Physical Distancing? We’ve Got a Catchy Tune to Get You Through

What began as a simple mental break while the Internet was down on an afternoon of working from home amid the COVID-19 pandemic has turned into a radio sensation – and a soon to be viral video (at least we think so!) for Jonathan Cahm, a principal geotechnical engineer based in Jacobs’ Warrington office.

“I was on a Skype call one afternoon and my wife, Farina, was home schooling our 7-year-old daughter Laila,” recalls Jonathan. “Suddenly, we were all disconnected from the internet and it quickly became clear there was an outage and it wasn’t coming back on for several hours.”

They realized work and schooling would need to stop for the day, so Jonathan grabbed his guitar and headed into their conservatory to wind down.

Within 20 minutes, he’d come up with a basic melody and lyrics for a song about being in lockdown – inspired by the current situation billions are experiencing worldwide.

He asked Farina and Laila to come listen and, when they liked it, the three of them worked together throughout the outage to produce a song, cleverly titled “The Bunker Down Song.”

“The message of the song — to just stay home — is very simple,” Jonathan says. ”But, it also seemed to help people smile through a very difficult time.”