Nobody Died

[2007]
Testo e musica di The Wilkinsons
Lyrics and Music by The Wilkinsons
Da/From "Home"


From TheStar.com

It is the kind of strange coincidence that sounds like a poor joke, but it isn't at all funny to Steve Wilkinson.

He and two of his children, Amanda and Tyler, make up the country music trio The Wilkinsons and today the group is hard at work at a local school on their latest music video "Nobody Died." Focusing on school bullying and violence, the song was inspired by the 1999 Columbine shootings, but it seems all the more ominous in light of Monday's massacre at Virginia Tech.

"The timing flipped me out and it kind of pulled the rug out from under my feet ... I was in my basement finishing off my rec room when my video director called me. He said, `have you seen the news? You're not going to believe it.'
"It's terrible, and it just made me sick," says Steve Wilkinson from his home in Belleville.
"I tell you what, the song has been in our laps for 5 or 6 years. We recorded it once and it never came out because we didn't have the courage to do it."

Wilkinson says they were concerned that radio might not play the song due to its content, but after the Amish school shooting last year that resulted in the deaths of five girls, the group felt it was a necessary message to get out.
He describes the song as a reminiscence from the singer's point of view about what life was like when they went to school and how things have changed.
As a father with children still in school, Wilkinson understands the fear that parents are living with whenever these chilling incidents occur.

"I've got a daughter that's still in high school and I thought about the millions of fathers sending their kids to school these days. Nobody ever thinks that this type of thing would ever occur at any school."

The Wilkinsons released their new album, Home, a little over a month ago, and the band applied for and received a grant to make the "Nobody Died" video.
Casting and plans have been in the works for weeks, Wilkinson says, adding Monday's incident did make them pause, but after speaking with their label and publicists, they decided to push forward.
"I just felt that we finally needed to shine a light on it," he says. "If one radio station and one person listens to it and thinks twice about maybe doing something drastic because they're being picked on or something went wrong in their world, it's worth the money, the time and it's worth the effort."