WAITED TOO LONG

WILL THE REAL PETER CAMPBELL
PLEASE STAND UP?

For the past 30 years, Peter Campbell – that’ll be me – has been known primarily as a designer. 

However, long before design became my principal focus, I was known as a singer / songwriter / performer with a number of albums to my name, lots of touring and performing across Australia, and some in the UK, Europe and the US. 

This is the first ‘Project’ on the site that acknowledges this big part of my life, and I welcome visitors who have arrived here looking for more music – perhaps that will come.

2020 has been a terror. Certainly here in Australia with the drought, the bushfires, the floods… but then the globally disastrous pandemic, COVID-19, bringing its own traumas; people sick and dying in staggering numbers, financial hardship, social isolation, mental illness and the rise of domestic violence and abuse.  

My musical response to this year was a song… a difficult song about difficult things, but with an element of hope and redemption at the end. It was called Too Long. 

I sang an early version of Too Long to our friend Christine Jack and she immediately recognised it as a work that could bring something special to an International Summit on Domestic/Family Violence in the COVID-19 Era which was being convened in New York by her friend, Yael Danieli. 

Suffice to say that Too Long went through a fairly gruelling rewrite to align the lyrics more directly with the focus of the event, and emerged as a new entity… another song entitled Waited Too Long, and the Anthem for the Summit.

As an entirely virtual conference, video was a necessity. So, with the lyrics still being finalised, no arrangement as such, mixing and editing under pressure and time running out, our little team pulled this together in a matter of days. It may not have the finesse one would hope for, but the result has a rawness appropriate to the desperate story it tells. 

The Summit was held 18-20 November 2020, opened with greetings from the Pope and United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.. and on from there for 3 days of highest level dialogue, translated into six languages, between passionate professionals from 40 countries. It is a humbling experience to be included in such company.

The following week the song was included in the program to launch the book Postcards from Tomorrow; a project designed to raise money for Lou’s Place, Sydney’s only daytime drop-in shelter for women facing trauma such as domestic abuse and coercive control. It's clear that Waited Too Long has touched a nerve – responses have been immediate, thoughtful and very strong. 

For all that, it is not an easy song to hear – it may be triggering for some so it comes with a warning.. but we've all ‘waited too long’ to do something about violence and abuse in the home, in aged care, to the poor, to children. I hope you find something in it to give you strength to help in providing solutions to this ‘other’ global pandemic.

There is a bit of history under the video; all the way back to 1974.. I even had hair once.. enjoy. 

COLLABORATORS
Second Guitar/Vocals: Bow Campbell
Video Direction/Editing: Brian Rapsey
Audio Engineer: Brendan Gallagher