December 11, 2013
Do They Know It’s Christmas: A Personal History
1.
In 1984, we got the Band Aid album for Christmas, a gift from my mother’s younger sister, my aunt. I was five. From that same aunt, my sister and my cousin received leg-warmers for their Cabbage Patch Dolls. I don’t remember what I got, but it was not the Cabbage Patch leg-warmers, and this was profoundly upsetting. I remember that when the Band Aid album was unwrapped, my older cousin (who would have been ten or eleven) was excited, and put it on the record player straight away. Being ten or eleven, he was hip to the ways of the world and its zeitgeist, just like my young aunt was. I thought them both impossibly cool, and decided the album was worth knowing about for their interest in it. I knew about the famine in Ethiopia, about what the singers were singing about. I’d seen it on TV. But I have no recollection of my immediate impressions of the song itself. I was far too upset about the leg-warmers.
2.
Every Christmas for the next few years, I would spend a huge amount of time studying the album art for Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas”. The images were fascinating. On one side, ornate Victorian Christmas imagery, the kind that illustrates “The Night Before Christmas” or a Christmas card. This was juxtaposed with a photo of two African children with spindly limbs. I don’t know if the photos showed the children’s distended bellies or flies landing on their skin, but I’d seen enough television coverage to know all about it. The African children were in black and white, while the rest of the album was rich and red. This could perhaps be the beginning of my impression that Africa was a colourless place.
(Two decades later, I’d read What is the What by Dave Eggers, explore the website of the book’s subject, Valentino Achak Deng, and be so completely shocked by the greenery and colour in photos of his home village in Sudan. The Africa of my mind was an imaginary place. Where nothing ever grows, no rain or river flows. I suppose.)
2.1
And then I would turn the album over. On the back was a photo of all the musicians who’d come together to make the record, assembled in rows like a school class photograph. This was interesting. Even more so was a copy of the image with just squiggly lined silhouettes of all the people in it, each silhouette marked with a number. The numbers corresponded to a list of the musicians, so that I could find out who was who. This was a curious matching game, a sort of passive paint-by-numbers too.
It was also a useful game because I didn’t know any of these musicians, except for Phil Collins (who looked kind of out of place) and Boy George , who I knew from “Karma Chameleon” and remembered because he was a man who liked to dress up like a girl. But I knew he was really a man though because he said so: “I am a man without conviction. I am a man who doesn’t know how to sell a contradiction.” Though looking back, he seems quite good at selling contradiction. It is possible that the lyrics to “Karma Chameleon” cannot be read wholly earnestly. This would not occur to me for many many years.
Here is another contradiction: In fact, Boy George didn’t even appear in the picture, which I only realize now when I double check. This is confusing. I swear he was there. I am remembering his image from the video I think. I guess he had somewhere else to be when the picture was taken..
And now I have gone off on a tangent, which is what usually happened when I stared at these images. I was obsessed with this album. I kept getting lost in it.
Actually, Boy George would not have looked so out of place in this photo though. Many of the musicians in the photo were androgynous, men (I think?) with long hair and a few women with masculine faces. Perhaps this created the effect that there were more women than there actually were, though there are only a few. Curiously, the women are all lacking surnames. They are called Marilyn, Keren, Sarah and Siobhan. I have just Googled Marilyn, and he was actually a man called Peter, so there you go. Basically there were only women in the shot because they’d invited Bananarama, who introduced themselves on the b-side, the vowel in banana pronounced like “ah” which made the band name sound much less stupid than it was. I knew Bananarama because on my Mini Pops album was a recording of “Venus”.
There was one other woman in the photo and she was remarkable for a couple of reasons: she had two names (which were Jody Watley) and she was black. This latter point she had in common with the three men on the left-hand side of the group. Which made for 4 black people in total in the picture on the back of “Do They Know It’s Christmas”, but at least that was twice as many as were depicted on the front.
George Michael is in the picture, but I would not recognize him until “Faith” came out in 1989. There is someone called Midge in the picture too, which added to my speculation about Band Aid and gender, but he was definitely a bloke. The guy in the front with the sunglasses in his shirt–he was wearing dirty white socks. And Johnny Fingers–what kind of a name was Johnny Fingers? The world was a curious place.
3.
