Aiden and co’s single hits top spot in charts
MUSIC 4 MEDICINE’S CHARITY SONG IN AID OF ÁRAS MHUIRE, ‘LEAN ON ME’, TOPS THE ITUNES CHARTS
THEY’VE hit their €5,000 goal and then some, and now Aiden O’Connor and all those who worked on the hugely successful ‘Music 4 Medicine’ project in aid of Áras Mhuire Nursing Home in Listowel can boast of having recorded a number-one song after their cover of Bill Withers’ ‘Lean On Me’ hit the top spot on the iTunes charts this past week.
All the money raised will go towards helping Áras Mhuire and other charity-run nursing homes purchase Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for their staff.
This newspaper covered the release of the song last week, but for those who may have missed it, the story behind it is simple:
Some of the hottest acts in Irish music pooled their very considerable music skills together to form a ‘supergroup’ to help raise funds for PPE for charity-run nursing homes.
Amongst just some of the high profile names and groups that have joined forces are The Frank & Walters; Jerry Fish; Delorentos; Columbia Mills; John Spillane; Hamsandwich; Mundy; The Riptide Movement and many more.
The idea was initiated by
Listowel man Aiden O’Connor, along with the help of Paul Linehan from The Frank and Walters.
Together, they recorded, filmed and released the brilliant cover, which went live for charity last week.
Since then, the song has gone further than anyone involved could have imagined – at the time of writing, it has been at the number-one spot for four days in a row – even keeping music megastar Lady Gaga and the likes of The Weeknd, BTS, Dua Lipa and Ariana Grande from top spot.
Speaking to The Kerryman about the unprecedented level of success, Aiden was keen to emphasise the team effort behind the song.
“The plan was that if we could get to number one for even one day, it’d be amazing but that was last lunchtime last Tuesday, and here we are now and we’re still there! It’s just amazing,” said Aiden.
“Every time I go to check it, I’m convinced that it’ll be gone but, no, it’s still plugging away up there.
“I think Lady Gaga is number one on iTunes in America and the UK, and she’s number three here or something. It’s quite the achievement,” he said.
Emphasising that he was only the one who initially thought of the idea, Aiden said that the real work was done by so many people behind the scenes in the mixing and mastering of the song.
He said that huge credit must go to Paul Linehan from the Frank and Walters, along with Michael Pixie O’Gorman, who Aiden said spent hours upon hours putting all the video footage together.