The most insufferable Christmas song ever

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 01:00:00 +0000

When "Do They Know It's Christmas?" came out in 1984, I pretty much thought I was British. I dressed like the asexual keyboard player from the Cure, pretended to love everything Depeche Mode was singing about – because, you know, people are people – and pledged undying love for bands I read about in the obscure British magazines sold at Tower Records. (In fact, only since getting Spotify have I even heard an entire album by the Blue Nile and, it turns out they sound like every other band I pretended to like in the 1980s, except for Belouis Some, who were terrible on a whole other level.) So "Do They Know It's Christmas?" combined all of the greatest things in my world:

1. British bands.

2. British bands singing morosely.

3. British bands singing morosely about hungry people in Africa, a place I was familiar with primarily through playing Risk, but which I nevertheless felt a great passion for. We must get these people fed, the world kept telling my 13-year-old self, and therefore I, too, felt this very strongly ... for about two months, anyway, because puberty was making me very interested in a whole host of other things.

Salon.com > Tod Goldberg

The most insufferable Christmas song ever