Olivia Rodrigo Drops Heart-Melting Music Video Filmed by Children in Gaza & Other War Zones
The singer covered "The Book of Love" for the Help(2) charity album.
Olivia Rodrigo
Olivia Rodrigo‘s latest music video definitely strikes a chord, shining a light on the lives of today’s children in areas affected by war.
Posted Friday (March 6) on Instagram, the visual pairs with the pop star’s cover of The Magnetic Fields’ 1999 song “The Book of Love,” which she recorded for War Child Records’ new charity album, Help(2). As Rodrigo’s gentle voice sings the moving lyrics over subtle strings, footage captured by children in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine and Yemen stitch together on screen.
The clips show how all of the kids find pieces of normalcy in the chaos — running around and playing games with each other in open fields, roads covered in rubble and other settings affected to differing degrees by the upheaval in their countries.
The video comes the same day that Help(2) dropped. The album features recordings from Arctic Monkeys, Damon Albarn, Depeche Mode, Arlo Parks, Beabadoobee, Big Thief, Fonatines D.C., Wet Leg and more. It comes three decades after the original Help, which brought together Paul McCartney, Oasis, Sinéad O’Connor and Radiohead to raise money for the Bosnian conflict in the 1990s.
This time around, War Child and its participating artists are working to benefit people suffering from the humanitarian crises in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine and Syria, as well as the civil wars in Yemen and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Rodrigo has been outspoken in her support for Palestinian people amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza, writing on Instagram in July, “there are no words to describe the heartbreak I feel witnessing the devastation that is being inflicted upon innocent people … it is horrific and completely unacceptable. to give up on them is to give up on our shared humanity.”
In an interview about the album, producer James Ford recalled how special Rodrigo’s session in the studio was while making her version of “The Book of Love.” “I talked Olivia into doing what we were calling a ‘Sinatra-style’ take, which was recording live with a string section,” he told Billboard. “She was such a pro and was happy to take a gung-ho approach to it — she just walked into the studio and nailed it.”
Listen to Help(2) below.
