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Every Stream helps support Ukraine Appeal
Overwhelmed by the situation in Ukraine, I decided to write a song about it. As well as satisfying a creative urge, I also wanted to try and help in some small way. So every time the song is streamed I will donate 10cents to the Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal. This includes streams on all major platforms... Spotify, Apple, and SoundCloud.
You can also Donate Directly to the Appeal at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/despotsdream
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Russia already stole $1.8 trillion from Ukraine
There are many commentaries on what induced Putin to invade Ukraine. This song reflects my rather cynical point of view. Ukraine is a beautiful country, rich in natural resources, including oil, gas and wheat. While thousands die in a brutal war a small number of people can often get very rich. As I started to do some more research on this topic bemused by why Russia would decide to invade Ukraine, I was staggered by some of the things I found. Ukraine has a VERY substantial reserve of natural gas, which to date has not yet been exploited. In 2012 they discovered 2 trillion cubic meters of gas in the waters around Crimea. This gas has a market value of $1.8 trillion! The Ukrainian Govt granted Shell, and Exon rights to start further exploration and development. Is it a coincidence that only 24 months later, Russia invaded and annexed Crimea and immediately laid claim to all that gas?
In addition it transpires that there is a huge untapped reserve of shale gas in the Donbas region of Ukraine! Call me cynical but perhaps that helped Putin rationalise his claim that he needed to annex the Donbas to support local Russian speakers.
Over 50% of the Russian Government budget is funded by Oil and Gas. It was clearly far too big an economic threat if Ukraine were allowed to develop its own natural gas infrastructure it could become a significant supplier of gas to Europe and threaten Russia's dominant position.
There is a really fascinating documentary about this by RealLifeLore https://youtu.be/If61baWF4GE
My thanks to RealLifeLore for the amazing work on this!
The Song
I got the initial lyrical idea for the song from a poem by my good friend Emily Maguire That gave me the hook of "you can make a lot of money in a war" That got me thinking about the situation in Ukraine, and I built from there :-) The bass groove and bass riff came from a jam with a friend of mine James Eller. Having written the song I first posted a version on Instagram with me singing it. But I hate my voice, as do most sane people and so I reached out to the amazing Maria Milewska who kindly agreed to do the lead vocal. Maria has an amazing voice and is a consummate professional..... thank you Maria :-) You can find Maria on Spotify at <LINK>