I never look for offense, but "Do They Know its Christmas Tume" lyrics...

[SecondUsername4me]

I mean, it's a bit iffy right?

And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas time,The greatest gift they'll get this year is life

The whole of Africa?

Where the only water flowing, Is the bitter sting of tears

On the whole continent?

Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you

Err.....

Anyone else took ages to realise that 'Band Aid' itself was a pun, though?
Band Aid being a sticking plaster?

Lol.

I got it straight away back in 1984. I was a great fan of Beverley Cleary's books, and the adventurous Ramona often had to be patched up with 'Band Aids' 😃

I was 20 when this came out. We weren't stupid. We knew the lyrics were bollocks. We looked past that to the intent behind it and bought the single.

Every time it is played in a pub or on the radio it makes money for developing countries in crisis. That can't be a bad thing?

Judging any song or poem on the literal sense of the words is a futile task. Has there ever actually been a red nosed reindeer? Is Santa Baby going to slip a sable under our tree? Has anyone ever bought a stairway to heaven? Did Kubla Khan really decree a stately pleasure dome in Xanadu?

It was totally of its time. A lot has changed since 1984

Out of interest, how old are you?
Are you old enough to remember Jim Davidson, and other 'comedians'. That was the time, casual sexism and racism was everywhere and all over the 3 > 4 TV channels

It seems that the people who weren't around at the time are the most offended.
But it truly was a different time.
The 90s & early 2000s were a different time - just watch a couple of episodes of Friends.
There will be things happening now that people will no doubt be offended by in twenty, thirty, forty years time. We don't necessarily see it because we are in the time and living the time.
It was a knee jerk reaction to horrible news reports which had good intentions at the heart of it. There wasn't time to over think it and I'm not sure anyone realised the impact it would have or that we would be unpicking it all 40 years later

I’m mid-50s and was mid-teens when it came out.

I find this argument and the put-downs of “offended by everything” / “rudolph isn’t true either” etc interesting as I’m not remotely woke/offended by everything or a person who looks to be offended as a mark of “superiority”. It’s more that the song annoys me as a prime example of the misunderstandings and cliched tropes about Africa that abound in Europe and the US (and maybe other areas too, I don’t know) that I do think are actually harmful. They were then and they are now. They encourage the mindset of seeing Africa as one big, poverty-stricken lump that needs to be infantilised. That attitude is still there among a lot of people and wheeling this song out every year reinforces it. I’m not saying ban it. I’m saying people should be more aware of how inaccurate it is and maybe help kids to understand that too.

You can raise loads of money and awareness and do a great thing (though there are questions about how well the money was handled, but that’s an issue with aid generally) - and at the same time write a song that perpetuates damaging and untrue stereotypes. The one doesn’t cancel out the other, in either direction.

As for Rudolph, oh pur-lease. Yes I can’t tell the difference between deliberate children’s fiction and earnest patrician stereotyping. Is that ridiculous reach really necessary to put me down because I take issue with the lyrics? You could just make your reasoned case for disagreeing with me, like others have.

Re “the superior MNers among us whinging and whining about it” - are you including the several Africans on the thread in that, who have talked about how patronising it is? Who can have an opinion on that alongside appreciating the fundraising efforts and aid? I would say they are in a “superior” position in terms of having a right to air their thoughts on it.

With regard to the lyrics the OP has quoted, I doubt they were meant to be taken literally.

'There won't be snow in Africa ...' - surely this is just contrasting the traditional santa/snowmen/cosiness of Christmas in the UK with the footage we had all seen at the time of suffering famine victims. It wasn't intended as a meteorological analysis of every inch of the continent of Africa.

'The only water flowing ...' is a reference to the problem, which is still a problem today (see: WaterAid), of access to sanitary drinking water in some impoverished areas.

'Tonight, thank God it's them ..' is simply a way of saying 'there but for the grace of God' - i.e. people in the UK were not escaping the fate of famine through merit or because of their actions, we are simply luckier and, if religious, should 'count our blessings'.

