I have heard stuff about how Geldof basically blackmailed bands such as Queen to get them into Live Aid. But because he is still "Saint Bob" it is hard to speak out in public against him.
With regards to the solos - in the "making of," they showed each soloist singing the verses through. So they seem to have cherry-picked certain lines for each artist. It's fascinating looking back through the lens of time and seeing which singers got full solos and which did not. Also - did ANY woman get a solo line in Do They Know It's Christmas?
I loved it then. It did effectively get people to open their wallets. But now - yeah, yikes.
Did you know there were also covers released in 1989, 2004 and 2014? Sinead O'Connor sang on the 2014 version.
Do you remember the piece I read at Dave's memorial, "When You Hear That I Have Died?" The end of it said "And then, one last thing -- and, beloveds, I know this is the hardest part. I've been where you are, and I know what I ask -- one last thing:
pick up that slip of paper [where you wrote down what you were doing when you heard the news]
and go back to what you were doing
without me."
I also realized recently that I'd completely forgotten about a project I'd undertaken at the beginning of the year and dropped in...April, oh right, that's why. I told a friend and they pointed out that I was picking up that slip of paper. Which, ouch right in the feels, but also yeah, it begins to feel like time. I think they'd be glad to know it took us this long, but also glad to know we're moving on.
And yeah, that sounds about right. Thank you for sharing that your experience was so similar - it wasn't so much that you set it down in grief and couldn't do it as that you - like me - just sort of...forgot about it. Which makes sense. Didn't seem that important, all of a sudden.
I saw this on a videotape my sister sent me while I was on exchange in Mexico that year and I remember just sobbing as I read the whole credits scroll. It really did touch something deep, even in its now-painful awfulness. But also, what an emblem of Gen X--there's a reason we're so reflexively cynical and it's stories like this that created that foundation of suspicion for anything remotely sincere, or sentimental.
That's so real, yeah, and why I mentioned it here. I keep forgetting how far apart in age we are; I feel like it's less than ten years? I was 10 when this came out, so it makes sense that you were old enough to be on an exchange program but not much older. It's a kicker, for sure - hell, the song still slaps. But yeah, I spent years and year suspicious of sentiment, and it's weirdly validating sometimes to recognize that sometimes that was the culture, not just my particular family dysfunction.
Alice sometimes says things that are so sincere and heartfelt and...hokey! Like, she went on a service trip and came home and told me all about the trip and the other kids and their shenanigans and adventures in another city and I said "What was the best part?" and she told me, in all seriousness, that it was doing the volunteer work they'd gone to do and really feeling that they were useful and important to these organizations and the people they serve. And I...managed to choke down every morsel of cynical disbelief and not say anything but "That's great, sweetie!" There is no way I--or any of my friends, or any of the people I knew in college--could have said something so uncynical. That's when I really recognized that this was a generational characteristic expressing itself in me. Releasing that has been part of my journey in UU--it's a good context for sincerity :)
I have heard stuff about how Geldof basically blackmailed bands such as Queen to get them into Live Aid. But because he is still "Saint Bob" it is hard to speak out in public against him.
With regards to the solos - in the "making of," they showed each soloist singing the verses through. So they seem to have cherry-picked certain lines for each artist. It's fascinating looking back through the lens of time and seeing which singers got full solos and which did not. Also - did ANY woman get a solo line in Do They Know It's Christmas?
I loved it then. It did effectively get people to open their wallets. But now - yeah, yikes.
Did you know there were also covers released in 1989, 2004 and 2014? Sinead O'Connor sang on the 2014 version.
Do you remember the piece I read at Dave's memorial, "When You Hear That I Have Died?" The end of it said "And then, one last thing -- and, beloveds, I know this is the hardest part. I've been where you are, and I know what I ask -- one last thing:
pick up that slip of paper [where you wrote down what you were doing when you heard the news]
and go back to what you were doing
without me."
I also realized recently that I'd completely forgotten about a project I'd undertaken at the beginning of the year and dropped in...April, oh right, that's why. I told a friend and they pointed out that I was picking up that slip of paper. Which, ouch right in the feels, but also yeah, it begins to feel like time. I think they'd be glad to know it took us this long, but also glad to know we're moving on.
I do remember that. What a thing that was.
And yeah, that sounds about right. Thank you for sharing that your experience was so similar - it wasn't so much that you set it down in grief and couldn't do it as that you - like me - just sort of...forgot about it. Which makes sense. Didn't seem that important, all of a sudden.
I saw this on a videotape my sister sent me while I was on exchange in Mexico that year and I remember just sobbing as I read the whole credits scroll. It really did touch something deep, even in its now-painful awfulness. But also, what an emblem of Gen X--there's a reason we're so reflexively cynical and it's stories like this that created that foundation of suspicion for anything remotely sincere, or sentimental.
"what an emblem of Gen X"
That's so real, yeah, and why I mentioned it here. I keep forgetting how far apart in age we are; I feel like it's less than ten years? I was 10 when this came out, so it makes sense that you were old enough to be on an exchange program but not much older. It's a kicker, for sure - hell, the song still slaps. But yeah, I spent years and year suspicious of sentiment, and it's weirdly validating sometimes to recognize that sometimes that was the culture, not just my particular family dysfunction.
Yeah, I was fifteen that year.
Alice sometimes says things that are so sincere and heartfelt and...hokey! Like, she went on a service trip and came home and told me all about the trip and the other kids and their shenanigans and adventures in another city and I said "What was the best part?" and she told me, in all seriousness, that it was doing the volunteer work they'd gone to do and really feeling that they were useful and important to these organizations and the people they serve. And I...managed to choke down every morsel of cynical disbelief and not say anything but "That's great, sweetie!" There is no way I--or any of my friends, or any of the people I knew in college--could have said something so uncynical. That's when I really recognized that this was a generational characteristic expressing itself in me. Releasing that has been part of my journey in UU--it's a good context for sincerity :)