So there is one thing that always sparks my indignation this time of year. I love listening to the "All Christmas, All The Time" stations on the radio and I love hearing Christmas songs in stores I shop in. However, there is one song that really burns my biscuits and what I really want for Christmas is for this song to be stricken from the Christmas song lineup forever.
The song is "Do They Know It's Christmas" by Band Aid, a band Bob Geldof organized in the mid-80s as a fundraiser for famine relief in Ethiopia. Many of the UK's most popular artists contributed to this record and they ended up raising tens of millions of dollars for Ethiopia. Noble, right? Well, sort of.
Yes, it is great that the money was raised (we won't get into arguments about throwing money at a problem today), but at what cost? This song has been played incessantly every Christmastime since 1984 and the lyrics are so highly insulting and offensive that I'm quite surprised that it hasn't been shunned in today's culture of political correctness that many times borders on the ridiculous.
Please read through the lyrics and see what you think before we move on.
It's Christmastime; there's no need to be afraid
At Christmastime, we let in light and we banish shade
And in our world of plenty we can spread a smile of joy
Throw your arms around the world at Christmastime
But say a prayer to pray for the other ones
At Christmastime
It's hard, but when you're having fun
There's a world outside your window
And it's a world of dread and fear
Where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears
Are the clanging chimes of doom
Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you
And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmastime
The greatest gift they'll get this year is life
Oh, where nothing ever grows, no rain or rivers flow
Do they know it's Christmastime at all?
Here's to you, raise a glass for ev'ryone
Here's to them, underneath that burning sun
Do they know it's Christmastime at all?
Feed the world
Feed the world
Feed the world
Let them know it's Christmastime again
Feed the world
Let them know it's Christmastime again
So maybe the first thing you
thought was, "Gee, this is awfully depressing for a Christmas
song!" Perhaps you thought, "'No rain or rivers flow'? Huh. Isn't the longest river in the world in Africa? Not to mention that Ethiopia itself has somewhere in the neighborhood of forty rivers?" Or maybe, "Nothing ever grows? Hey, the coffee I'm drinking right now is from Ethiopia. I'm pretty sure Ethiopia is one of the top exporters of coffee..."
These are only the beginning of the the idiocy of this song. I don't have to tell you everything that's wrong with this song. I don't have to tell you that Africa is so ridiculously gigantic and diverse that you can't just say, "This is how Africa is", because chances are, it's not. Think about the state (or province) you live in for a minute. Think about how different people are in the big cities compared to the people in the small towns. When Matt and I lived in California, we were struck by how completely different people in Lodi were from people in San Francisco. People where we live in Pontiac, IL are very different from people in Chicago. Now take that times about a billion and throw in hundreds of different languages, people groups, histories, etc. etc. etc. Check out this awesome graphic showing the true size of Africa.
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One lyric says, "Tonight thank God it's them instead of you." Yikes. I can try to throw the songwriters a bone and hope they meant that tongue-in-cheek, but even that doesn't come across in the song.
And the biggest rant I have about this song is this: "Do they know it's Christmastime at all?" This lyric is so awful that I just want to cry. I can't believe anyone would ever write that. I am so flummoxed by that statement that I am practically rendered speechless. I just want to scream, "OF COURSE THEY KNOW IT'S CHRISTMASTIME!"
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Wow, three of the top ten most Christian nations are IN AFRICA. And look at that! One of them is ETHIOPIA!!! I'm pretty certain that they know about Christmas.
SIGH.
'I'm not afraid to say that I think Band Aid was diabolical. Or to say that I think Bob Geldof is a nauseating character. Many people find that very unsettling, but I'll say it as loud as anyone wants me to. In the first instance the record itself was absolutely tuneless. One can have great concern for the people of Ethiopia, but it's another thing to inflict daily torture on the people of Great Britain. It was an awful record considering the mass of talent involved. And it wasn't done shyly; it was the most self-righteous platform ever in the history of popular music.' - Steven Patrick Morrissey
YES.
In conclusion, I have to say that this song is the worst song ever. We're so concerned about being PC, we cry out against colonization and globalization, we warn about making sweeping generalizations, yet we are still playing and listening to this song EVERY SINGLE YEAR.
Please, this Christmas, call your local Christmas music station and ask them to take this song off the docket. It would be a great gift to the planet if this song was never played again.
End rant.
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