I love this song. Somehow it has become a classic, up there with “Feliz Navidad” by Boney M and any version of “Oh Holy Night”. I love the bells that ring a descending line right before the “Do they know it’s Christmas time at all,” lyric. I love the oomph of, “Here’s to you” and the oomphy echo of, “Raise a glass for everyone.” The rhyme of, “Underneath this burning sun” is so perfect. I love when Sting (because by now I know who Sting is) sings his name in the line he’s given. The drama behind a lyric like, “the clanging chimes of doom.” And Bono, oh, Bono. When you delivered your, “Well, tonight thank God it’s them…” line, the rest of your life story was written.
I love the juxtaposition of the song’s lyrics, as blatant as on the album’s cover. It is Christmas time and there’s no need to be afraid. We do indeed live in a world of plenty (or at least I do). I want to believe that it’s as simple as us and “the other ones.” That if we just pray for them and buy a rock and roll single, us and a ragtag bunch of scruffy pop-stars can right everything that’s wrong. It is Christmas time, and I totally want to throw my arms around the world.
4.
If my bad taste is reflected in my terrible taste in pop music, you should probably know that I can’t get enough of charity singles. I watch the Band Aid video on Much Music, and I cry. Basically, put a pair of headphones on anyone and show me them singing passionately with their eyes shut, preferably when when shaking their fist emphatically. “There comes a time when we heed a certain call, when the world must stand together as one…” And there is nothing I love better than times like that. “Tears Are Not Enough,” “We Are the World,” even “That’s What Friends are For.” I can’t get enough of this stuff. If I think about this, it is probably because modern life is dulling and we’re desperate for feelings, even if the come from a can. I also like to kid myself that the world’s big problems have solutions (and that these might possibly begin with a bunch of guys with guitars putting on a show).
5.
There is a gradual awakening. This has a lot to do with geography. Africa is not a place where nothing ever grows, no rain or rivers flow. I think about the Nile and the Congo, the latter of which is the deepest river in the world. I think about snow on top of Mt. Kilimanjaro (which, as you know, rises like Olympus above the Serengeti) and that it’s possible that there will be snow in Africa this Christmas after all. That even if they were using “Africa” as a synonym for “Ethiopia” in this song, the lyrics would be wrong. It was not that nothing ever grew in Ethiopia, but that was did grow was diverted from hungry people due to errant government policies.
6.
It’s not just me who has affection for this song. Its catchy tune and inane (and factually incorrect) lyrics ring out through shopping malls across the land every Christmas time. In 1989, Band Aid 2 was recorded, featuring not only Kylie and Jason, but many other bands including Technotronic and Wet Wet Wet. The single in the UK outsold Madonna’s “Like A Prayer”. 2004 saw another rerecording, Band Aid 20, which had actual woman’s voices, including Sugababes, Rachel from S Club, Natasha Bedingfield and Dido. They were joined by Fran from Travis, Busted, Justin from The Darkness, The Thrills, Robbie Williams and Will Young–a whole host of musicians who’d been topping the charts in the UK during a time in which I’d lived there and listened to the radio incessantly. In the middle of the song, Dizzee Rascal raps. Everybody was showered, and nobody androgynous at all.
When Band Aid 20 came out, we were living in Japan. My friend bought me the single from the Tower Records on top of the FORUS shopping centre. We listened to it on Christmas Day while we drank vodka mixed with alcoholic orange juice. We hadn’t gotten the day off. The lyric, “Do they know it’s Christmas?,” has special resonance that year.
7.
It’s more than just a guilty pleasure. If it wasn’t, I could just stop, and placate those who slag off Bob Geldof and Bono for their rockstar refusal to live in real world. It all comes down to economic explanations, but then I’m just humming along. Because I’ve been listening to this song for 29 Christmases now, and it is as much a part of the season as Jesus, the Shepherds and the Wisemen, and I don’t really believe in that story either. You get old enough and realize that Christmas is a string of fictions. One of them is that pop music can shape and save the world. And yet. It has shaped and saved just as much as anything, I suppose. Certainly, this terrible, embarrassing song has shaped me.
December 2, 2013
City Noel
Living in the city and not having a car, we have always brought our Christmas trees home quite conspicuously, carried on our shoulders (which is a bit awkward when pushing a stroller or carrying a baby, but we’ve made it happen in all these circumstances). And that is part of the reason I am so enamoured with the Christmas cards I’ve bought this year, which show another quite ingenious method for bringing home Christmas in the city. These cards are by Wendy Tancock, whose site is here. The image is beautiful and who doesn’t love a streetcar? I’m due to start writing a pile tonight
December 1, 2013
December the First
November is done. This is a triumph. November was filled with arduous things, and then fate compounded it all by throwing funerals and sickness into the mix. But now it is December, and while my entire life (and yours?) these days feels like a hardscrabble round in a hamster wheel, we’ve managed to get our stockings hung and get a start on Christmas baking. Door Number One is opened in our Lindt Advent Calendar, and we’ve chosen the winner of our Christmas CD giveaway. This evening, the CD itself was playing, and it was wonderful, Elizabeth Mitchell’s voice creating a lovely, mellow mood. We sat down and read Margaret Laurence’s The Christmas Story, which I loved even more than I’d remembered–it’s a fantastic way to teach my kid what Christmas is all about. And it’s just one of a whole stack of Christmas books that we’ve pulled out again after 11 months away in boxes. I’m looking forward to getting to know them again.
November 20, 2013
CD GIVEAWAY! The Sounding Joy by Elizabeth Mitchell and Friends
I fell in love with Elizabeth Mitchell’s music when Harriet was a baby, and suddenly the whole world was a richer, sunnier place. Her music is the soundtrack to our family life, and I love that with her folk songs she gives us roots, but also keeps us rocking out to covers by Lou Reed, David Bowie, and Van Morrison. I love how she brought us Remy Charlip. “Alphabet Dub” on her You Are My Sunshine album is hands-down the best version of the ABCs ever.
Her latest is an album of Christmas songs, The Sounding Joy. And you can listen to a preview here, the song “Children, Go Where I Send Thee (Little Bitty Baby: A Cumulative Song)”.
More about the album for Smithsonian Folkways:
Grammy-nominated recording artist Elizabeth Mitchell releases The Sounding Joy, ann exploration of Christmas and solstice songs from the American folk tradition. Drawn almost exclusively from the often overlooked but deeply influential songbook of revered composer and anthologist Ruth Crawford Seeger, these songs evoke an era before mass media and the commercialization of Christmas, when sacred song, dance, contemplation, and gathering were prized above all else during the holiday season. Mitchell’s fifth album for Smithsonian Folkways, The Sounding Joy features husband Daniel Littleton, daughter Storey, and special guests Peggy Seeger, Natalie Merchant, Amy Helm, Aoife O’Donovan, Gail Ann Dorsey, Larry Campbell, Dan Zanes, and John Sebastian, among many other family, friends, and neighbors. This gorgeously reverent 24-song collection attempts to save these traditional American holiday songs from an “unmarked grave,” as Merchant puts it in her essay included in the liner notes.
Although the songs presented are specific to the Christian tradition, Mitchell’s husband Daniel Littleton cites the inclusive nature of the project, describing the assembly of musicians as an “ecumenical summit” of sorts, with participants of many religious and non-religious backgrounds coming together happily to bring the songs to life. Mitchell sums up the spirit of the album best in her notes: “However you and your loved ones celebrate the last month of the year, I hope it is filled with the sounds of joy.”
And even better than news of a brand new Elizabeth Mitchell album? Why, that Smithsonian Folkways has provided me with a CD copy to give away to one of you. If you leave a comment on this post by midnight November 30, I’ll include your name in a random draw to win the CD.
**Congrats to Suss. Thanks to all who entered. Hope you’ll get your own copies. It’s a really lovely album.
August 9, 2013
How the Reading Stacked Up
Thankfully, the black clouds that hung over our vacation at the cottage were literal rather than metaphorical. I’m also glad I didn’t have to be on vacation with a newborn in a heat-wave. It was a funny week, each of wearing the one sweater we’d brought with us every single day. Harriet didn’t have as many playmates as in recent summers, and it was also strange to be on vacation when nobody in the family is working. We didn’t get that same sense of glorious reprieve, but we did get a lot of ice cream, Harriet rode a pony, and I got a lot of reading done. We had to settle for a week away that was good rather than miraculously brilliant, and so we did. We are quite heroic.
