About This Time 40 Years Ago… It’s The Hits Of March-ish 1985!

The Hottest Hit On The Planet:

There’s no other record quite like “We Are The World.”

I mean sure, there were a whole lot of records like “We Are The World”… “We Are The World” was written in response to one of them… “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” , of course.

And there would be more afterwards.

“Do They Know It’s Christmas?” wasn’t the only template for writing “We Are The World.” Michael and Lionel and Quincy also spent a lot of time listening to a bunch of national anthems, to help them figure out how propaganda worked. And it did work. The end result made “Do They Know It’s Christmas” – despite being recorded at the tail-end of the Second British Invasion, a time when UK pop stars were amongst the biggest in the world – look provincial in comparison (“Do They Know It’s Christmas” is a 3.)

“We Are The World” was the centrepiece of 80s pop.

That the kids watching at home could do their own little bit in saving the world.

To save, not only ‘their own lives’ (I’m still not sure how that worked) but the lives of the children they saw on TV, after BBC correspondent Michael Buerk reported “a Biblical famine,” from “the closest thing to Hell on Earth”; “thousands of wasted people… coming here for help, many finding only death.” And there was a lot of death: between 600,000 and a million Ethiopians died.

A famine partially created by a drought. But also partially – if not mostly – created by the Ethiopian Government, as a strategic weapon in a civil war against Eritrean separatists and the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front.

Where they could have grown food. And into villages, where they could not: basically an Ethiopian version of Mao’s Great Leap Forward.

Having organized “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”, Bob Geldof was now a roving ambassador for famine relief, and was thus brought into the “We Are The World” session to give the pop stars a pep talk; to remind them why they were there, or – since a whole lot of the pop stars seemed a little unsure what was going on – inform them in the first place. Some of those in attendance seem genuinely surprised that it wasn’t just to take part in the world’s most glamourous class photo.

“…[T]o put you in the mood, of the song you’re about to sing, which hopefully will save, millions of lives… I think what’s happening in Africa is a crime of historical proportions. And the crime is that the Western world, has got millions of tonnes of grain, bursting in its silos, and we’re not releasing it to people who are dying of hunger.”

“Now, I don’t know if we, in particular, can conceive of nothing, but… nothing is not having any drink to get drunk on…”

And you can tell that was the moment when the horror became all too real for everyone present. Bob Geldof sure knew how to relate to an audience.

To be fair to “We Are The World”, they seem to have a better grasp of why they were there than the pop stars in “Do The Know It’s Christmas?” who seem to be having a ball of a time in the video, almost as if it were an actual Christmas party. All except, perhaps surprisingly, Bananarama.

The Americans at least tried to approach the project with pathos.

Possibly this was because they were feeling bad that they had been eating caviar. Possibly not actual caviar, possibly just metaphorical caviar, but definitely a lavish feast. You can’t invite a bunch of pop stars around to sing a song late at night and not provide them with something to eat, even if they are about to sing a song about people with nothing to eat, so…

“It’s Hollywood, California” Lionel explained. “So when you ask a restaurant ‘Can you cater for free?’ well it’s only going to be Spago, it’s only gonna be Chasen’s.”

As a result of Bob’s speech, they decided to slum it a bit:

I’m not sure what happened to the caviar. They presumedly didn’t airlift it to Africa.

There’s a lot to hate about “We Are The World.” There’s a lot to ridicule.

The lyrics are ridiculous. And also confounding. I’ve already mentioned the “saving our own lives” thing, but I’d like to focus on a line that – since I was going to a Catholic primary school at the time – always jumped out at me. Willie Nelson:

Doesn’t anybody involved in “We Are The World” read The Bible? That’s not how the story goes! It’s the exact opposite of how the story goes!!

This is how the story went:

He’s hungry, because he’s fasting, and even if he wasn’t, Ancient Israel – the entire Roman Empire in fact – did not contain a single Roscoe’s House of Chicken ‘N Waffles.

The devil appears:

Jesus understood the concept of a balanced diet. And even if God did turn stone into bread, how is this relevant? What does this show us? What are you going on about, Willie?

Sometimes it even feels as though Michael designed “We Are The World” to be his own coronation ceremony as King Of Pop.

Whilst everyone else is wearing neat casual or – most notably Kenny Rogers – the official “We Are The World” windcheater, Michael makes his big entrance:

It’s as if he was still half-expecting Prince to turn up and couldn’t afford to look less regal than him.

