December is shaping up to be much better, although it is stupidly busy. Have solved the Cleo 4 a.m. meowing problem (lock her in the back room and put in ear plugs), I'm on a sleep schedule, I'm getting exercise and eating well. Things are going good. Despite extra hours at Children's and an extra job at Silver Lotus and no time to have any fun....
Anyway, onto this month's theme. The death of Nelson Mandela has been all over the news with pretty much everyone commenting on what he meant to them. For me, other than obviously acknowledging that he was one of those rare people who make an enormous positive impact on the world, Nelson Mandela and the anti-apartheid movement marked my political awakening. And this is the song that kicked me in the butt....
It was released when I was 15 and unlike all those crappy famine relief Christmas songs, this was a protest song. It wasn't a song about feeling sorry for people over there while we sat smugly over here. It was a song about action. And so, the following year when I got my driver's license, I took action and boycotted Shell. Take that evil oil company! Clearly I still had lots to learn but it was a beginning.
This video also happens to be filled with amazingly cool artists like Run DMC, Lou Reed (!), Joey Ramone (!!!), George freakin' Clinton, Miles Davis, Jimmy Cliff..... like, the coolest of the cool (not including Bono and his mullet on this list). So it wasn't just my introduction to world politics, it was also my introduction to the big, wide world of music.
Plus, it's still a really great song. So thhhhppppp Do They Know It's Christmas.
3 comments:
It's a great song, and look at everybody with all their hair! (That said, I still like Feed the World, mainly for the same reasons..."
Yes!!! I was trying to explain the song to the girls the other day. It was hard to think of which musicians on their rotation would equal (much easier with Feed the World - which I too, still feel very nostalgic about!)
Nooo! Not you too!!! ;]
But glad you enjoyed Sun City anyway.
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