‘Belfast’ will be rereleased in a new version with a new third verse on 24th Sept 2013. All profits from donwloads will go to my favourite charities in Belfast – ClicSargent and Wave Trauma Centre. Please follow the link to buy the download – and please be generous.
Joby Fox, Belfast-based singer/songwriter and film maker is releasing a new version of his former hit ‘Belfast’, on 24th September 2013, at the Europa Hotel, Belfast. The song has for many become an unofficial anthem for the city. First written in 1979, and now rerecorded 34 years later with a new verse. Reaching back to that 17 year-old boy, Joby Fox is now reflecting on his own journey and that of his city.
“I recall meeting the son of a reverend from the Shankill Road through the local music scene back in the 1970s. We formed a friendship that has lasted till this day. Belfast was a polarised city; you were either or in those days. Today thankfully, most people that I know have transcended the labels that they were given or had taken on.”
34 years later Joby has now rerecorded ‘Belfast’ with a new third verse. “We have come a long way together” he writes.
Joby says, “The ‘flag issue’ had just kicked off and it seemed that we needed to be reminded, that ‘we have come a long way together’. The only way we are going to find peace is together. We have shared the same dark space for so long. Only we know the blinding truth and what it takes to move on.”
When he wrote the first lines of ‘Belfast’ Joby Fox was, as he proclaims, a 17 year-old West Belfast corner boy, but also a bass player in a new wave /punky band called ‘The Bankrobbers’. On his way home one night from his girl friend’s he passed a riot which had just been dispersed and the smoke of sulphur from rubber bullets fire was still hanging in the air. “Belfast, you are like heaven, you are like hell” he thought. When he got home that night he wrote ‘Belfast’.
10 years later it got to number 52 in the British charts and number 1 in Ireland with his 90′s band “Energy Orchard.”
‘Belfast’ is available from www.jobyfox.com. All the profits from the online download sales fittingly go to the registered charities Wave Trauma Centre and Clic Sargent.