Christmas Songs I Don't Like, part three

I've written two prior posts about Christmas songs I don't like (You can read them here and here). I'll admit that, though while deciding numbers one and two were easy, deciding what would be my third most hated Christmas song was a little tougher. I don't have the hatred for any of the remaining songs that I will talk about that I had for the first two. The remaining songs I'm going to write about over the next couple of weeks only annoy me.

Still, after making the list, I decided that--of all the songs that annoy me but that I don't absolutely hate--the one that goes right to the top of the list (or the bottom, depending on how you want to look at it, I guess) is Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?"

Here are my observations about this song:


1. I don't like the lyrics that try to make me feel guilty. The lyrics are all about how terrible the famine is in Africa, and they're supposed to make us feel guilty at Christmas: "Pray for the other ones/ At Christmas Time 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." Thanks, Band Aid. That's just what I want to hear when I'm gathering with my family. Or how is this to get you in the holiday spirit: "The Christmas bells that ring there / Are the clanging chimes of doom"? Fits right in with "Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas."

Look, guilt mongers, we have 364 other days of the year to solve the world's food and water crises. Let's just relax and open some presents on Christmas, okay?

2. The song gives Africa a bum rap. The song says these four lines: "There won't be snow in Africa this Christmas Time / The greatest gift they'll get this year is life / Where nothing ever grows / No rain nor river flows." The song is about Ethiopia, where a massive famine was happening in 1984 and 1985, but the song makes it sound like all of Africa is desert. The song is true in saying that there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas Time. But guess what? It's not going to snow in December ANYWHERE in the southern hemisphere, which is where the bottom half of Africa is, because it's SUMMER in December! And the northern half of Africa is too close to the equator to get snow, either (though I have to admit, after taking a quick look at a map of the world, Africa goes further north than I envisioned it). And even if we get beyond the snow imagery, the last lines about nothing ever growing and no rain and river flowing is ridiculous. There are JUNGLES in Africa. Lots of them! It's not the whole continent that was experiencing a drought. But you wouldn't know that from the song.

3. To quote from "The Twelve Pains of Christmas": "I Don't Even KNOW Half These People." The song is supposed to be a group effort from all of the major British popular musicians of the 1980's, but even when the song first came out in 1984 I didn't know who half of the people in the song were. These days I'm even less sure, and the ones that I recognize are not anyone I want to hear singing. Culture Club? Wham? Is that Bananarama? Holy crap! It's like a nightmare from my high school days. The faces bring back all kinds of bad memories: I don't remember what song you sang, there, Paul Young, but I remember that I HATED it. And wait a minute! Is that Kool & the Gang in the back? Who let them in there? They're not British! They're from New Jersey! Did they pull a Salahi and crash the recording of this song?

4. In some ways, the song minimizes the famine in Ethiopia. Sure, the song raised a lot of money when it came out, and I know the song means well, but some of the lines are downright offensive: "Tonight thank God it's them instead of you" is a ridiculous line that even in 1984, when I was an idealistic 16 year old, I knew was dumb. Instead of thanking God it's them and not me, why don't I instead ask God to make it none of us? Why would I THANK God that they are starving?

A few lines later, the song encourages me to "raise a glass" for "Them beneath the burning sun." Yup. That's going to do a lot of good. Let me drink a toast to the starving Ethiopians.

I thought the song deserved a C+ for effort in 1984, but it's time to retire it, especially since the drought and famine in Ethiopia went away in 1985 (though it's returned again this year).