And yes I remember Jim Davidson etc, and I remember finding him shockingly racist at the time. May I and my friends/family weren’t “of our time” either?

70s / 80s society wasn’t full of people with identical thought and attitudes, and racism, homophobia, misogyny, stereotyping etc were challenged then too - and amazingly, even before that!

I was in my late teens at the time and I knew it was a shit song with shit lyrics at the time. But I also knew it was well intended. Of course we knew that there are rivers in Africa, that it does snow in parts, the whole of Africa isn't the same etc etc but we also knew that the fundraising wasn't for the whole of Africa but for a very specific situation. Drought was a big part of that and the words made some sense in that context.
In the modern day when we are used to 24/7 news coverage from all around the world in lurid detail it's hard to imagine quite what an impact the news reports from the famine in Ethiopia had at the time. But they really did open many people's eyes to stuff they had probably never thought about before.
Whilst there certainly are issues with this type of fundraising and aid in general, and the words to the song are definitely questionable from today's perspective, I do believe that it came from a real desire to help other human beings.
I don't like the song and I didn't buy it. I do have it on a compilation CD now, but I always skip it. However I did give to another charity as a direct result of the huge amount of publicity at the time and have continued to do so since. I'm sure I am not the only one.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and no doubt there's plenty to be learned from the events of the past, but as someone said upthread there will be things that we think are brilliant, helpful initiatives now that people will probably be sneering at in 40 years.

Should have sung

’And there’s unlikely to be very much snow in Ethiopia, or indeed the rest of Africa, this Christmas time’

‘And the greatest gift they’ll get this year is life, or perhaps a Transformer or a Cabbage Patch Doll depending on their gender preference.’

You do know Africa is a country right? 🫠

I’m old enough to remember it first time round and it raised eyebrows then with its shortness!
I also had the unfortunate luck of dealing with Knob Geldolf around the time. Rude, arrogant, ignorant, patronising and a complete tosser. I realised it was definitely the best he could do!

The lyrics might be problematic however people were dying in their millions ,and the song raised a huge amount of money to help feed those starving in Ethiopia ,the scenes coming out of Ethiopia on the Tv were horrendous starving children who were just being left to die
Rather than focus on the song why not focus on the good that it did?

*Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you"

Err.....

Err, that's not meant to be taken literally!
🙄😁
It's said to make you think - kind of in a "there for the Grace of God go I...."
That it could be anyone.

I think that line is probably the least offensive one in it

Because the charitable aspect is long gone but the song itself, dodgy lyrics and all, is still a persistent part of Xmas in Britain. The song came out, raised a ton for charity, money was donated....and 40 years later the song's still around every winter.

I don't deny the song did a lot of good back in the day but I think its fair to say that all its really achieving these days is misinformation about a whole continent 🤷🏼‍♀️ I'm not going to personally advocate for a ban or anything of that nature but it does seem silly to me that so many on this thread (not you) are foaming at the mouth at OP for pointing out a few truths 😂 (Ironically this is the crowd that would accuse OP of being 'oversensitive' and 'snowflakey').

Oh yes - 1989. Beyond awful 🙈

i always thought the line "thank God its them" referred to people putting their head in the sand and having the luxury of pretending there isnt a problem because it doesnt directly affect them.

Sounds like it was written by David Brent.

I was about 11 then and knew the lyrics were bollocks. As did my friends. We all bought it though as it was our way of doing something to help starving children in Ethiopia.
Still a catchy tune and I also,love Fairytale of New York and gutted it's not no1 this year.

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/ETH/ethiopia/population

The population of Ethiopia has tripled in the forty years since, so all that fundraising seems to have paid off.

Africa is 3 syllables. Ethiopia is 5. It doesn’t.
But that’s a minor detail.
As others have said it was pulled together in days and raised lots of money. If it’s a bit clumsy with hindsight, if the funds weren’t always used in the best possible way well - so what really? It was groundbreaking at the time and yes, we’ve learned a lot about a lot of things since then.

You understand the reference doesn’t mean there are no rivers, right? It refers to them not flowing because they’ve dried up, what with the drought and everything.