It has taken me 23 years to think these thoughts but:
why would people in chiefly Muslim countries care whether it was Christmas or not?
and
Does it strike you that Bono's line in the song,
namely 'tonight thank God it's them instead of yooooooooooouuuuuu'
is an absolutely awful sentiment?
7 comments:
It has taken me 23 years to think these thoughts
Better late than never!
I make no claim to early insight into the song's problems, but: I was hearing these criticisms quite soon after the song came out. Maybe not during the crisis of that time, but certainly in the years immediately following ... and long before the current period of heightened sensitivity to issues between the West and Islam.
I'm not sure this year's songs are much better - have you heard this one? Apparently it's in the top 10! The colonial optimistic platitudes of 80s modernism have just been replaced by hopeless cynicism.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/nol/newsid_7140000/newsid_7146100?redirect=7146182.stm&news=1&nbwm=1&nbram=1&bbwm=1&bbram=1&asb=1
Where's Cliff when you need him?!
And is the lack of snow in Africa this Christmastime really a problem?
Custard--I don't know, but the lack of snow is a problem I'm used to where I am...
Do they really know it's Christmas in Australia? How COULD they possibly?
I read somewhere that Bono didn't want to sing that awful line but Geldof bullied him into it.
You've discussed this before: I'm seemingly the only person in the world who likes it, because it reminds me of Geldof's sort of cold irish anger... it seems like a good thing to say right out loud: sometimes the feeling one gets when seeing suffering people, that you are just glad its not you. Its not a pretty sentiment, but its real, and it comes from, I suppose a pretty godless view of the world, that everything happens by chance and you have to enjoy what you can while you can, but I appreciated its honesty and I think its a good reason to be generous. Too often we express our guilt by painting ourselves as victims too, and I think Geldof was trying to give people permission to unhypocritically enjoy their bounty, and to just spare a bit out of it. I think it was thoughtful, but I understand everyone hates it, and the ambiguity of getting Bono, known christian, to sing it, to play on the blasphemous and sacred uses of the word "god" was probably a bit of needless irish OTT that I would've hated too.
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