Candlelight “Lean on Me” #MKEsingalong to support health care workers planned this Saturday night by Wisconsin Conservatory of Music

There’s a stirring truth in what could be the unofficial anthem of the COVID-19 pandemic and its call-to-action lyrics through life’s most challenging times:

“Lean on me, when you’re not strong / And I’ll be your friend / I’ll help you carry on.”

The Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, a non-profit community music school based in Milwaukee, has chosen “Lean on Me” by the late Bill Withers for its third weekly “Milwaukee-Wide Window Sing-Along” Facebook event this Saturday at 8 p.m.

This week’s event will be a virtual candlelight vigil for the community to support physicians, nurses and other medical staffers and emergency responders on the front lines of COVID-19, who put their own health at risk to care for others. More than 100 healthcare professionals around the country have died treating patients with COVID-19.

The Conservatory invites Milwaukeeans and others, wherever they are, to safely light a candle or shine a light, and sing “Lean On Me”  — socially distanced at least six feet apart — to share love and gratitude for our healthcare workers.  Together, we can help them carry on.

Record a video, and post it via social media with the hashtag #MKEsingalong. Be sure to also post it on the official Facebook event page, “Milwaukee-Wide Window Sing-along,” so it can be more widely shared with our healthcare heroes. You can bookmark a reminder for yourself to participate by officially “joining” at the Facebook event page.

Conservatory faculty musicians chose the song, and laid down a moving “Lean on Me” instrumental track in a video invitation asking the community to join them:

https://youtu.be/-WSc2CoUyIw

The lyrics are on the Conservatory’s website, wcmusic.org.

“Lean on Me” is a ’70s song about love, but not romantic love, singer-songwriter Bill Withers explained in a 2006 interview with American Songwriter. Withers said his message was that pain and sadness are an unavoidable part of life, but we can lean on each other to make sadness bearable.

Withers — an 81-year-old, three-time Grammy Award winner — died March 30 from heart complications just as health care workers, choirs, and artists were beginning to post their renditions of his soulful “Lean on Me” through coronavirus.

Here’s the official “Milwaukee-Wide Window Sing-Along” Facebook event page:

https://www.facebook.com/events/2551496725111908/?event_time_id=2551496731778574

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.

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