Last night, at the historic Hard Rock Café in London, the venue hosted a unique and extremely exciting event in support of the charity, War Child UK, with the stunning ‘Songs of War’ songwriting competition.

The ‘Songs of War’ songwriting competition, organised and hosted by Laura Westcott of Sound Cheque and sponsored by Hard Rock Cafe London in partnership with BASCA, SYNCR Music and Virgin Radio. The competition was launched to inspire the UK music community in commemorating the centenary of WW1, while shining a spotlight on the need to support children forced to live with the brutality of today’s conflicts.

Over 500 songwriters applied and the winner was chosen by a panel of music industry heavyweights including: Dave Stewart (Eurythmics), Joss Stone, Mike Rutherford (Genesis), Jeremy Vine, Eddy Temple-Morris, Sunta Templeton (Radio X), Nicky Bignell (Head of Music BBC), Crispin Hunt (BASCA Chairman), John Giddings, Chris de Burgh and more.

The winning song, ‘Dear God’, was introduced by war photographer and author of ‘Under the Wire’, Paul Conroy, portrayed by Jamie Dornan in the recently released film ‘A Private War’. Paul, also a songwriter, wrote the war-themed song ‘Take Good Care’ for Joss Stone and Dave Stewart and provided his war photography for the competition.

The competition winner, 22 year-old Megan from Liverpool said: “I wrote ‘Dear God’ in December of 2016 to summarise my feelings about the state of the world. I felt — and still feel — strongly about what I wrote. ‘Songs of War’ fell into my lap, and I had to take the chance of applying. When I found out I won, I was beyond thrilled. I can’t really put into words how honoured and excited I am to be able to hopefully positively impact people’s lives through my music by supporting War Child.”

Paul Conroy said: “I use music as a way to relax and let the creative juices flow when I’m not in the field. For me there have always been two aspects to music:- making it, and then, getting it heard.
This competition offers anybody with music in their soul an amazing opportunity to get their music heard by an incredible panel of judges with an equal passion for music.”

The winner, Megan of Grey Areas, performed alongside others in a supremely talented line up comprised of James Walsh (Starsailor), Samuel Jack, Lucy Spraggan and finally Jack Savoretti, who closed the night, all of whom were there in support of such a tremendous charity doing important, noble work. The result was an emotive and exceptional night of talent in aid of something truly important.

Photos Courtesy of ©HardRockCafeLondon

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George Millington

Journalist at Contact Me

George Millington is a music journalist and reviewer situated in central London. He does not write about a single genre but rather the commercial music industry as a whole. His first album was by The Beatles, which he purchased secondhand from a charity shop in his neighbourhood.

He discovered the gem when he was 12 years old and still has it now, claiming it to be why he fell in love with music. He likes to play disc golf when he's not writing about music. He is a one-of-a-kind individual who is always the first to bust out his air guitar on the dance-floor.

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