A heartfelt moment captured between two girls singing in York has reached almost 100K views on YouTube.
Eight year old Niamh Ward from York and busker Em Louise covered Coldplay’s Yellow, which ended in quite the emotional performance.
Em Louise, from Snainton, is a 24-year-old singer-songwriter who has been busking in York since April 2024.
Earlier this year, a scary situation led to an unlikely friendship between Em and Niamh’s family.
During Em’s first time performing in the city, a man became aggressive towards her and her Mum, Elaine.
“This guy was getting all up in my face, getting quite aggressive, telling me he was going to ruin all my kit.
“I genuinely thought, I’m going to get punched, I’m going to get hit. He was getting more and more aggressive.” Em told YorkMix.
She revealed that herself and her Mum both felt in a state of shock.
Luckily, Niamh’s family stepped in to deter the man and huddled around Em so her mum could call the Street Rangers to intervene.
Once things had calmed down, the group got chatting and discovered Em and Niamh’s similarities.
“It was just like one of those moments where you just know that you’re meant to meet certain people in life,” Em said.
Music-lover Niamh then asked if she could join Em to sing a few songs, including Oasis hits Wonderwall and Don’t Look Back in Anger.
Inspired by loss
From then on, their friendship blossomed and the pair discovered they had more in common aside from just music.
In 2023, they both went through devastating losses.
Em lost her brother David, and Niamh’s family lost a close lifelong family friend, called Chris.
Both David and Chris’s funeral songs were Yellow, by Coldplay.
Selina Ward, Niamh’s Mum, told YorkMix: “Chris was a huge Norwich City fan and we carried his coffin into the song Yellow.”
The girls each hold that song incredibly close to their hearts, and they decided to perform it together in York last month.
As seen on the video, emotions overcame Niamh and she was reduced to tears.
The video had the same effect on many others, with comments on YouTube reading: “she had me teary eyed with the first two lines so cool to see Em encouraging her”, and, “that made me cry in a happy sort of way thanks for sharing!”
Although Niamh has always been a fond singer, Selina revealed that her inspiration has grown massively since meeting Em.
She’s begun singing lessons, and also joins in with Em’s performances in the city.
“It’s just a really beautiful story, they literally come to everything I do in York, whether that’s busking, whether that’s gigging, and we’ve created a beautiful friendship, and they support me so much,” Em added.
Their friendship means so much to Selina too. “We feel we have gained so much joy from the singing in a time that we needed it so much, Em is just the kindest girl with the biggest heart.”
To find out more about Em Louise’s future gigs, and her recently released music ‘Carrying the Fire’, click here.