Taking Sides: "Do They Know It's Christmas?" vs "We Are the World"

The Christian faith is present in most African countries. Introduced into North Africa in the 1st century, it spread to the Sudan and to Ethiopia in the 4th. It has survived in Ethiopia under the form of the Coptic Christian community. Elsewhere, especially in the north of the continent, Christianity was supplanted by Islam.

The Christian religion was reintroduced into tropical Africa in the 15th century. Today, there are more than 341 million Christians on the African continent, almost equally divided among Catholics and Protestants.

Islam, the second most widely disseminated religion, entered Africa from the Mediterranean coast in the 7th century. In successive years, it spread along the East coast, and into the interior of West Africa. Today, Islam has penetrated into all parts of the continent, and numbers approximately 285 million adherents.

As to the traditional religions, sometimes called animist, they are followed by about 15% of Africans.

Don't you suppose the line "Do they know it's Christmas?" would have to be directed at non-Christian Africans in order to have any meaning whatsoever? Isn't the alternative writing an entire single asking, rhetorically, if "they" know it's Christmas, to which large numbers of "them" would reply: well, yes, actually we do? Isn't the whole problem with the damn song the fact that it doesn't occur to Geldof to make this distinction at all?

And by the way, if you want to get specific about the religion of early-80s famine victims, the problem was centrally occurring in the horn of Africa and into the Sahara, where Islam's had its greatest inroads: Somalia and Sudan in particular. And while the focal point was Ethiopia, a traditionally Christian nation, the actual famine in Ethiopia primarily affected rural, less-Christian communities in the provinces bordering Somalia -- i.e., Somalis, Oromos. The traditionally Christian Amharas tended to be more cosmopolitan (plus in control of the bureaucratic structure), and thus a bit more insulated.

As if this matters. Your post only answers Geldof's question with "Well, yeah, clearly," which doesn't make the song any less condescending, imperialist, or stupid.

I beg to differ. It's not neccesarily have to be directed to non- christian.

I used to live in a country which christians are small minorities. The country has its share of political turmoil, civil war, religious fanaticism (in which one of the most influential religious body in that country issue an order that saying merry christmas to christians is forbidden). And I can totally relate with what Geldof was trying to say. Sometimes, if you don't look at the calendar, you wouldn't know that it's christmas.

I think it's his message to the first world citizen, that while we're having "the most wonderful time of the year" and "rocking around a christmas tree', and that the only reason it doesn't feel like Christmas this year is because there is no snow yet, there are millions of people out there who's never experience the joy of a holiday or any reasons whatsoever to celebrate anything.

This song is as poignant now as when it was first released. Especially when you compare it to recent contemporary christmas songs from Mariah Carey or Britney Spears in which they stated all they want from christmas is for Santa to bring them boyfriends. Geldof's message is for people like them. While we're worried about trivial thing like not having a date on a christmas party, for others 'the greatest gift they have this year is live'.

Sometimes, if you don't look at the calendar, you wouldn't know that it's christmas [sic].

Do you see how you're making an assumption that "Christmas" = "Christmas as typically celebrated in the industrialized West?" That simply because a person lives in poverty or a warm arid region, he's not experiencing "Christmas" as it's properly meant to be experienced? Do you see how you, like Geldof, are conflating reasonable standards of living with Christianized Western culture?

Poverty or warm arid region doesn't have anything to do with "proper Christmas experience". Actually one might be able to understand the true meaning of christmas in those conditions, without the commercialized santa or frosty or rudolph or snow. After all the first christmas was experienced in poverty and warm arid region.

The point I was trying to make with that line was does it feel like Christmas when your church was bombed and burned ? When your priest was burned alive ? When you have to watch your children die because you are not able to give them food.

Christmas is in the heart. And I guess, hopefully I'm right, Geldof's heart was in the right place.

In any case, merry christmas to y'all. Let there be peace on earth.

I'm just say that, well, based on the argument you've just made, the song should have asked "Do They Feel Like It's Christmas?," shouldn't it?

Merry Christmas to you, too.

Best version of We Are The World is by Culturcide on Tacky Souvenirs from Pre-Revolutionary America. Re-entitled "We're Not The World" the chorus goes "we're not the world/we're not the children/we're just bosses and bureaucrats/and rock & roll hasbeens/there's a choice we're never given/to run our own lives/without it your "better day"/is just a better lie."