I read the short stories in the Barbara Pym book in the days before we left. Upon arrival, Russell Hoban’s Turtle Diary was first up, which Jared Bland writes about in the Globe this week. It’s a difficult, funny and terribly sad novel, just the kind of novel you’d think the man who wrote Frances would author. Though I found the ending strangely uplifting, and I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to. I reread Joan Didion’s Where I Was From next, my first reread, and I adored it. It was fascinating to see it in the context of Blue Nights and Magical Thinking, in the context of a trilogy. Her California is my land of dreams. I read The City is a Rising Tide next, the novel by Rebecca Lee whose Bobcat and Other Stories has so enchanted me. Truth was this was really a very long short story instead of a novel, but I loved it because I’ve become quite fond of Rebecca Lee’s writing and there it was. An ARC of Ann Patchett’s essay collection next, and you’ll be hearing more from me on that in the future. And then Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which seems to be the book of the summer in my circles. I really don’t do fantasy, and any exposure I have to fantasy underlines this (A Wrinkle in Time notwithstanding, curiously), but the Gaiman book was short and its realist elements were so compelling. I loved it. Perhaps my problem with fantasy is that all the novels are 800 pages long.
We’d already made our annual pilgrimmage to Bob Burns Books in Fenelon Falls, Stuart picking up a stack of Terry Pratchetts, Harriet getting a couple of picture books as well as a Vinyl Cafe story collection (Stuart remarks that we’re trying to save her from nerdom by trying to undermine her dragon obsession. I suggest her obsession with Stuart McLean is just another kind of nerdom), and I got The Round House by Louise Erdrich, which I’m going to be reading in the next few weeks. And then on Wednesday, it occurred to me that I wouldn’t be able to function unless I got my mitts on a Louise Penny book, and so we went back to Bob Burns (just before we had Afternoon Tea at the Fenelon Museum) and I got The Cruellest Month, which was so scary and wonderful. I have become a Louise Penny fanatic, and seem to have overcome my initial aversion to her weird sentence fragments.
I finished The Cruellest Month at home, and then read Pym’s Civil to Strangers. And now all week I’ve been reading The Collected Stories of Grace Paley, as instructed by Ann Patchett, actually. I’ve also been busily writing, which the Paley has aided, I think.
And now we’re into August, which makes September seem almost inevitable. And the truth is, I am pretty excited. This summer has been the sweetest gift, the most wonderful dream. Iris is nine weeks old, growing so fast, and I am so grateful that we’ve had this time in which to enjoy her, her brand new babyhood, and each other. But the transition to September is going to come about naturally, I think, with Harriet beginning Junior Kindergarten, Stuart returning to work and also taking on some pretty cool new opportunities, and me returning to work at 49th Shelf. I’m actually really looking forward to it, and other exciting projects and events I’ll be involved in this Fall. Um, not to mention that I have a book coming out in the spring, which has not been so much at the forefront and I nearly forget it is really happening.
Posting here will remain irregular over the next few weeks as our family works to get the most out of summer (and as I vow to read as many books as possible before Real Life sets in again). We’ve got a trip to Toronto Island still before us, as well as a visit to the zoo, get-togethers with friends, afternoons in the park, patio lunches, the CNE, and a long weekend trip to Grand Bend with our friends. I also have a doctor’s appointment to determine just what exactly what we’re going to do about my enormous thyroid, which I am looking forward to being done with.
But why am I even telling you this? You’re not reading anyway. I know you’re outside drinking up the goodness of summer, or at least if you’re not, you should be.
May 1, 2013
Summer has arrived
Sweet Fantasies is open for the season. I suspect they’ll be seeing a lot of us over the next few months…
In related good news, see here.
April 16, 2013
Upside down
I am quiet this week, mostly because I am reading Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings and that’s all I really want to do. What I don’t want to be doing is fretting about Baby being breech, but alas this seems to be my fret of the moment. I’m waiting for an ultrasound that will confirm either way. At least Baby is not transverse ala Harriet, which means the ending of this story has yet to written. Fingers crossed, but I’m pulling out all the stops this time, which is to say that I might discover what moxibustion is, and anything else that could possibly help turn the wee one. And if baby is breech, I will then be really concerned about why its bum is so head-like in its composition. What kind of anatomy is that?
In good news, I’ve worn capri pants and sandals two days in a row. Not entirely sensibly, but altogether happily. And at least the sun is shining.
