{"id":5156,"date":"2017-05-24T16:01:53","date_gmt":"2017-05-24T16:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/?p=5156"},"modified":"2025-12-27T11:45:37","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T11:45:37","slug":"we-sing-a-single-song-for-manchester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/2017\/05\/we-sing-a-single-song-for-manchester\/","title":{"rendered":"We sing a single song: For Manchester"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>\u2018Singing louder, prouder now than cities twice the size, as twenty thousand voices strong, we sing a single song.\u2019 Two years ago Tony Walsh wrote and performed We Are Manchester for the twentieth&nbsp;anniversary of the Manchester Arena. Poetry commissioned for a different occasion takes on searing new significance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today, the performance poet <a href=\"https:\/\/longfella.co.uk\/\">Tony Walsh<\/a> read another poem. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk\/news\/greater-manchester-news\/tony-walsh-poem-manchester-vigil-13082050\">This Is The Place<\/a>, commissioned in 2013 by the charity Forever Manchester, expresses the spirit of a great city responding to the tragedy of lives lost and changed forever in a terrorist attack on the arena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"httpss:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/josaDi9ZBvE?ecver=1\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this reality, there are lines in both poems which are almost unbearable to read and yet each one brings comfort and hope in the indestructible goodness of the human spirit. You can hear that as the crowd in Manchester&#8217;s Albert Square responds to the deeply moving, humorous pride of place and character: \u2018northern grit, northern wit\u2026that Mancunian way to survive and to thrive\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Cities need arenas<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>But there is perhaps special poignancy in the rollicking lines of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.manchester-arena.com\/wearemanchester\/\">We Are Manchester<\/a>. A poem commissioned by Manchester Arena for 2015 celebrates a city\u2019s capacity for enjoyment along with&nbsp;that ability to survive and thrive. &nbsp;At the same time, it describes the&nbsp;particular significance of the arena in the urban centres of our age: &#8216;Cities need arenas. Arenas need a crowd.&#8217;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"httpss:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/aed2CDTX4x4?ecver=1\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As cities across the world pay tribute to Manchester, there\u2019s a special fellow feeling in&nbsp;other great music cities where arenas drawn crowds and bring new verve to life. Simple tweets of sympathy from Glasgow\u2019s SSE Hydro (capacity 13,000) and O2 Arena in London (capacity 20,000) where Ariana Grande is due to play this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The arena, in all these cities, is not just for music \u2013 it\u2019s for boxing, and games, and comedy: \u2018when twenty thousand people laugh, it makes the city shake\u2019. But it\u2019s music that casts a special magic, that unites&nbsp;all ages and lights&nbsp;young dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>It&#8217;s where we come together for those moments that we share<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>it\u2019s twenty thousand people with our arms held in the air<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>it\u2019s songs that sing a truth to us and nothing but the truth<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>it\u2019s twenty thousand spirits raised enough to raise &nbsp;the roof<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>For Manchester, for humanity, and above all for those young people whose lives were taken&nbsp;on Monday 22 May, we must never&nbsp;stop the music. Or as Tony Walsh told the crowd in Albert Square today<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Always remember. Never forget. Forever Manchester.<br>\nChoose Love.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Featured image&nbsp;Manchester Arena: photograph&nbsp;Andy Nugent: CC By-NC-ND 2.0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two years ago the poet Tony Walsh wrote and performed We Are Manchester for the twentieth anniversary of the Manchester Arena. Poetry commissioned for a different occasion now takes on searing new significance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":5169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[55],"class_list":["post-5156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5156"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17854,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5156\/revisions\/17854"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}