In 2006 Knight starred in BBC1 music TV show, Just The Two Of Us, and is the host of the Radio 2 show Beverley's Gospel Nights, which explores the origins and impact of gospel music. Now in its second season, the show has featured interviews with stars such as Destiny's Child and Shirley Caesar.
Knight is an ambassador for many charities such Christian Aid and has travelled to areas affected by disease and poverty to help raise awareness. She is an active campaigner for anti-Aids organisations such as the Stop AIDS Campaign and The Terrence Higgins Trust and is also a vocal campaigner against homophobic lyrics in urban music. She became an MBE in 2006, the only musician to be granted such an honour in the Queen's eightieth birthday honours list.
In February 2006 Knight consolidated her move into the mainstream audience by appearing on BBC1 music show, Just The Two of Us. The show, featuring celebrities who duet with established singers, ran for two weeks and proved to be a relative disappointment in terms of audience figures – averaging between fifteen and twenty-five percent audience shares.[17] Nevertheless it provided a platform for Knight to reach out to a bigger audience and demonstrate her talent by performing a different array of songs than she would otherwise be known for. Reaching out to new audiences was also a driving force behind Knight’s decision to join Take That on their reunion arena tour. Take That - The Ultimate Tour 06, which ran from April to July 2006, sold 270,000 tickets in less than four hours on sale at the box office and featured Knight as a support act.
In March 2006 Beverley released her fifth album, a compilation set featuring the majority of her top forty UK singles entitled Voice - The Best Of Beverley Knight. The album, which was certified Gold less than a month after its release,[19] became her second highest charting of her career when it entered the UK albums chart at number ten and rose to number nine a month later. It was preceded by the single "Piece of my Heart" – a cover of the Erma Franklin classic made famous by Janis Joplin and entered the singles chart at number sixteen, spending eleven weeks inside the UK top 75 singles chart and becoming her longest-running chart single to date.
In October 2006, Knight recorded her fifth studio album, Music City Soul, in Nashville. Completed in less than five days, the album was released on 7 May 2007 and features collaborations with musicians such as Ronnie Wood and Scotty Moore. It has spawned three singles thus far, "No Man's Land", released on 16 April 2007, "After You", released on 2 July 2007 and "The Queen of Starting Over", released on 15 October 2007.
Beverley will be releasing her next album in spring 2009.
Sites: YouTube
Fallen Soldier
Beverley Knight Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Brother in the heart of a nation that prays for you, loves you, calls you by name
Struck out, like some criminal
Cut down like an animal, suddenly everything I know, just ain't the same
We ask for solution
Did anyone hear us?
Did anyone care?
So while this world marches on with the memory gone
My heart will remember
You are my fallen soldier
One of our many martyrs
I would have loved to know you
Still you're my fallen soldier
[rpt x 2]
Beverley Knight's song "Fallen Soldier" is a heartfelt tribute to a soldier who lost his life fighting for a noble cause. In the opening lines of the song, she describes the soldier as a stranger to some, but a brother to the nation that loves and prays for him. She then goes on to lament the brutal way in which he was killed, comparing it to that of an animal being hunted down.
The chorus of the song is where Beverley Knight's message of grief is most poignantly conveyed. She acknowledges that though the world may have moved on and the soldier's sacrifice may have been forgotten by many, his memory will live on in her heart. She then addresses the soldier directly, assuring him that he will always be remembered as a fallen soldier, and one of the many martyrs who gave their lives for their country.
The verses of the song are a call to action, as Beverley Knight begs for a solution to the violence and bloodshed that claims the lives of so many young soldiers. She questions whether anyone is even listening, and whether anyone cares enough to seek retribution on behalf of those who have fallen. The song is a sober reminder of the sacrifices that are made by soldiers every day, and the need for us as a society to be more mindful of the value of human life.
Line by Line Meaning
Stranger on the face of it.
At first glance, you may appear unknown to me.
Brother in the heart of a nation that prays for you, loves you, calls you by name
But to our nation, you are a beloved member, known by name and lifted up in prayer and love.
Struck out, like some criminal
You were unfairly and violently taken from us, as if you were a criminal.
Cut down like an animal, suddenly everything I know, just ain't the same
The manner in which you were taken from us was brutal and inhumane, leaving us reeling and without a sense of normalcy.
We ask for solution
We are left asking for a resolution, a way to make sense of what happened.
Did anyone hear us?
We are filled with doubt and question if our pleas were actually heard.
For your retribution
We seek justice for you, wanting those responsible to face consequences for their actions.
Did anyone care?
We are left wondering if anyone cared about you, about us, about our loss.
So while this world marches on with the memory gone
As time goes on, it seems the world moves forward without even remembering what we have lost.
My heart will remember
But in my heart, your memory will never fade.
You are my fallen soldier
To me, you are one of our brave soldiers who gave everything for our country.
One of our many martyrs
You join the ranks of so many others who died for our country, martyrs to our cause.
I would have loved to know you
Although I never had the chance to meet you, I would have been honored to know and call you my own.
Still you're my fallen soldier
Even in death, you are still my beloved soldier, never forgotten.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: BEVERLEY KNIGHT, BISHOP BRAD
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind