Brain: so I noticed you were going over the lyrics of Do They Know It’s Christmas earlier
Me: Yeah, it came on the radio and I was thinking about making a Tumblr post about what a terrible song it is, how it paints Africa, a continent three times the size of the United States, as an undifferentiated sterile hellscape, how this is false to fact, insulting to many who live there, and strategically opposed to the message most people involved in relief/development efforts would prefer to communicate to westerners.
Brain: I didn’t understand anything you just said, but I assume it meant you want to hear it like all the time.
Me: That’s nothing like what I just said.
Brain: Don’t worry, I’ve got this.
Me: What? Wait, no…
Brain: And the Christmas bells that ring there / are the clanging chimes of doom / WELL TONIGHT THANK GOD IT’S THEM, INSTEAD OF YOOOOOOOU
Me: D:
the clanging chimes of doom though, seriously.
it’s the most bizarrely passive aggressive song of all time.
Geldof and Ure themselves later recognised the musical limitations of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”: in his typically blunt manner, Geldof told Australia’s Daily Telegraph in 2010, “I am responsible for two of the worst songs in history. The other one is ‘We Are the World’.”[42] Ure’s assessment was more considered, writing in his autobiography that “it is a song that has nothing to do with music. It was all about generating money… The song didn’t matter: the song was secondary, almost irrelevant.”
“Do They Know It’s Christmas?” has always been one of my favourite Christmas songs, but I am well known to be willing to overlook complete-bullshit poverty lyrics for the sake of pretty sounds.
(I actually did *not* get “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” stuck in my head upon reading this post, because instead my brain went “hey, did somebody say bullshit poverty songs that redeem themselves through sheer prettiness?” and began playing a Phil Collins medley.)
Tags:
#right now it’s mostly ”Heat on the Street” and ”We Wait and We Wonder” #reply via reblog #music #Christmas #our roads may be golden or broken or lost
Brinens and Things 