skull_bearer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
skull_bearer) wrote2017-12-19 06:13 pm
skull_bearer) wrote2017-12-19 06:13 pm
I miss Feed the World
via http://ift.tt/2CFlcmR:
I remember hearing Do They Know It’s Christmas on the radio some years ago and going- hang on, wait, what?
See, I though I knew this song. I sang it as part of my 6th year Christmas party and got a leading solo role right at the beginning- damn right I knew this song, this was the only role I ever got in school performances that wasn’t ‘doll choir, second on the right’ or ‘frog’. I knew this song backwards.
Only they were now adding some weird racist shit about Africa and being glad we’re not African and what?
See, my school had taken a hatchet to the original song and it took me a while to realise why, although if you saw a class photo you could probably guess. I’m pretty sure you could caption any picture from my school with ‘United Colours of Beneton’ and it would work.
I’m fairly sure the PTA would have hung drawn and quartered the headmistress if they’d gone with the original, I’m not sure of the ethnic background of most of my schoolmates but I have the vague recollection that one guy’s parents were Somalian refugees and that wasn’t even out of the ordinary for my class.
So they cut out all the racist shit, turned it into a general ‘think of the less fortunate in this Christmas season’ song, titled it just ‘feed the world’, and I guess carefully screened parents for video casset recorders (yes, that long ago) in case Bob Geldof got wind of it.
It’s still one of my favourite Christmas songs, and I have no recordings of it because again, the teachers were terrified of rabid lawyers.
Sad face.
I remember hearing Do They Know It’s Christmas on the radio some years ago and going- hang on, wait, what?
See, I though I knew this song. I sang it as part of my 6th year Christmas party and got a leading solo role right at the beginning- damn right I knew this song, this was the only role I ever got in school performances that wasn’t ‘doll choir, second on the right’ or ‘frog’. I knew this song backwards.
Only they were now adding some weird racist shit about Africa and being glad we’re not African and what?
See, my school had taken a hatchet to the original song and it took me a while to realise why, although if you saw a class photo you could probably guess. I’m pretty sure you could caption any picture from my school with ‘United Colours of Beneton’ and it would work.
I’m fairly sure the PTA would have hung drawn and quartered the headmistress if they’d gone with the original, I’m not sure of the ethnic background of most of my schoolmates but I have the vague recollection that one guy’s parents were Somalian refugees and that wasn’t even out of the ordinary for my class.
So they cut out all the racist shit, turned it into a general ‘think of the less fortunate in this Christmas season’ song, titled it just ‘feed the world’, and I guess carefully screened parents for video casset recorders (yes, that long ago) in case Bob Geldof got wind of it.
It’s still one of my favourite Christmas songs, and I have no recordings of it because again, the teachers were terrified of rabid lawyers.
Sad face.