It was a very different experience watching the vid for We Are the World on TOTP, with my mother saying "Who's that dear?" every time a different singer appeared on the screen and me muttering back "I don't know" for the vast majority. Prior to We are the World I didn't have a clue who Willie Nelson was and afterwards I wished I still didn't! I remember thinking "That guy can't bloody sing!" and also the line he sings "As thge Lord has shown us, by turning stone to bread" is such a gut-wrenchingly awful flipping around of the Temptation of Christ story. And then Willie is followed by the horrible warbling of Al Jarreau.

Among the participants: the Nolans, Joe "That's Living Alright" Fagin, Tony Christie pre-All Seeing I, Bruce Forsyth, Rick Wakeman, Bernie Winters, Jim Diamond and (I think?) Jim Davidson.

It was VILE!

Paul McCartney, Kate Bush, Boy George, Level 42, Nik Kershaw, Pepsi & Shirlie, Erasure, Mark Knopfler, Gary Moore, Chris Rea, Edwin Starr, Samantha Fox, Mel & Kim, Kim Wilde, possibly Alison Moyet, Paul Young, Swing Out Sister, Curiosity Killed The Cat, several Page 3 models and, on backing vocals "for the experience," Rick Astley (a SAW production I regret to say). Doubtless loads of others but these are the ones which immediately spring to mind.

Main Vocals: Boy George, Peter Cox, Hazel O'Connor, Grace Kennedy, Dollar, Noddy Holder.

Chorus Vocals: Bonny Langford, Sylvester McCoy, Jimmy Nail, Hollywood Beyond, Uriah Heep, Showaddywaddy, The Sweet, Busta Jones, Hot Chocolate, EastEnders, Spitting Image, The Rent Party, Grange Hill, Caren Keating, Shriekback, Roland Rat, Andy Crane, Simon Potter, Lisa Maxwell, Michael Croft, Dave Joyner, Terry Rice-Milton, Tracey Wilson, Jodie Wilson, Patricia Conti, Cantabile, Housemaster Boyz, Jenny Day, Kevin O'Dowd, 'Plus many other artists too numerous to mention'.

Shriekback apparently didn't appear on the record even tho they were credited on the sleeve! At the time they were "very opposed to charity records."

I think this is slightly sloppy exegesis. The way I read it, Geldof's question, unpacked, would have undertones that run something like: "We have this time of 'goodwill toward men [people]' that we call Christmas. From our actions, can the developing world (toward whom we have a huge responsibility, having colonized/fucked them over) TELL that we're enjoying such a period of self-congratulating charity?" It's true that "Do they feel like it's Christmas?/Do they feel like celebrating?" would be a better question. Not as singable.

Bono's "Them/Us" line has always bugged me and made me laugh. Geldof's explanation doesn't help; if he really was trying to get people to do all that thinking, he should've known that on top-40 radio, that wouldn't be the effect (celebrity charity singles don't lend themselves to anything beyond sloppy self-regarding sentimentality). Still, it's a likable boppy-synthesizer tune without all the taking-a-shit "sincere" vocal stylings of "WATW."

I bristle at the immediate equation of Christianity and empires--Jesus and Paul weren't Platonists or Europeans, and contemporary theologians (the good ones) are doing their damndest to extricate them from Constantinianism. Still, if people think it's an imperialistic ideology and nothing but, that's MOSTLY Christians' damn fault. We can continue this discussion on the "I Love Arguing About Religion in Public" message board.

>And by the way, if you want to get specific about the religion of >early-80s famine victims, the problem was centrally occurring in the >horn of Africa and into the Sahara, where Islam's had its greatest >inroads: Somalia and Sudan in particular. And while the focal point

And you're right, it's unfortunate that it probably never occured to Geldof et.al. to do this kind of analysis. Humans tend to be insular. When those same humans hold most of the economic/military cards and are helplessly implicated in centuries of imperialism, this works to perpetuate, of course, that same imperialism.

Regarding the lyrical debate on "Do They Know It's Christmas" one needs to remember that, in 1984, Islam wasn't qute as dominant in Ethiopia as it is today, so asking the question "Do They Know It's Christmas" may not have seemed as pointless then as it may seem now.

