Defending "Do They Know It's Christmas?"

For quite a while now (a matter of years, really), I have considered the bloggers at Lawyers, Guns and Money, particularly the original triumvirate of Scott, Rob and David, as the very cutting-edge of young, white, male, secular, academic/intellectual blogger cool. (There are, of course, many other types of cool, and many other exponents of it--John Holbo and Belle Waring come to mind--but for whatever reason this is the type of cool that I, often against my own beliefs and better judgment, am regularly envious of.) But this year, well, they just went too far. Last month, Scott delivered his judgment that Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" is clearly the worst Christmas song ever, "an exceptionally lame song sung by mostly third-rate British pop stars that is also an unfortunate combination of self-congratulatory charity project and egregious racist condescension."

Well, damn. That can't go without a dissent from the peanut gallery, especially with Christmas upon us. Sometimes, I guess, I man just has to make a stand, as bourgeois and uncool as that stand may be.

First, give yourself a refresher. C'mon, you know you want to.

Okay, now point number one: it is, admittedly, not a particularly brilliant pop song, nor a particularly moving holiday song. It's really quite pedestrian, actually. But "exceptionally lame"? Er, no. I could go on and on and on with songs by dozens bands and singers that are far more deserving of that label, and so could you. "Do They Know It's Christmas?" has some pretty decent instrumentation, the vocals are solid, the harmonies clean, and the lyrics scan just fine; I'd wager every one of us could, with barely a minute's thought unfortunately, come up with a half-dozen Christmas recordings for which not one of those things are true. (Um, Jon Bon Jovi's "Back Door Santa," anyone?) Most importantly, the tune is catchy enough to withstand frequent play. None of this amounts to pronouncing the song a masterpiece, which is the sort of straw man that critics of this type of charity project always seem drawn to both making and then demolishing with relish. I can only assume that there is a deep loathing felt by some people at the very idea that famous and rich people will occasionally use their position in society to raise money and do good; it all becomes "self-congratulatory" wankery, particularly if those involved come out of the pop music world. Hence the desire to inflate the project (admittedly often abetted by some of the project's less humble defenders) into an especially pretentious size (suddenly it's an enshrined work of beauty and art), all the better for blowing it up. Well, tough. I'm hardly a defender of our capitalist cultural marketplace which gives obscene amounts of cash and social power to an arbitrarily selected bunch of folks who have a moderate talent for selling three-minute jingles to the masses, but give me a break. Whatever the performers and critics and hanger-ons may have made out the whole show, first and last, it's about something thrown together on short notice to move some kindness and concern to a part of the globe where people were starving...and "Do They Know" managed to move many millions of pounds from out of U.K. pocketbooks alone. Is this a reason for contempt? Do you think there's something wrong with Christmas being, at least in part, a liberal holiday? If so, I'm afraid you're wrong.

Point number two: Uh, "third-rate British pop stars"? Oh sure. Granted, I've long since confessed that, hip as I sometimes aspire to be, I'm basically a middle-of-road pop guy, so maybe I'm completely unqualified to comment on this accusation. But no--I'm not going to stand for this either. If you genuinely dislike the styles, presumptions, and approaches of pop music production--if you have deeply thought-out reasons to aesthetically hate the guitars and drum kits and vocals and three-verses-with-bridges lyric constructions or your typical pop song--then fine: I look forward to you tossing out all your indie and alternative crap (which is every bit as pop as something by Elton John) and solely embracing opera or the blues or world folk music. But in all likelihood you're not going to do that, because there's a reason pop music works: it's commercial, it's listenable, it's repeatable, it's harmonious, it's...well, it's popular. Which means there's going to be pop stars, and some of them will sell a lot of records. Some of those stars are going to be completely manufactured and hence aesthetically worthless, and--yes--some of them did sing on "Do They Know" (Simon Le Bon, I'm looking at you), but the ones who have some sticking power (the Bonos, etc.), well, "third-rate" is way too harsh, no matter what kind of beefs you may have with their professional choices and personal styles. (See Uncle Kvetch's excellent and wise defense of Sting in the comments on LGM's original thread for more on this.)