Prince didn’t turn up. Prince wanted to do a guitar solo. Instead they gave him the line directly after Michael’s. Imagine it:

• Michael singing: “When you’re down and out, there seems no hope at all.”
• Then Prince replying with: “But if you just believe, there’s no way we can fall.”

Lionel says it was because Prince was shy and wanted to play his guitar solo in a separate room, which would have looked weird in the video. But when the last half of the song is just the chorus over and over again, with Bruce and Stevie and Ray all screaming at each other – James Ingram kills it though – you can’t tell me that Prince going full “Purple Rain” over the whole thing wouldn’t have been a vast improvement.

Because they mostly get just one line on “We Are The World”, each pop star strived to make it count.

Some strived by over-singing it, others impersonated themselves. Lionel had never sounded more Lionel. Willie had never sounded more Willie. Tina, never more Tina. And Cyndi had never been more Cyndi. She nailed her lines.

Bruce Springsteen on the other hand – despite never being more Bruce – does not nail his lines. Which is particularly unfortunate since he has so many of them.

And Bob Dylan? Oh, he’s bad. Although, to both his and Bruce’s credit, they seem to realize that they suck, and that they don’t know what they are doing. Bob needed to ask Stevie Wonder how he should sound leading to the bizarre scenario of Stevie Wonder impersonating Bob Dylan to Bob Dylan.

Which means that the Bob Dylan bit isn’t just Bob Dylan impersonating Bob Dylan.

According to the t-shirts and the big banner hanging up behind them, USA For Africa did not stand for United States Of America, but United Support Of Artists, the most awkward collection of words I have ever seen. Not realizing this, that song title/band-name combination was enough to inspire eyerolls from non-Americans across the planet: “there the Americans go again, acting as though they are the whole world.”

“We Are The World” and “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” have been criticized in recent years for “perpetuat(ing) damaging stereotypes that stifle Africa’s economic growth, tourism, and investment”.

Then again, the song was written by two guys – Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie – who had previously used fake African chants in their hit songs. Stevie Wonder wanted to add a Swahili chant into “We Are The World” itself, but

• (a) he couldn’t get the pronunciation right, and
• (b) it turns out they don’t actually speak Swahili in Ethiopia.

If anyone wanted to make an argument about the utter cluelessness of the whole project, well, there you are.

Now, USA For Africa and Live Aid were two different organisations, a fact that Bob Geldof would like to be better understood, since he has spent much of his life hearing “We Are The World” whenever he walks into a room. This complicates the question of where the money went.

There are insistent rumours that some went to NGOs who turned out to be a front for the Ethiopian Government, who used the funds to further the policies that created the famine in the first place. There is some evidence that some of the money was used to buy weapons from the Soviet Union. This was specifically in relation to Live Aid, not USA For Africa, but it’s hard to imagine them doing much better.

Huey Lewis, not exactly a guy who seems to worry about things, was worried –“there are questions as to whether the food is actually getting to the starving people or not” – and refused to do Live Aid as a result.

Now the Ethiopian Government definitely were buying weapons from the Soviets. They were after all, a Marxist-Leninist Government. Live Aid found this out when they managed to get food to the ports of Ethiopia but couldn’t get it off the boats because unloading the weapons was a higher priority.

Then again, as Bob said: “I will shake hands with the devil on my left and on my right to get to the people we are meant to help.” A lot of the food and money undoubtably did.

But is “We Are The World” actually any good? Well, mmm, well, urgh… it’s not great art exactly, but for a movie-length advertisement for famine relief that sounds more like a corporate training video than a pop record… it did the job. It felt like a spectacle. And it was pretty exciting. It still is.

Even now, even after the initial thrill of hearing all those iconic voices singing together has gone, “We Are The World” still quite a nostalgic thrill. I’ve done it at karaoke and attempted to do all the voices. The night after Michael died, I was at retro-indie dance party, and at the end we all gathered around a piano and again, I tried to do all the voices. On both occasions the response was nowhere near as positive as I was hoping, but I had fun.

There was a sequel to “We Are The World” of course – “We Are The World 25 For Haiti” – and of course it was the biggest hot mess ever recorded. By anyone. Ever!

But I think there should be more. Every year. As part of the post-Grammys party, perhaps. It would be no-doubt be even more painful than “25 For Haiti”, but that shouldn’t stop them. It would be a lovely time capsule. Which, in the end, was probably “We Are The World”s most enduring legacy.