I can't believe all the nonsense on this thread.

"We Are The World" is so much the better performance since it includes people who can, you know, really sing (i.e. sell Richie/Jackson's banalities) next to people who really can't. Among those who can really sing are a number of blacks and women. Besides being unapologetically Christian, "Do They Know It's Christmas?" has the honor of featuring no blacks or women in lead roles. So much for community.

(inspired by reading this.

To make it simpler:

TS: Diana Ross, Steve Perry, Daryl Hall, Cyndi Lauper vs Simon Le Bon, Tony Hadley, Sting, Bono.

Um, except... even if you break it down to merely just the question of which is a better song, "Do They Know it's Christmas?" is head and shoulders above the cloying, steam-escaping flatulence that was "We Are the World."

Crap see no color.

If you prefer Tony Hadley, sure.

Besides being unapologetically Christian, "Do They Know It's Christmas?" has the honor of featuring no blacks or women in lead roles. So much for community.

Which is why it's quite an achievement that "DTKIC" is still a hundred times better than "WATW"!

I'm not sure why. Paul Young and Boy George are the only singers who sound like human beings.

"DTKIC" is a better song by a loooong way.

All that's preferable on "DTKIC" are the synth programs. Daryl Hall, Steve Perry, and Ray Charles -- with and without mullets and hernia faces -- could sell that awful line of Bono's ("WELL TONIGHT THANK GOD IT'S THEM INSTEAD OF YOU!!!!)

(I'm feeling feisty tonight)

they are both painfully bad songs. the cause was good though, they tell me

Besides being unapologetically Christian, "Do They Know It's Christmas?" has the honor of featuring no blacks or women in lead roles

In 1984, the vast majority of people living in the UK were actually white. May explain it.

The lack of female soloists was probably partly because most big UK acts of that era were male, but Ure and Geldof also decided that because the UK scene was so male dominated, they wanted an even more male dominated "group". I read somewhere that some huge female acts were left out of Band Aid because of that. Bananarama participated in the choir though.

Besides, I like the lineup in Band Aid better (those people made most of the best music of the 80s), but "We Are The World" is a stronger songs. Both lyrics are quite dreadful though, but I guess they had to if they wanted to find some sort of middle ground between people of all kinds of political wings.

If Tom's gonna take the "our shite" tact, I'm going to vote: NEITHER. Instead, I'll pick our lovely Canadian version, "Tears are Not Enough", despite the inclusion of some really horrid Canadian artists (please see the BNL thread for elaboration). Still, it had Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Cockburn, Gord Lightfoot, WAYNE GRETZKY!, and many other fab talents from the Great White North. Not that I can remember many of the words...oddly enough, I remember part of the section sung in French, but only phonetically. It doesn't get much more Canadian than that.
-- Sean Carruthers, Wednesday, 25 April 2001 00:00 (6 years ago) Link

OTM.

Hear N Aid kills both dead

The USA for Africa gang is way better than the Band Aid gang but I still like Do They Know It's Christmas best by far

Xgau makes a convincing argument. I've always liked "Do They Know It's Christmas?" more as a song for the sheer melody/instrumentation/production, but "We Are The World" definitely works better for the cause.

I guess "Sun City" takes it then?

"We Are The World" is one of the worst songs ever made - who cares about the quality of the singers?

So much insanity on this thread! Alfred OTM. Britishes at least have a valid chauvinistic reason for preferring Band Aid, but jeez, how long have the rest of you been living in a Bizarro world where Bob Geldof and Midge Ure write better songs than Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie?

"We Are the World" is classic American schmaltz, with all the good and bad that such a phrase entails.

Also, Greil Marcus' idiot reading of WATW as imperialist American celebrities devouring the world is a low point in 80s popcrit poststructuralism.

zeus' last comment is particularly shocking. I'm not defending WATW's songcraft, for God's sake, just the performances!

I knew the culturcide version before I ever heard of the real WATW. Its pretty funny, but you can't really come to the real one after it....

How different a thread would this be if Harry Belafonte's original intention regarding WATW - that it feature only black performers - had come to pass?

no Cyndi Lauper, no credibility

Unfortunately neither one of these is New Wave; besides, do you want new wave or do you want the truth?