Final point: "egregious racist condescension"? In what politically correct world is this the case? Ok, so fine, the singers and producers are all wealthy inhabitants of the northern hemisphere reaching out to do some long-distance, hands-off charity; a little bit of dimwitted liberal condescension is going to be an inevitability. If that sort of goofy, sentimental (always at least partly ignorant, but also always well-intentioned) projection is always going to be a complete deal-breaker for you, then I suppose you must have written off George Harrison immediately after the Concert for Bangladesh, and are probably a Ron Paul supporter to boot. But whatever--to call "Do They Know" egregiously racist as well is, I think, to utterly miss the subtle yet unmistakable angry irony woven into this particular bit of condescension. Consider its most obvious analogue: the meretricious "We Are The World" by USA for Africa:

We can't go on pretending day by day
That someone, somehow will soon make a change
We're all a part of God's great big family
And the truth - you know love is all we need

We are the world, we are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me

Excuse me? I'm sorry, but this is not merely "banal," Tim; this is the lamest, most muddle-headed kind of dismissive pseudo-spiritual feel-goodism imaginable. I mean, c'mon: "we're saving our own lives"? Well, how about that? God has made us one with starving children in Africa! Giving of ourselves to these sad little losers in life's lottery will make us more human! Folks, don't you see: loving Africans by giving them money is win-win! Bleargh; excuse me while I vomit. If I'm going to be guilted into doing something, I want that liberal guilt to come honestly, to hit me where I actually live and hide my heartstrings, not to disguise what's happening with fake karmic oneness. And that, incidentally, describes "Do They Know" extremely well. Everyone goes after the ignorance of the title and refrain from the chorus (yes, yes, we get it, hardly anyone in Ethiopia celebrates Christian holidays anyway, so sure, score one for the critics), but have you thought about the rest of it?

But say a prayer
Pray for the other ones
At Christmastime it's hard, but when you're having fun
There's a world outside your window
And it's a world of dread and fear
Where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears
And the Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging
chimes of doom
Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you...

(Here's to you) raise a glass for everyone
(Here's to them) underneath that burning sun
Do they know it's Christmastime at all?

A simplistic reading would tell you that this is a bunch contented revelers taking the time to toss some cheap sentiments towards a bunch of folks they'd never thought of before. But that completely misses the actual target of the song--not sappy thinkers liable to be lured into some easy guilt, but the busy rank and file who are wrongly content with their own wealth. "While you're having fun" is balanced against "dread and fear" and "the bitter sting of tears" and "the clinging chimes of doom"; a contrast is made between raising a glass and suffering under a drought; and the scream "thank God it's them" is the guilty admission of all of us, liberal or otherwise, when faced with suffering. In short, the whole song is a pretty damn honest challenge, and a harsh one too, addressed with unapologetic and unwavering intensity to exactly the sort of people what are making the record and who they knew would buy the record: the white middle and upper-classes who would have thought nothing of just running down to the market and blowing 50 pounds on some useless nonsense, 50 pounds that could have fed a starving child. If anything, this is class warfare, not racism.

Actually, I think the underlying frustration animating this song, however clumsily it may come out, probably has a lot of similarity with the Kinks' "Father Christmas":

Father Christmas, give us some money
Don't mess around with those silly toys.
We'll beat you up if you don't hand it over
We want your bread so don't make us annoyed
Give all the toys to the little rich boys...

But give my daddy a job cause he needs one
He's got lots of mouths to feed
But if you've got one, I'll have a machine gun
So I can scare all the kids down the street

Have yourself a merry merry Christmas
Have yourself a good time
But remember the kids who got nothin'
While you're drinkin' down your wine

Not nearly as good at raising charity as "Do They Know," but it's got a better bass line, that's for certain. And I guess you could claim the Kinks were making a comprehensive critique of the economy rather than just trying to guilt some dollars out of their listeners. But in the context of Christmas in our wealthy Western homelands, a sharp kick to the gut to prompt some charitable feeling isn't always the wrong way to go. And so I've got to defend "Do They Know It's Christmas" from its detractors. It's not a great song; not worth the passion I've dumped into the effort here, I know. But giving a dollar to the Salvation Army ringer--whether out of guilt or any other motivation--isn't a great passionate act either, yet it's got as much to do with Christmas as most any other act of charity available to us moderns...and I say any song that encourages a little bit more of that, especially if it has at least of modicum of honesty and wit about it, deserves better than to be dismissed as crap, especially when more appropriate candidates are plentiful.

Well, I'm going to go outside to play with the kids in the snow. Enjoy your holiday, and listen to whatever music you like. To those whose cool sensibilities and critical taste I may have attacked, my apologies; maybe I'm just exorcising old resentments. Not the best of pastimes on Christmas Eve, but what can I say? I just like Paul Young, I guess. Merry Christmas, everyone. "Throw your arms around the world" and all that.