“Now more than ever it is vital that we all support the work of War Child,” says the band.
Fontaines D.C have recorded a cover of Sinéad O’Connor’s ‘Black Boys on Mopeds’, and have described their time in the studio for this project as “a unique and life affirming experience” in a recent Instagram post.
The track will contribute to War Child’s new charity album HELP(2), including songs from some of the biggest names in indie music – Big Thief, Black Country, New Road, Cameron Winter and more, along with superstars like Olivia Rodrigo, Pulp and Blur’s Damon Albarn. Albarn and Fontaines D.C frontman Grian Chatten are also set to feature on a song together as part of the project.
The band have performed ‘Black Boys on Mopeds’ once previously, while on tour in the US in 2022. O’Connor originally wrote this track as a protest to the racist policing of the Thatcher Government in the UK in the 1980s.
The song criticizes police brutality and systemic racism, calling back to the wrongful death of a young Black man in 1983.
The track is no stranger to other politically minded indie musicians. Take Phoebe Bridgers, for example, who covered the protest song on KEXP, in the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in the US.
About O’Connor and the song, Bridgers said that, “the thing about covering her is that she makes the hardest things to sing sound so easy.”
At a time Fontaines D.C. have described as a “moment of serendipity,” guitarist Carlos O’Connell was not featured in the recording, due to the birth of his own child.
The track is being released during a moment of profound change for the band.
HELP(2), the collaborative album, is out on 6th March 2026.
All proceeds support War Child UK.
