The Incorrigible Night Owl

….but I wonder if they know a bad song when they hear it?
This is the time of year when I turn off the Sixties on Six on XM radio and turn to their Christmas station, Holly. Unfortunately they have a habit of playing the same songs over. And over. And over. One of their most unfortunate choices is Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” I’m not sure that song could be any more smarmy and condescending. Contains possibly one of the worst lines in a charity song ever: “Tonight thank God it’s them instead of you.” That’s either hideously cruel or unforgivably self-righteous (I’m leaning toward the latter, considering Bono was involved). Oh, and don’t forget the classic, “There won’t be snow in Africa this Christmas.” Shit, really? I can’t imagine. Do go on. I wasn’t aware that the snow shortage in the desert and tropics was tops on the global crisis list. There won’t be snow on California’s central coast this Christmas, either, and I don’t hear anyone writing a song about it. Of all the reasons I have to feel empathy for the people of Africa, the fact that it doesn’t snow there at Christmas would not be anywhere close to on the list.
P.S. to Bob Geldof — it snows in the Drakensberg mountain range in South Africa so, ostensibly, there WILL be snow in Africa this Christmas. Perhaps a bit of studying up on the geography of the next continent you so generously decide to save would be in order.