I recently came across that xgau piece that Alfred links to, and similar sentiments from Greil Marcus while researching a piece on these songs. I always saw it in terms of UK pop oddballs singing a tinselly, jerry-built, lyrically odd song vs the sanctimonious, gilded aristocracy of US pop - revealing snapshots of the two different Top 40 cultures in the mid 80s and easy to know which side I was on - so I find xgau's focus on vocal technique and the racial mix interesting but counterintuitive. A major transatlantic divide on this issue.

I need to find the poll of the "We Are the World" soloists.

Here we are: Who Bodied Their Verse On "We Are The World"??

OTM:

the thing that's most interesting to me from an aesthetic standpoint is how the veterans really kill it with their professionalism. the really awesome ones in here are from people who've been pretty much living on stages in front of audiences for 20+ years and know the difference between singing in an ensemble & singing duet & having a line where you want to both shine & not look like you're trying to out-do anybody (this is where stevie w. & ray charles really give a master class - they both go WAY up, but they could both have taken it much further if they weren't both dudes who know exactly what they're doing & how to always remember that your job is to make the song better than it was before you got there, not to make it a Spotlight On Me deal, which is springsteen's problem imo). dionne, al jarreau, lionel r., tina & willie are to me the ones who outshine everybody else by not trying as hard.

― the evil genius of Zaiger Genetics (J0hn D.), Friday, July 31, 2009

I only paid attention to "We Are the World" because of Michael Jackson.

I'll just come in and comment a bit on one statement upthread. Sure, I agree that Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie both have overall better song catalogues with more classics than Bob Geldof and Midge Ure. Still, "I Don't Like Mondays" and "Vienna" are surely up there with the best of everything Jackson and Richie have written.

take all the vocals out of DTKIC and it reminds me a bit of the Doctor Who theme, therefore it wins.

Yes! I remember thinking it sounded kind of cool and futuristic when I was a kid.

My grandparents donated a record player to my cousins and me to use when we visited them over the summer holidays. They were big into jazz and Motown, and "We Are The World" was one of the rcords that got chucked into the kids' pile. So whenever I hear it, it really reminds me of being on holiday in the South of France. I like it by proxy for this reason.

"We Are the World" is classic American schmaltz, with all the good and bad hideous vomit-induction that such a phrase entails.

― Martin Van Burne, Monday, 23 July 2007 15:42 (3 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UfVmJBF-OY&feature=plcp

hahaha amazing....genius of american music ladies and gents

i love that.

"Bob, it's great -- you're the only singing the lower octave!"

in which Steve Perry and Daryl Hall demonsrate they can sing well no matter how many takes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwEOOgv5unE&feature=related

lol @ Huey Lewis, Cyndi Lauper, and Kim Carnes trying to harmonize their irreconcilable voices.

I don't think Daryl Hall is in the same league with Steve Perry. On several of the takes Mr. Hall is off key quite a bit. Look at Steve's face as Hall is singing. He does look a little annoyed with Hall.

gretchen606 in reply to 511A19Tay92(Show the comment) 1 month ago

Who Bodied Their Verse On "We Are The World"??

we have a new contender

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4oz4dfi9gg

that's p interesting!

arguably the most baffling lineup for any charity single:

Love Song to the Earth: Paul McCartney, Jon Bon Jovi, Sheryl Crow, Fergie, Colbie Caillat, Natasha Bedingfield, Leona Lewis, Sean Paul, Johnny Rzeznik, Krewella, Angelique Kidjo, Kelsea Ballerini, Nicole Scherzinger, Christina Grimmie, Victoria Justice & Q'orianka Kilcher

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBEGxqJKup8

the Earth = d00med

TS: Love Song To The Earth vs Fistfucking God’s Planet

wow, can't believe macca took part in that shit

Love this guy:

"Do they know it's Christmas" - HANDS DOWN! Bono...FANTASTIC!!! Great song! I think the radio has decided it. When was the last time you heard "We are the World?" on the radio? However, every Christmas we hear "Do they know..." a million times. As George "Dubyah" Bush said of the British... "We have no closer friend..." Thanks for a great song!!!!!
― JK, Domingo, 23 de Dezembro de 2001 1:00 (sixteen years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink