Christmas and Africa, Not Together Again!

How the Most Offensive Song in History is Refusing to Improve Over Time

By Justine Barron

Was any popular song in the English language ever more racist or dumb than “Do They Know Its Christmas?” by 1980s British supergroup-for-a-day Band Aid? Great news, it’s back and as racist and dumb as ever! Thirty years later, and they still haven’t ironed out the offenses.

The song’s lyrics ask the important question if Africans, all billion of them, are so bereft that not only are they lacking in food, clean water, shelter, shoes, and safety, but also in Christmas — nay, not the holiday but the knowledge of it. If only they knew that people in the U.K. were eating roast pheasant and opening boxes of plaid scarves…

It’s a pop song, so of course it doesn’t get into messy technical details like how more than one-third of Africans surely know about Christmas because… they are Christians. Or how Christmas is kind of famous. Most people know.

Any smart listener of the song can tell that it’s really about the minority percentage of Africans who don’t know about Christmas for inconceivably sad reasons. I hope they open more schools and teach Christmas first!

Okay, this song makes me really mad! I can’t handle it!!

Okay, nothing to be done about a silly song from the 80s. It wasn’t the best of times, culturally; we backslid from the sunken 70s. And hey, the song did succeed in raising piles of money for a charity, which presumably used some of it for good.

Except… They keep remaking the song! Every decade, Bob Geldof et al. choose to rehash the most dumb, racist song ever in popular culture instead of revisiting one of the thousands of less offensive songs about Christmas or asking Randy Newman to rework his song template into a new holiday classic.

Now, in 2014, they’re releasing a new version focused on Ebola. They tried to correct the racially offensive lyrical errors of the past. They have not succeeded, even a little.

Top (cough, cough) improvements to the 2014 Version of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”:

1. Previous lyrics that referenced hunger now reference Ebola. New lines include, “Where a kiss of love can kill you” and “Where to comfort is to fear/where to touch is to be scared.” The intention, it seems, is to discourage people from touching sick people, which is very important in the fight against Ebola. Sick people must be isolated, and the people who help them must be feared. Merry Christmas, indeed.

2. Bono is back. He doesn’t belt out that famously offensive and sanctimonious line anymore— “Tonight, thank God it’s them instead of you.” In its place, he sings, “Tonight, we’re reaching out and touching you.” (Not actually touching, I hope.)

Here’s how I think this went down:

Bono put in a call from his limo and said, “You have to change that line. Don’t talk about Africans as ‘them.’ I’m a bloody Nobel Peace Prize nominee! For my Africa stuff! Gotta go. Facial.”

They changed that line, but without changing earlier lyrics that refer to Africans as “them,” because who has time to make the pronouns consistent?

3. The original version contained lyrics about how Africa has no rivers, rain, or snow, an incredibly stupid factual mistake. Those lyrics have been replaced with, “No peace and joy this Christmas in West Africa.” This is more factual. How could there be any peace or joy at all in a region around the size of the United States?

True size of Africa

4. Many commentators have wondered why Bob Geldorf didn’t write a new song about Ebola, given all of these issues. I suppose we can credit him with smart resource management, so important in the fight against disease. By remaking a familiar song in a half-day, the musicians involved in this record, including Chris Martin, Rita Ora, and Elbow, could focus on their other important contributions to society, such as this:

“Cause you’re a sky full of stars…”

5. Of the nearly forty musicians involved, around thirty are white men and none are African musicians. I understand Geldof’s reasoning on this. White men are the tops (of the charts)! The point is to sell records on behalf of Africa, not change anyone’s dumb, racist opinions about a large part of the world.

6. I’ve never heard of many of the musicians in this supergroup, like Disclosure, an electronic music duo in their early 20s, or Clean Bandit, an electronic fusion band in their 20s. Or Elbow. I imagine their contribution to the Ebola conversation will match their contribution to my broadened musical horizons.

Excited to hear Disclosure’s heartfelt take on the Ebola epidemic

7. The soaringly familiar chorus line — “Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?” — which was always offensive but at least familiar — has been rewritten. The new version: “How can they know it’s Christmas time at all?” Here as elsewhere, the producers have stripped the original song of all of its song-like qualities, such as rhythm, great vocals, and (albeit racist) metaphor. We are just left with awkward jumbles of words. Well done.

8. Finally, I believe the positive spirit of the entire Band-Aid 2014 enterprise can be summed up in a quote provided by its mastermind:

“It really doesn’t matter if you don’t like this song. It doesn’t matter if you hate the artists. What matters is that you buy the record.” — Bob Geldof

Give that man another charity record deal stat!