27 January 2022
Dear Spotify,
If my beloved husband, Andy Gill, hadn’t died at the start of the pandemic, he’d have strong and clear feelings about your decision to remove Neil Young’s music in favour of a podcast that has spread anti-vax misinformation.
If vaccines had been available at the start of the pandemic, he’d be here to have that conversation with you.
Instead, I must speak for him. And I have to tell you, as his widow, I feel sick about the business decision you’ve made. Since he died, I’ve worked to ensure his music is available to fans—putting out the tribute album The Problem of Leisure: A Celebration of Andy Gill and Gang of Four, releasing the single The Dying Rays (funds to the NHS Guys and St Thomas’s Hospital Trust) and the EP ANTIHERO and trying to get the full back catalogue available on all channels. That means yours.
Anti-vax misinformation kills people. Grief afflicts many of us right now and I ask you, on behalf of the grieving: help to contain the spread of grief by protecting the public and rethinking your decision.
Yours in sorrow,
Catherine Mayer
Andy's hand and mine, St Thomas's hospital, 1 February 2020
Words and photos ©Catherine Mayer 2022