A song has been released to celebrate the 25th anniversary of pig celebrities The Tamworth Two’s daring escape.

The Tamworth Two were a pair of pigs who escaped and went on the run in the late 1990s in Malmesbury, South West England. The brother and sister dynamic duo daringly swam across the River Avon on their escape mission and became an international news sensation. This year marks a quarter of a century since the global news event.

Gecko a singer songwriter based in London felt it was about time these modern folk heroes were immortalised in song and set about crafting a tune worthy of pig pedigree. He teamed up with Mercury Prize nominated engineer Shuta Shinoda (Ghostpoet, Hot Chip) to bring the song to life, simply entitled ‘The Tamworth Two’. The song was then mastered by John Webber at Air Studios (David Bowie, Duran Duran). The resulting music video is now live on Gecko’s YouTube channel @geckomusic.

Gecko said: “I love writing songs in character, and this story really resonates with me. I got excited by the idea of writing a song about being on the run like something out of the great American songbook but it’s actually about pigs. That’s my creative sweet spot right there. It was also extra special for me to have my sister sing backing vocals on the track. Butch and Sundance were pig siblings so that felt very poetic.

“It seems for a time in the ‘90s pigs were all the rage. ‘Babe’ the film came out and then the Tamworth Two became celebrities. I think it’s about time pigs got back into the zeitgeist. I was a kid when they first escaped and I remember being a vegetarian was very much the minority. 25 years on, people might be more open to the idea that it shouldn’t just be the Tamworth Two who were saved from their fate, and they should stop eating pigs altogether!”

Gecko, who will perform at Womad (aptly in Malmesbury, the home of The Tamworth Two) and Glastonbury festivals this summer, is no stranger to writing songs about animals. His song about Laika, the dog that was sent to space in the 1950s on a one-way mission, broke a lot of hearts reaching 900k views on TikTok. In February, his song about baby cheetahs gained over 4 million views on TikTok and Instagram combined. In 2021, Gecko collaborated with his brother to write a podcast musical called ‘The Flock’ about birds fighting back against environmental destruction, which was featured in The Guardian and nominated for a British Podcast Award.