You really start to feel the weight of his words when he changes the lyrics and sings “Imagine there’s no illness/it isn’t hard to do/nothing to stay inside for/and no mass media too” before breaking into one of the main lyrics of the whole song “Imagine all the people, living life in peace…”
By the time the chorus comes around, you can tell that he is feeling more passionate and really getting into the song.
As he pounds the chords of the song out he continues to sing “You may say I’m a dreamer/but I’m not the only one/I hope someday they’ll join us/and the world will be as one”.
As he repeats the last line of the chorus again he truly shows off his talent by dragging out the word world. Then he nearly whispers the last few words of the song, a tactic to make you really feel the impact of his words and the meaning of the song.
Just when you think the lonely performance is over he begins the song “Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong. A song that fits well into the tone he’s trying to create. “I see trees of green/red roses too/I see them bloom/for me and you/and I think to myself/what a wonderful world”.
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