“We Are The World” is a 5.

• Maybe, if it had Prince, it would have been a 6.
• Maybe if it had had both Prince and Madonna, it could have been a 7.

For Madonna wasn’t on “We Are The World.” This appears to be because Cyndi was on it, and they felt they couldn’t have both. So, to make up for that, let’s see what Madonna was doing:

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Meanwhile, in Material World:

Which is Madonna’s true signature song?

You’d could probably narrow the choice down to two: “Like A Virgin” and “Material Girl.”

Two hits that came one after another, BAM! BAM! Two songs that defined her pop star persona. Two songs that established the themes that she would spend the rest of her career exploring: sex and success.

Two songs that Madonna didn’t write herself. Which may be why they are so much fun. Madonna isn’t expressing herself – sorry – on “Like A Virgin” and “Material Girl”, she’s having a karaoke party. Since Madonna didn’t write “Material Girl”, the question has often been raised: did she mean it? Was she as materialistic as she claimed? Or was it all irony?

Madonna has been intriguingly inconsistent about this. Whilst in the studio, working on “Material Girl”, she would say things like “time is money and the money is mine.”

She’s also said thing like:

But that was in 1986, when she was still more-or-less promoting “Material Girl.” When she was still playing the role of Marilyn Monroe – the first example of Madonna turning herself into a one-woman tribute act to every female icon of the 20th century – playing the role of Lorelai Lee, one of the greatest fictional-philosophers of her time – from Anita Loos’ satirical 1925 novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

But Madonna has also claimed that “Material Girl” was ironic, pointing out that “the video was about how the girl rejected diamonds and money.”

I’m not so sure about that reading of the text: Madonna ends up making out with an all-powerful Hollywood head-honcho. Sure, it’s in a pick-up truck, since he’s slumming it in order to impress her, but surely she knows who he is?

Also because otherwise, there’s going to be an awkward conversation later: “What? You were lying to me? You were only pretending to be poor, but you actually own this entire Hollywood studio?

Also, that pick-up truck, it’s a pick-up truck that he’s hired in Hollywood studio lot.

Nobody who genuinely owns a beaten-up old pickup truck would ever slick their hair back like that.

Look, even if Madonna was just in it for the money, is that really so bad? It’s not her fault she’s a “Material Girl.” It’s all part of the Material World we are living in. Madonna is just going along with societal expectations. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

Also, we need to remember, that just a few years earlier, Madonna was poor. How poor? Here she is talking to Spin in 1985:

Also, this:

“At one point I was living in New York and eating out of garbage cans. Actually, it was not a garbage can on the street; it was the garbage can in the Music Building on Eighth Avenue…

And just to prove that she wasn’t into diamonds and stuff like that, she had never put a jewel in her bellybutton:

“I have the most perfect belly button: an inny…”

“…and there’s no lint in it. I never wore a jewel in my belly, but if I did it would be a ruby or an emerald… if 100 belly buttons were lined up against a wall, I could definitely pick out which one is mine.”

Probably the most convincing argument that “Material Girl” is ironic are the backing singers, the ones – “liv-ing in a mat-er-ial world, liv-ing in a mat-er-ial world” – that sound like robots.

Or like Devo. Actually, very much like Devo.

“Material Girl” works on multiple levels.

One level, that doesn’t get anywhere near enough attention, is that it appears to be a reminder to her fans that she’s Italian: all that “I’m a mama-material” stuff, as if she’s Rosemary Clooney doing “Mambo Italiano.”

Like so many Madonna songs:

…“Material Girl” works as an endless cash flow of accounting tricks: “If they don’t give me proper credit”, “If they can’t raise my interest”, “experience has made me rich”, that sort of thing. Less time is spent on fashion puns.

Madonna left all the fashion-puns for her next single: “Dress You Up”: “Feel the silky touch of my caresses”, “let me cover you with velvet kisses”, “I’ll create a look that’s made for you.” That sort of thing. (“Dress You Up” is a 9.)

Not to mention working as a critique of materialism itself.

“Material Girl” is an 8.

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Meanwhile, On The Northern Side Of Town:

In 1984, The Waterboys dropped “The Big Music.”

This event didn’t announce the arrival of a new music revolution – U2, Simple Minds, and Echo & The Bunnymen had been making this stuff for years – but it did give an existing aesthetic a name.

