Posted by In one fell swoop Jackie Weaver became the most famous person on UK social media.
When a local meeting went awry, her cool and measured manner won her acclaim across the country.
Since then she’s been interviewed on high profile news shows, while cultural criticism by the acre has followed her every tweet.
Electronic artist Helefonix decided to get in touch, and invited Jackie to take part in a remote session.
Remarkably, she agreed – and even more remarkably, we’re about to premiere the results.
Yes, Jackie Weaver has vocal’d a left-field electronic jammer, with her voice interweaving around the electronic tapestries of Helefonix.
Real name Helen Meissner, Helefonix tells Clash…
“Having started making music last summer, initially as MidLifeMix and now as Helefonix, at the grand old age of 54, it’s fair to say that I am not the most qualified person to approach a living legend and ask if she’d like to collaborate with me on a pop song! But if you don’t try…?”
“At this point last week I had no idea how my idea would go down. I didn’t think it would even get to the stage of talking to her about it. However, Jackie was responsive to a tweet I sent her, which wasn’t even about music. And it gave me the idea that if she was that engaged, and sounded like he had a great sense of humour, that she might be up for it. Astonishingly she was.”
“So I set about creating a track she would be happy to be associated with, and when she’d approved the demo (which she did immediately without any edits being required), we discussed how she would record her own vocals on her phone, using a guide lyric video I made for her and send them over for me to insert at the appropriate places! I then added my husband, accountant John Froggett aka singer Joe Rose, who kindly provided the voices of the male protagonists!”
“It all flowed so smoothly and has been really great fun. What’s more, we have a serious message to share here, about encouraging a more diverse range of candidates for the local elections which are coming up in May. Hence the ‘Make The Change’ lyric in the middle eight.”
For her part, Jackie Weaver tells Clash: “Not many women coming towards the end of their working lives have the opportunity to try something different – still feel true to their values and also feel safe. Helen offered me that opportunity and I took it!”
So: listen to ‘Jackie Weaver’s Kicked Him Out’ below.
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