I wouldn’t normally post two days in a row, and I don’t often play just one song, but I’ve been moved to do both by a story I read in the paper this morning. You may recall that the singer-songwriter Lewis Capaldi was one of those I featured in my recent post Musicians And Health Revisited, which was an updated version of something I wrote about how musicians could be affected by health issues. Lewis has been diagnosed with Tourette’s and has taken it on head first, with some wonderfully funny lines in interviews as he says the first thing that comes into his head. In that piece I played two of his songs: the first was Before You Go, which was his response to his aunt’s suicide, and the second was his huge breakout hit, Someone You Loved. Both are heartbreakingly beautiful, and his voice is so well suited to that type of song – you can really feel his pain. His new album is coming out in a couple of weeks, and three of its tracks have already been released: one of them came straight into the UK Singles chart at #1 two weeks ago, and that was the focus of the news story that I read. The video for the song has been causing quite a stir on social media, where many people have been commenting about how it reduced them to tears. I have the album pre-saved in my Apple Music library so I knew the song, but hadn’t seen the video before. So I watched it, thinking that perhaps people were over-reacting.

This is the video:

Wish You The Best actually has a positive message, as he is wishing someone well after they have parted ways, but the video takes it to another level altogether. The way it tells a story with no additional words spoken, the performances of the two actors and, most of all, the little dog all combine in what for me is probably the best new music video I have seen in ages. I must admit to being a little sceptical when I began watching that, as I didn’t expect it to cause any reaction in me, but it is just so beautifully done. And the song is great, too. Having watched it, I now understand why it has prompted so many comments and yes, it had that effect on me too. How about you?

I have often said that I love music for many reasons, one of which is the emotional impact it can engender in us. This song and video are, for me, just about perfect in the way they do that.