A name that was inspired by a trip chief-Waterboy Mike Scott took to Foyles Bookshop, the biggest bookshop in London, where he found the Philosophy Room, and bought twelve books about the “Perennial Wisdom”, the philosophy that all the religions of the world are basically one and the same.

“The Big Music is a way of saying, “I have felt a spiritual stirring inside of myself. I’ve felt the wider question, moving inside of me.” All of which suggests two things:

1. That “The Big Music” was post-punk with spiritual (usually Christian) overtones,
2. And that “Big Music” singers, whether Mike Scott or Bono, talked a lot of shit.

“The Big Music” was an aesthetic that included Echo & The Bunnymen describing themselves as an “oceans and mountains kind of band,” and U2 recording albums in churches.

I’ll include the Big Country as well. Simply because their big hit, “In A Big Country”, features a whole lot of castle ruins, and their uncanny ability to make their guitars sound like bagpipes. Celebrating their Celtic heritage was very important to The Big Music bands.

Most of these bands came from places far away from London. They came from Scotland and Ireland. Although they came from cities, they sounded as though they had stepped right out of a foggy moor.

The Dream Academy came from London, which should probably disqualify them. But I’m going to include them anyway, since, on their one big hit, they sang about the north. And featured a lot of fog and drizzle in the video. And because it sounded BIG! A HEY AH MA MA MA!!!

And because elvish lead-singer Nick Laird-Clowes had spent a lot of time in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where he had been one of the presenters on The Tube, a music video show that was filmed there.

But whilst he was up north, he got rather passionate about the death of the shipping industry. Which, although it doesn’t mention it at all – spending most of its running time singing about Sinatra in his younger days, and John F Kennedy and The Beatles, only the last of which feels as though it has anything to do with northern towns at all – is what “Life In A Northern Town” is all about.

Also Manchester, most notably the Salford Lads Club, a year before The Smiths made it famous… also… Pennsylvania? The American flag flying from the porch? Clearly a blatant bid for MTV play. It worked.

Maybe that’s why I prefer the original video: recorded in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, as quintessential a northern town as you are likely to find, which Wikipedia informs me is now “the lesbian capital of the UK.”

Then comes the African chant: A HEY AH MA MA MA!!! Because I know that when I think of the north of England, the first things that I think of are African chants.

Everyone in the post-“Thriller” era was adding African chants to their songs, whether it made any sense or not, but in few songs did it make less sense than “Life In A Northern Town.” Maybe, if Stevie had gotten his way, “We Are The World” could have provided some competition.

Why? Who knows? Was it because Gilbert was Black? Were Nick and Gilbert sitting on the floor and Nick says to Gilbert, “we need an African-style chorus”, and then looks at Gilbert expectantly and continues “that can be your job”?

With the exception of the African chant, the overall feel of “Life In A Northern Town” is a certain Celtic-folksiness.

Also known as the English horn, despite the fact that it was invented in the Silesia region of modern-day Poland.

A lot of it also comes from being written on Nick Drake’s guitar. That’s Nick Drake, the enigmatic folk-cult figure, who committed suicide in 1974, and that guitar is the very one he’s holding on the “Bryter Layter” album cover. Nick – Laird-Clowes, Nick – bought it for $100. In addition to being about the death of the shipping industry, “Life In A Northern Town” is supposed to be a Nick Drake tribute.

For a one-hit wonder, who hadn’t even had their one-hit yet, Dream Academy had a surprising number of big names helping them out. “Life In A Northern Town” was produced by David Gilmour. That’s Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, to you. Presumedly that’s him adding the teenage girl screams after Nick minces “The Beat-les.”

Nick also happened to be friends with Paul Simon. He invited Paul around for advice on what to call the thing. This makes sense.

Also the whole “Salvation Army” thing… that’s straight out of “Hazy Shade Of Winter.” Is this supposed to be a Nick Drake tribute or one for Paul? Paul’s advice: “No one’s going to know how to ask for A Hey Ah Ma Ma Ma in a record store…”

Paul Simon may be one of the 20th century’s greatest singer-songwriters, but he may have been mistaken there, since I’m pretty sure that’s what most people referred to it as. That’s certainly how people referred to the 90s dance version aka “Sunchyme” by Dario G.

Then again, you can’t very well write a Nick Drake tribute/song about the death of the shipping industry and call it “A Hey Ah Ma Ma Ma,” can you?

“Life In A Northern Town” is an 8.

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