Exclusive interview with ‘We’ll Get By’ (The Autism Song) singer Johnny Orr – w/video

Autism Village have joined forces with country singer, Johnny Orr to help the autism community with the  #Tag10forAutism campaign. For $1 you can get The Johnny Orr Band song “We’ll Get By”.

This online challenge will ask everyone to go onto their Facebook, Twitter or Instagram accounts, using the hashtag #Tag10forAutism and “tag” 10 friends, family members and other autism community members. After “tagging 10″ they are asked to go to http://bit.ly/avkickstart to be one of Autism Village’s first fundraising backers on Kickstarter.

By donating just $1, they receive The Johnny Orr Band song “We’ll Get By” and become one of the founding members of the App that Autism Village is creating for the autism community. The full press release can be read here, and our interview with Topher Wurts, founder of Autism Village can be read here

The song “We’ll Get By” (The Autism Song) by Johnny Orr is featured on the Johnny Orr Band’s EP, “Down South.” It was released for Autism Awareness Month in 2014. You can watch the music video below.

Johnny wrote the song ‘We’ll Get By (The Autism Song) as a personal song for friend, Candi Spitz who has twin boys who have autism.

The lyrics in the song include:

“If you’ll wait patiently, well then eventually / I will understand the words that you’re saying to me / My autism, is like a prison, that I’m in.”

Watch the video below as Johnny Orr explains the choice of his words “like a prison”. We wanted to learn more about how Johnny had become involved with this Kickstarter campaign and he kindly agreed to answer some of our questions which can be read below.

I believe that you originally wrote the song ‘We’ll Get By (The Autism Song) for Candi Spitz as she has twin sons with autism. Can you tell me a little about the song writing process and the inspiration for the lyrics? 

I write special songs for people all the time for weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, and even funerals, upon request for money. So Candi approached me about doing this for her and her family.

I pulled from stories that Candi wrote me in emails about her struggles, and then I began researching most of the day online about other stories of struggle and inspiration too. I really simply wrote this song for the Sptiz family to have for themselves. So I decided to write it from a child’s perspective. Hoping that Candi would hear words from her children that she had never heard before. Who knew that this would wind up being the story of so many 1000’s of other wonderful families that struggle with this too.

Did you know anything about autism before you met the twins?

I’ve actually never met them. But to answer your question, No, I knew absolutely nothing about autism and that’s a crying shame. That’s why we are trying to be so proactive about it now. It needs to be evident. Everyone needs to understand it in order to be effective in the acceptance of it in our homes, schools, restaurants and public areas of our lives. It’s everywhere and it’s sometimes passed off as a spoiled or abused child, or weird co-worker and that’s just NOT acceptable. Bullies in the school systems are getting worse just because they think it’s funny and cool to make fun of someone and this has to STOP!

How did you become involved with the #Tag10forAutism campaign?

My manager was directly contacted by Topher Wurts and simply asked us if we’d like to join with him in the campaign to raise money for the Autism Village phone app that they’ve designed and possibly be willing to give a copy of my song to every contributor for giving even as little as a $1 contribution. Naturally we want this song spread to the world, so it was a no brainer to want to be involved. We saw the potential to reach 1000’s so we had to participate and we’re so glad we did.

Can you tell our readers a little about Blooming with Autism and your involvement with them?

Blooming With Autism is just one of many organizations that we want to help. Candi Spitz was directly involved with them when I wrote the song, so naturally we wanted to help in any way we could by giving a percentage of the proceeds to them. But we’ve found that we want to spread that percentage out to many organizations that we think are in need somehow and that will do the most good with it. Sales need to increase of course in order for us to actually be able to give an effective and decent amount of funds to anyone. The process is always a little slow, but we’re seeing momentum approaching.

Is there anything else that you would like to share with our readers?

Reach into your pockets and pull out $1. Hand it over to the cause at www.AutismVillage.com, receive your free copy of my song “We’ll Get By” (The autism song), watch the video on YouTube or on my website www.johnnyorrband.com, then tell, tag, or better yet, go over to 10 friend’s houses, and help them get online and do the same, Repeat the process. Become an organizer in your community to raise a few bucks and give it all at once.

I had a friend who used one of my venues that I play at in Holly Springs, NC, to raise money at my show for autism and he was willing to match the total amount given that night. He organized the whole thing, giving raffle tickets. He raised over $3000 in 3 hours. The venue (Bombshell Beer Co.) gave 10% of bar sales as well that night. That money will send several autistic children to camp for a week this summer. Amazing!! Let’s do something besides sit at home and watch tv. Make a difference. Be a light in someone’s life and help change this world instead of just living in it. Join us please.

Below is the video, We’ll Get By- The Autism Song- FULL in depth explanation including his use of the word “prison” as a metaphor in his video and not meant to offend anyone. We encourage you to watch the heart felt video.

Autism Village have recently launched a thunderclap campaign that can be found here https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/24621-autism-village-acceptance

The Johnny Orr Band website can be found here www.johnnyorrband.com