Crosswords1 min ago
Band Aid Feed The World
Does anyone else find the lyrics of this song to be patronising?
In the same vein.....
"...thank God it's them instead of you..." I have always taken particular offence to this line. Okay, thank God for what you have, and ask God to help starving children, but don't thank him for the fact that there are starving children and you are not one of them. This line sounds smug to me.
Answers
No best answer has yet been selected by ll_billym. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.
For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.I think I've always taken it to mean:-
"Well, tonight thank God it's them (that we're thinking about, raising money for, doing something for etc) instead of you."
Considering the circumstances of the song's creation (written and recorded within a couple of days etc), it's not going to be a lyrical masterpiece. I would tend to think that, at the time of writing, Messrs Geldof and Mure had no idea what impact the record would have. They were probably expecting it would sell a few copies and raise a couple of quid , and then be promptly forgotten.
I remember at the time, there was criticism about the "Let them know it's Christmas" lyric, in that it was stated that a large proportion of Ethiopians were muslim, and besides, "they would be more concerned with avoiding starvation than worrying whether they knew it was Christmas or not." This was a moot point.
It may be twee, or lyrically a poor record, but by tapping into the Western psyche, with it's love of a 'Christmassy pop record', it surely sold more copies (and hence raised both money and awareness) than a starkly accurate description of the events in Ethiopia at that time. I don't think the lyrics don't really bear close examination, then or now.